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56-520: The orchestra has had the following names over its history: The orchestra was founded as the Orchestre national by decree on 18 February 1934, by the French minister of Posts Jean Mistler , as an ensemble of 80 musicians, with Désiré-Emile Inghelbrecht as musical director. The orchestra musicians were under exclusive engagements, prohibiting them to play with other orchestras such as the orchestra of

112-418: A button to release music exactly as the composer wrote it—exactly like opening up a book." Varèse would not realize these predictions until his tape experiments in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of Edgard Varèse's works, particularly Arcana make use of the idée fixe , a fixed theme, repeated certain times in a work. The idée fixe was most famously used by Hector Berlioz in his Symphonie fantastique ; it

168-611: A celebrated translator of French poetry whose versions of the work of Arthur Rimbaud for James Laughlin 's New Directions imprint were particularly influential. Varèse composed many of his pieces for orchestral instruments and voices for performance under the auspices of the ICG during its six-year existence. Specifically, during the first half of the 1920s, he composed Offrandes , Hyperprism , Octandre , and Intégrales . He took American citizenship in October 1927. After arriving in

224-559: A futuristic drama of world catastrophe and instantaneous communication with the star Sirius . This second form, on which Varèse worked in Paris in 1928–1932, had a libretto by Alejo Carpentier , Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes and Robert Desnos . According to Carpentier, a substantial amount of this work was written but Varèse abandoned it in favour of a new treatment in which he hoped to collaborate with Antonin Artaud . Artaud's libretto Il n'y

280-626: A generation of young musicians starting in the 1960s and 1970s. This group includes Robert Lamm and Terry Kath from the band Chicago, as well as composer John Zorn . One of Varèse's most devoted fans was the American guitarist and composer Frank Zappa , who, upon hearing a copy of The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Vol. 1 (EMS Recordings, 1950) became obsessed with the composer's music. Zappa wrote an article titled Edgard Varèse: The Idol of My Youth , for Stereo Review magazine in June 1971. At

336-546: A global radiophonic event. Varèse sought input on the text from Henry Miller , who suggests in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare that this grandiose conception—also ultimately unrealized—eventually metamorphosed into Déserts . With both these huge projects Varèse felt ultimately frustrated by the lack of electronic instruments to realize his aural visions. Nevertheless, he used some of the material from Espace in his short Étude pour espace , virtually

392-470: A performance of Beethoven 's Seventh Symphony at the Salle Pleyel . As the story goes, during the scherzo movement, perhaps due to the resonance of the hall, Varèse had the experience of the music breaking up and projecting in space. It was an idea that stayed with him for the rest of his life, that he would later describe as consisting of "sound objects, floating in space." From the late 1920s to

448-492: A plus de firmament was written for Varèse's project and sent to him after he had returned to the U.S., but by this time Varèse had turned to a second huge project. This second project was to be a choral symphony entitled Espace . In its original conception, the text for the chorus was to be written by André Malraux . Later, Varèse settled on a multi-lingual text of hieratic phrases to be sung by choirs situated in Paris, Moscow, Beijing and New York City, synchronized to create

504-524: A similar German organisation with Busoni . Varèse contributed a poem to the Dadaist magazine 391 after an evening of drinking with Francis Picabia on the Brooklyn Bridge. The same magazine claimed that he was orchestrating a "Cold Faucet Dance". Later that year, he met Louise Norton, who edited another Dadaist magazine, Rogue , with her then-husband. She was to become Louise Varèse and

560-611: The Grande messe des morts by Berlioz. He spent the first few years in the United States, where he was a Romany Marie 's café regular in Greenwich Village , meeting important contributors to American music, promoting his vision of new electronic art music instruments, conducting orchestras , and founding the short-lived New Symphony Orchestra . In New York, he met Leon Theremin and other composers exploring

616-494: The Columbia Symphony Orchestra for Columbia Records (Columbia LP catalog Nos.MS6146 and MS6362). These recordings brought Varèse wide attention among musicians and musical aficionados beyond his immediate sphere. Much of the percussion music of George Crumb in particular owes a debt to works such as Ionisation and Intégrales . Varèse's emphasis on timbre , rhythm , and new technologies inspired

