Persephassa (Xenakis)

Persephassa (1969 ) is a composition by Iannis Xenakis for six percussionists. Persephassa is the first composition of Xenakis, which is fully characterized by rhythmic designs and processes and experimented with the phenomenon of sound, in terms of time in the room.

Persephone or Persephassa (Latin Proserpina ) ( Roman = Proserpina - Queen of the Dead ) was extremely nice and the daughter of Zeus and Demeter.

Conception

In the music of the 20th century increasingly play new musical parameters such as the spatiality of sounds a greater role. In the space can be created instead of a static, moving music.

This composition shows that the space is not static but changes over time. Each detection of the room is dependent on the time and thus also on the position of each individual listener. Each listener gets an impression of the room. From sound engineering point of view, one could determine the center of the room as the ideal listening position, but from an aesthetic point of view we can not determine the ideal position. Each position in the room allows a private listening experience and a comprehensive presentation can only be derived from the combination of all positions. Since during the concert not there is a possibility to walk around the room, takes in the piece of the music function of the movement, and helps to detect acoustically the audience space. In addition to spatial aspects, and periodicities, screens and ritual aspects play a role in the play.

Arrangement of the performance

• 6 hexagonal in space arranged percussion - sets.
• The audience sits in the middle - framed by the drums.

Compositional techniques

• Long and short vortex
• Attacks with different vertical density
• Accents and pauses
• Rhythmic layering in different tempos and speeds
• Clearly defined Repetitionsgruppen
• Sound clouds with characteristic density gradients
• Characteristic procedural changes in the volume or speed

The piece has three parts, which differ from each other in many instance. The individual time sections are organized partly by attacks and their temporal structures, partly through dynamic differentiation ( rise and fall ).

Stress fields of composition

• Impression of movement
• Relativity of time
• Continuity - discontinuity
• Periodicity - aperiodicity
• Quasi- continuous, gradual developments
• Multifaceted approach to the material: spatial / temporal average, timbre, tone density, dynamics, etc.

• The fact that the musicians sit further apart, less sound frequencies superimpose superimpose and the sound is transparent. As it were created space between them.
• You sit the instruments physically closer, and the consequent less sound energy and thus parts of the tonal substance lost. The sound is vivid.