Today I chose to share an analysis of Density 21.5. This is the piece I played at my final Master recital back in 2020- and since I was asked to do a little research on this piece, I am very glad I can share it with you!
First I will start with a short biography of Edgard Varese and then I will move to one of many analysis of this piece.
EDGARD VARÈSE
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (December 22 ,1883- November 6, 1965) was born in Paris, but grew up in Burgundy and North Italy. As a 20- year-old he came back to Paris. Since communication with his father was bad, his childhood was very difficult and he needed to move a lot of times.
Varèse started to study at „Schola Cantorum“ during 1904, but next year he turned to a Paris Conservatory. Beginning of his composer style was completely traditional, as he was influenced mainly by his teachers Albert Roussel and Charles Widor. Studying with Feruccio Busoni during his vital educational years made him interested for the sound itself and crossing the edges of the sound in every possible form. He met and married an actress Suzanne Bing in Paris and they got a daughter in 1910.
At the beginning of the First World War he emigrated to USA, where he has got an American citizenship 1927. USA gave him far more possibilites to upgrade his artistic aspirations, which resulted on his first piece called Ameriques, which he wrote for his new-made home, but also as a metaphore to the new world of a sounds he planned to explore.
He was considered as a member of futurism (a new move that came from Italy before WW1) mostly for his specific approach to music sound and noises. Important characteristic of his compositional style was a big attention to the form of every music parameter, especcialy those related to the intonation itself- colour, registers, texture, dynamics, density. This kind of an approach resulted in mixing of percussion and wind instruments, especcialy the ones with some peculiarity ( piccolo flute, contrabass, trombone, tuba).
Varèse came back to Paris in 1928 to work for couple of years, where he got interested for electronic music and its integration in his compositional work. First electrionic piece, where he used his electric intrument called teremin, was called Ecuatorial. It was premiered in April 1934, performed by Nicolas Slonimsky.
During his life he was working with many different artist from many different artistic fileds, like Le Corbusier, Henry Miller, Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, Joseph Stella, Fernand Leger, Romain Rolland, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. In 1918 he got married for the second time with Louise McCutcheon Norton, well-known translator of English publishings by Arthur Rimbaud.
The vision of his art was definitely surpassed his electronic possibilities of that time, which made his severely frustrated. He tried to do a project called Espace, multilingual choir piece which performances should have been radiophonically connected from New York, Paris, Moskow and Bejing. In today aera of Internet, this piece would have been very possible to make, but at that time only he could was to try. The very idea proved he was ahead of his time.
The blooming of technology after World War II helped Varèse gain the recognition he had long deserved, such as an invitation to the Royal Swedish Academy (1962) and the Koussevitzky Academy International Recording Award (1963). He influenced a number of new, young composers, such as Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Chou Wen-chung, Roger Reynolds, jazz legend Charlie Parker, guitarist and postmodernist composer Frank Zappa and rock band Pink Floyd.
His most frequently performed works were Ionisation, Density 21.5 and Poeme electronique.
Varèse died short before his 82nd birthday in New York in 1965.
DENSITY 21.5
Varèse was fascinated with scientific phenomenons and matematic formulas, but had more philosopihic or conceptual approach to ideas than literal. His musician work was sometimes more appropriate to scientific work than musician work analysis, because he mostly used names as " sound masses", " penetration and repulsion" or "transmutation". While listening to his work, his descriptions seem to be completely appropriate, which we can see in this piece.
Density 21.5 was named after the density of platinum, since the piece was written for platinum flute and flutist Georges Barrere in 1936. Revision and publishing was made in 1946.
This is only monophonic piece in his opus. Here we can see his approach to linear tone pitch and ritmical anex with limitted possiblities of tone colour palet, overtones and dynamics according with the nature of the instrument. To make it sound more polyphonic, he uses sudden dynamic and register chances.
Analysis
This piece for solo flute has 62 bars, it starts in 4/4, with quartet note being the basic measure unit in 72 bpm ( beats per minute). The reference at the bottom of the page says" Always strictly in time- follow metronomic indications", which means that the composer found tempo very important in this piece. Later tempo decreseases to 60 bpm, it changes every now and then and finishes at the 60 bpm.
There are several different interpretations and analysis of this work. I prefer the version of George Perle, which makes most sence to me. In his work „The Listening Composer“ Perle claims that the main key of composing of this piece was to divide octave on the simatrical parts. Piece itself can be devided in five parts (A, A',B,A'',B') according to the similarities of each part. Every part has its cycles, which can be divided in three or six parts.
So, the chromatic scale consists of 12 tones, but if the initial tone is marked as 0 then we can count to the number 11.
So, the initial tone in this composition is the tone f sharp (as the center of the chromatic scale), which means that the tone f sharp is denoted by the number 0. The tone g behind is number 1, then g sharp/ a flat number 2, a as number 3, a sharp or b flat number 4 and so on. In the explanation of the cycle below, the letter T means the number 10 (ten), and the letter E means the number 11 (eleven).
This could mean that the nult cycle could have notes of f sharp- a- c- e flat, first cycle could have g- b flat- c sharp- e and second cycle g sharp- h -d- e sharp. Of course, altered notes could show in their enharmonic variation.
The second kind of cycle that is showing up in this piece are two cycles of 6 tones o whole- tone scale, and they are starting with the same note of cycles of three tones.
A part
Part A contains 3 tonal cycles and also two parts ( second part starting in the bar no.12). It starts with the f sharp- as a main, nult-starting tone of all piece and chromatic scale. In the second bar notes of the first cycle are showing, and with gradual adding notes of the first cycle we are coming to the start of second cycle in the 11th bar. Until the end of this part nult and first cycle are repeating once more. As we can see, each bar contains some kind of dynamic change- sudden cresendo or decresendo, as well as fast and abrupt change of dynamic pallet.
A' part
A' part starts with similar motive as the start, only with tones of second cycle. We can divide this part into 3 parts, with first starting in the bar no.15, second in the 18th bar and third in 24th bar. First two parts start with the second cycle, and the third starts with first cycle containing new kind of alternative techique ( marked +). This technique is called percussion efect, and it indicates sharp stroke of the tounge together with the keys to make it sound. All the characteristic of the previous part considering dynamics and dynamic changes apply to this part aswell.
B part
The middle B part is completed and cannot be divided in smaller segments. It starts with the tempo change of quartet note to 60 bpm, changes in bar 32 again to 72 bpm and comes back to 60 at the 36th bar. Nult, first and second cycle are alternating, and this arrow applies to the jump to the third octave and intensive sound in fff dynamic.
A'' part
A'' part , or forth part is starting with the repeted changing of tempo to quarter note being 72 bpm, with the same motive as at the start.
We could say this is some kind of repetition. This part is divided to two pieces with first starting identically as the beginning and it contains the change of first, second, nult and then again first cycle. Second part in the bar no. 46 shows extreme use of the flute tone registers itself, using the tones D7-B6 in ff dynamic and second tonal cycle.
B' part
The last , B'' part is divided into 3 parts. The first starts with nult tonal system in the bar no.51, the second one starts with the nult cycle of the 6 whole-tone scale for the first time, and the third one starts with the first cycle of the six tone. In the last cycle only unused tone is G. We can also see some new dynamic changes in sfp and finishing with fff dynamic on the tone B6.
This analysis is made with the help of the work of Georg Perle: "The listening composer", but the main article is written in Croatian language in Master thesis of Karla Križanić, which you can find in Karla's digital library. If you want to join, you can do it here.
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