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672-775: The Guggenheim Foundation and Bell Laboratories in an attempt to receive a grant to develop an electronic music studio. His next composition, Ecuatorial , was completed in 1934, and contained parts for two fingerboard Theremin cellos, along with winds , percussion, and a bass singer. Anticipating the successful receipt of one of his grants, Varèse eagerly returned to the United States to realize his electronic music. Slonimsky conducted its premiere in New York on April 15, 1934. Varèse soon left New York City for Santa Fe, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 1936, he wrote his solo flute piece, Density 21.5 . He also promoted

728-556: The International Composers' Guild , dedicated to the performances of new compositions of both American and European composers. The ICG's manifesto in July 1921 included the statement, "[t]he present day composers refuse to die. They have realised the necessity of banding together and fighting for the right of each individual to secure a fair and free presentation of his work." In 1922, Varèse visited Berlin where he founded

784-674: The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France , was also created in 1976, by merging several smaller ensembles. This allowed the Orchestre National de France to concentrate on obtaining international prestige, without a music director, but with noted guest conductors such as Leonard Bernstein , Wolfgang Sawallisch and Seiji Ozawa . In 1977, Lorin Maazel became principal guest conductor ( premier chef invité ), and he officially became music director in 1988, holding

840-689: The Paris Opera . Their first concert occurred at the Conservatoire de Paris on 13 March 1934. The main conductors in the orchestra's early years were Inghelbrecht, Roger Désormière and Eugène Bigot , as well as Inghelrecht's assistant conductor at the time, Manuel Rosenthal . In 1939, half of the musicians were mobilized in the French army. The other half of the orchestra settled in Rennes between 26 October 1939 and 16 June 1940, when bombings on

896-869: The Royal Swedish Academy of Music , and in 1963 he received the premier Koussevitzky International Recording Award. In 1965, Edgard Varese was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal by the MacDowell Colony. In his formative years, Varèse was greatly impressed by Medieval and Renaissance music – in his career, he founded and conducted several choirs devoted to this repertoire – as well as the music of Alexander Scriabin , Erik Satie , Claude Debussy , Hector Berlioz and Richard Strauss . There are also clear influences or reminiscences of Stravinsky 's early works, specifically Petrushka and The Rite of Spring , on Arcana . He

952-546: The "Father of Electronic Music" whilst Henry Miller described him as "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound". Varèse actively promoted performances of works by other 20th-century composers and founded the International Composers' Guild in 1921 and the Pan-American Association of Composers in 1926. Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse was born in Paris; when he was a few weeks old, he was sent to be raised by his maternal great-uncle and other relations in

1008-510: The 2017–2018 season, with an initial contract of 3 years. He held the title of music director-designate ( directeur musical désigné ) for the 2016–2017 season. Krivine had been scheduled to stand down as ONF music director at the close of the 2020-2021 season. However, in May 2020, Krivine resigned from his ONF post with immediate effect, one year ahead of his originally scheduled departure. In September 2018, Cristian Măcelaru first guest-conducted

1064-486: The 2027-2028 season. In addition to commercial recordings for EMI Records during the years 1960–1980, in the French repertoire, other recordings from the orchestra have been issued by Radio France itself, associated with Naïve Records . Minister of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include

1120-492: The ONF announced an extension to Măcelaru's contract as music director through 2027. Măcelaru is scheduled to conclude his tenure with the ONF at the close of the 2026-2027 season. In October 2022, Philippe Jordan first guest-conducted the ONF. He returned to the ONF for an additional guest-conducting engagement in October 2023. In November 2024, the ONF announced the appointment of Jordan as its next music director, effective with

1176-506: The ONF, and returned for a second guest-conducting appearance in the summer of 2019. On the basis of these appearances, in November 2019, the ONF announced the appointment of Măcelaru as its next music director, effective 1 September 2021, with an initial contract of 4 years. Following the early resignation of Krivine, Măcelaru became music director of the ONF on 1 September 2020, one year earlier than originally scheduled. In September 2022,

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1232-559: The USA Varèse commonly used the form 'Edgar' for his first name but reverted to 'Edgard', not entirely consistently, from the 1940s. In 1928, Varèse returned to Paris to alter one of the parts in Amériques to include the recently constructed ondes Martenot . Around 1930, he composed Ionisation , the first Classical work to feature solely percussion instruments . Although it was composed with pre-existing instruments, Ionisation

1288-566: The age of 15 Zappa talked to Varèse by phone and received a personal letter, but the two were not able to meet in person. Zappa framed this letter and kept it in his studio for the rest of his life. Zappa's final project was The Rage and the Fury , a recording of the works of Varèse. This album has remained in the Zappa private collection. Henry Threadgill details Varèse's influence in his 2023 autobiography. On several occasions, Varèse speculated on

