Iannis Xenakis - Evryali

Evryali, for piano (1973)

Claude Helffer, piano

Evryali (1973) is Iannis Xenakis' second piano work, completed nearly a decade after Herma (1964). The title is Greek for "open seas" but is also a variant name for the mythological Medusa. The jazzy, syncopated opening passage may be seductive to the performer, but one enters the work only at one's peril. Over the years, Evryali has engendered a fair amount of controversy among pianists: parts of the score are decidedly impossible to play with two hands and ten fingers. But then, this just adds to the allure of the music for those who enjoy taking risks. Certainly, the work roils with powerful energy, in hommage to the oceanic aspect of the title.

Evryali is one of the first pieces in which Xenakis employs a novel compositional technique which he calls "arborescences." Essentially, an initial melodic contour is made to proliferate into several strands, all carrying on at the same time. Seen graphically, the different lines may be rotations, inversions, or permutations of the initial shape. The audible result, though, is a dense "thicket" of melodic polyphony. In Evryali, Xenakis retains a single rhythmic pulse throughout, creating a sense of propulsion that is diffused only in two short passages of a more dispersed, pointillistic texture, and in moments of measured silence. The overall form is shaped by alternations among relatively static, repeated-note textures such as those at the opening, huge waves of sound sweeping across the full register of the piano, and dense arborescences. In these polyphonic passages, the melodic strands are sometimes allowed to creep farther and farther away from one other until the stretches become inhuman.

Evryali is a paradoxical work, then, one that is designed to draw the performer more deeply into the creative and interpretative processes than is usually the case. For those who make the plunge, the result can be transformational. For the listener, who may be unaware of what the performer has gone through to be able to play it, the music is overwhelming in its primal power and brute expression. [Allmusic.com]

Art by Hans Hartung