1344-483: The boundaries of electronic music. It was also about this time that Varèse began work on his first composition in the United States, Amériques , which was finished in 1921 but would remain unperformed until 1926, when it was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski (who had already performed Hyperprism in 1924 and would premiere Arcana in 1927). Virtually all

1400-593: The city forced the orchestra to be disbanded. The Vichy government then recreated the orchestra in March 1941. The orchestra was based in Marseille , without Jewish musicians, who were excluded (among them Clara Haskil 's sister, the violinist Jeanne Haskil). The orchestra returned to Paris on 1 March 1943. Since 1944, the orchestra has been based in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, where it occasionally plays in

1456-405: The combined orchestral and tape sound composition came as part of an ORTF broadcast concert, between pieces by Mozart and Tchaikovsky and received a hostile reaction. Le Corbusier was commissioned by Philips to present a pavilion at the 1958 World Fair and insisted (against the sponsors' resistance) on working with Varèse, who developed his Poème électronique for the venue, where it

1512-604: The death of his mother in 1900, until 1903 when Varèse left home for Paris. In 1904, he commenced his studies at the Schola Cantorum (founded by pupils of César Franck ), where his teachers included Albert Roussel . Afterwards, he went to study composition with Charles-Marie Widor at the Paris Conservatoire . In this period, he composed a number of ambitious orchestral works, but these were only performed by Varèse in piano transcriptions . One such work

1568-405: The details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 217540675 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:41:30 GMT Edgar Var%C3%A8se Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse ( French: [ɛdɡaʁ viktɔʁ aʃil ʃaʁl vaʁɛz] ; also spelled Edgar ; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French composer who spent

1624-461: The end of the 1930s, Varèse's principal creative energies went into two ambitious projects which were never realized, and much of whose material was destroyed, though some elements from them seem to have gone into smaller works. One was a large-scale stage work called by different names at different times, but principally The One-All-Alone or Astronomer ( L'Astronome ). This was originally to be based on North American Indian legends; later it became

1680-563: The first conductor to hold that title with the orchestra. The Maison de la Radio was opened during this time, but the orchestra continued to perform in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. In the context of competition with the newly founded Orchestre de Paris in 1967, Jean Martinon became music director of the Orchestre national in 1968. His commercial recordings with the orchestra included the complete orchestral works by Claude Debussy , and

1736-506: The first time in France by the Orchestre national, and among them Wozzeck by Alban Berg (under Jascha Horenstein ), and several of Anton Bruckner 's and Gustav Mahler 's symphonies. In 1952, then-principal conductor Roger Désormière suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed, and was forced to retire. The orchestra did not have a principal conductor for the next 8 years, but regular guest conductors included André Cluytens . Cluytens

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1792-416: The greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm ; he coined the term " organized sound " in reference to his own musical aesthetic. Varèse's conception of music reflected his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded". He conceived the elements of his music in terms of " sound-masses ", likening their organization to

1848-403: The intelligence that is in sounds.' It was a new and exciting conception and to me the first that started me thinking of music as spatial—as moving bodies of sound in space, a conception I gradually made my own." Varèse began his music studies with Vincent d'Indy (conducting) at the Schola Cantorum de Paris from 1903 to 1905. While he was in Paris, Varèse had another pivotal experience during

1904-533: The natural phenomenon of crystallization . Varèse thought that "to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise ", and he posed the question, "what is music but organized noises?" Although his complete surviving works only last about three hours, he has been recognised as an influence by several major composers of the late 20th century. Varèse saw potential in using electronic media for sound production, and his use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as

1960-506: The only work that had appeared from his pen for over ten years when it was premiered in 1947. According to Chou Wen-chung , Varèse made various contradictory revisions to Étude pour espace which made it impossible to perform again, but the 2009 Holland Festival , which offered a 'complete works' of Varèse over the weekend of 12–14 June 2009, persuaded Chou to make a new performing version (using similar brass and woodwind forces to Déserts and making use of spatialized sound projection). This

2016-591: The orchestra was progressively modified in accordance with these changes in organization. Rosenthal reinstated contemporary and French music banned under the German occupation on orchestra programmes. The orchestra also started to serve as a cultural ambassador for France, with tours in Berlin and London in 1946 and in North America in 1948, the last with Charles Munch as conductor. The first official recordings of

2072-688: The orchestra, with conductor Paul Kletzki, appeared in 1947 ( Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky , in the arrangement by Ravel , and the Boléro by the latter). In contemporary music, the orchestra premiered Pierre Boulez' Le Soleil des eaux in 1950 (with the French premiere of Béla Bartók Divertimento in the same concert), and a few days later the first European performance of Messiaen 's Turangalîla-Symphonie , in Aix-en-Provence . The orchestra premiered Henri Dutilleux 's Symphony No 1 in 1951. Other major pieces were played for

2128-717: The part for ondes Martenot . This new version was premiered in 1961. ( Ecuatorial has been performed again with fingerboard theremins in Buffalo, New York, in 2002 and at the Holland Festival, Amsterdam, in 2009.) While living with his father, an engineer, Varèse was pushed to further his scientific understanding at the Institute Technique, a high school in Italy that specialized in teaching mathematics and science. Here, Varèse became particularly interested in

2184-770: The pit for opera productions. After the Liberation of France, after examination of his role under the occupation, Inghelbrecht was replaced by Manuel Rosenthal as principal conductor. The orchestra was reorganized and placed under the responsibility of the national radio, the Radiodiffusion Nationale , which became Radiodiffusion Française on 23 March 1945. Further modifications to the French national radio organisation name were Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF) on 9 February 1949, then Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française on 27 June 1964, and finally Radio France on 1 January 1975. The name of

2240-470: The specific ways in which technology would change music in the future. In 1936, he predicted musical machines that would be able to perform music as soon as a composer inputs his score. These machines would be able to play "any number of frequencies," and therefore the score of the future would need to be "seismographic" in order to illustrate their full potential. In 1939, he expanded on this concept, declaring that with this machine "anyone will be able to press

2296-425: The symphonies by Camille Saint-Saëns . In 1973, Sergiu Celibidache was recruited as premier chef invité (principal guest conductor), but he ended his contract in 1975, as a result of a conflict with some of the musicians. In January 1975, the creation of Radio France led to the renaming of the ensemble as the Orchestre National de France, the title the ensemble holds today. An additional new permanent orchestra,

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2352-530: The theremin in his Western travels, and demonstrated one at a lecture at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque on November 12, 1936. (The university has an RCA theremin in its archives which may be the same instrument.) By the time Varèse returned to New York in late 1938, Theremin had returned to Russia. This devastated Varèse, who had hoped to work with him on a refinement of his instrument. He

2408-680: The time. He also gained the friendship and support of Romain Rolland and Hugo von Hofmannsthal , whose Œdipus und die Sphinx he began setting as an opera that was never completed. On 5 January 1911, the first performance of his symphonic poem Bourgogne was held in Berlin. After being invalided out of the French Army during World War I , he moved to the United States in December 1915. In 1918, Varèse made his debut in America conducting

2464-460: The title until 1991. Charles Dutoit became the ONF's music director in 1991. Kurt Masur succeeded Dutoit as ONF music director, from 2002 to 2008. Masur conducted the ONF's debut appearance at The Proms in August 2006. Daniele Gatti was music director from 2008 to 2016. In June 2016, Radio France announced the appointment of Emmanuel Krivine as the ONF's next music director, effective with

2520-562: The village of Le Villars in the Burgundy region of France. There he developed a very strong attachment to his maternal grandfather, Claude Cortot (also grandfather to the pianist Alfred Cortot , a first cousin of Varèse ). His affection for his grandfather outshone anything he felt for his own parents. After being reclaimed by his parents in the late 1880s, in 1893 young Edgard was forced to relocate with them to Turin , Italy, in part, to live amongst his paternal relatives, since his father

2576-499: The works he had written in Europe were either lost or destroyed in a Berlin warehouse fire, so in the U.S. he was starting again from scratch. The only surviving work from his early period appears to be the song Un grand sommeil noir , a setting of Paul Verlaine . (He still retained Bourgogne , but destroyed the score in a fit of depression many years later.) At the completion of this work, Varèse, along with Carlos Salzedo , founded

2632-503: The works of Leonardo da Vinci . It was through Varèse's love of science that he began to study sound, as he later recalled: When I was about twenty, I came across a definition of music that seemed suddenly to throw light on my gropings toward music I sensed could exist. Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński , the Polish physicist, chemist, musicologist and philosopher of the first half of the nineteenth century, defined music as 'the corporealization of

2688-1035: Was also impressed by the ideas of Busoni, who christened him L'illustro futuro in a signed copy of his orchestra work Berceuse élégiaque . Varèse taught many prominent composers including Chou Wen-chung , Lucia Dlugoszewski , André Jolivet , Colin McPhee , James Tenney , and William Grant Still . See: List of music students by teacher: T to Z#Edgard Varèse . Composers who have claimed, or can be demonstrated, to have been influenced by Varèse include Milton Babbitt , Harrison Birtwistle , Pierre Boulez , John Cage , Morton Feldman , Brian Ferneyhough , Roberto Gerhard , Olivier Messiaen , Luigi Nono , John Palmer , Krzysztof Penderecki , Silvestre Revueltas , Wolfgang Rihm , Leon Schidlowsky , Alfred Schnittke , William Grant Still , Karlheinz Stockhausen , Iannis Xenakis , and Frank Zappa . The modern music conductor Robert Craft recorded two LP's of Varèse music in 1958 and 1960 with percussion, brass, and wind sections from

2744-509: Was an exploration of new sounds and methods to create them. In 1928, when he was asked about jazz, he said it was not representative of America but instead was, "a negro product, exploited by the Jews. All of its composers here are Jews," meaning Gruenberg and Boulanger students including Copland and Blitzstein . In 1931, he was the best man at the wedding of his friend Nicolas Slonimsky in Paris. In 1933, while still in Paris, he wrote to

2800-711: Was approached by music producer Jack Skurnick resulting in EMS Recordings #401. The record was the first release on LP of Integrales , Density 21.5 , Ionisation and Octandre and featured René Le Roy , flute, the Juilliard Percussion Orchestra and the New York Wind Ensemble conducted by Frederic Waldman . Ionisation had also been the first work by Varèse to be recorded in the 1930s, conducted by Nicolas Slonimsky and issued on 78rpm Columbia 4095M. Likewise, Octandre

2856-406: Was heard by an estimated two million people. Using 400 speakers separated throughout the interior, Varèse created a sound and space installation geared towards experiencing sound as it moves through space. Received with mixed reviews, this piece challenged audience expectations and traditional means of composing, breathing life into electronic synthesis and presentation. In 1962, he was asked to join

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2912-628: Was his Rhapsodie romane , from about 1905, which was inspired by the Romanesque architecture of the Church of St. Philibert in Tournus . In 1907, he moved to Berlin, and in the same year, he married the actress Suzanne Bing , with whom he had a daughter. They divorced in 1913. During these years, Varèse became acquainted with Erik Satie and Richard Strauss , as well as with Claude Debussy and Ferruccio Busoni , who particularly influenced him at

2968-686: Was noted for his performances of the German repertoire with the orchestra, and led it during tours in the USSR (1959), at the Salzburg Festival (1959) and in the Middle East (1960). Other work in contemporary music included the 2 December 1954 premiere of Déserts by Edgar Varèse , under the direction of Hermann Scherchen . During the 1950s, the orchestra also recorded numerous compositions by Heitor Villa-Lobos under his direction, for EMI . Maurice Le Roux became music director in 1960,

3024-721: Was of Italian descent. It was there that he had his first real musical lessons, with the long-time director of the Turin Conservatory , Giovanni Bolzoni . In 1895, he composed his first opera , Martin Pas , which has since been lost. Now a teenager, Varèse, influenced by his father, an engineer, enrolled at the Polytechnic of Turin and started studying engineering, as his father disapproved of his interest in music and demanded an absolute dedication to engineering studies. This conflict grew greater and greater, especially after

3080-516: Was premiered at the Gashouder concert hall, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam by Asko/Schönberg Ensemble and Cappella Amsterdam on Sunday 14 June, conducted by Péter Eötvös . By the early 1950s, Varèse was in dialogue with a new generation of composers, such as Pierre Boulez and Luigi Dallapiccola . When he returned to France to finalize the tape sections of Déserts , Pierre Schaeffer helped arrange for suitable facilities. The first performance of

3136-556: Was recorded and issued on 78rpm discs in the later 1930s, complete (New Music Quarterly Recordings 1411) and as an excerpt (3rd movement, Columbia DB1791 in Volume V of their History of Music). Le Roy was the soloist also on a 1948 (78rpm) recording of Density 21.5 (New Music Recordings 1000). When, in the late 1950s, Varèse was approached by a publisher about making Ecuatorial available, there were very few theremins—let alone fingerboard theremins—to be found, so he rewrote/relabelled

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