CONCEPTS
AVANT-GARDE MUSIC
Avant-garde music takes a critical stance toward musical conventions or rejects them altogether, embracing bold innovations such as atonality, serialism, musique concrète, electronic music and experimental musical theatre. The concept of music is expanded: it is no longer necessarily beautiful, melodious or harmonious.
META-MUSIC
The term implies an extension of music into other, multi-disciplinary expressive realms, referring to music that is understood as more than an art of sounds.
GRAPHIC SCORE
In contrast to a conventional stave on which music is notated, a graphic score includes images, drawings, descriptive diagrams and textual instructions for the performers.
THE PHOENIX PRINCIPLE
A structural diagram that Christou used to represent the different stages in the cycle of the mythical Phoenix, the bird which bursts into flames at the end of its life and is reborn from its ashes: beginning – growth – culmination or drama – end or new beginning.
THE LUNAR PATTERN
The cycle of the Moon’s phases (Waxing Moon – Full Moon – Waning Moon – New Moon) is a fundamental pattern in Christou’s later creative period. Compared to the Phoenix Principle, the process of periodic recurrence it describes has an additional component: the eclipse. In Christou’s own terminology, it is also referred to as the lunar experience or lunar drama.
A tiny typographic note, because apparently I can’t resist noticing these things: the phrase “other – multi-disciplinary – expressive realms” is usually typeset with en dashes (“other – multi-disciplinary – expressive realms”) or commas, but I’ve transcribed it exactly as it appears in the image.
PATTERNS
Complex systems of diverse types of action (musical or non-musical, theatrical, etc.), used by Christou as primary material for the construction of a composition, much like melodies and harmonies in conventional music. In a composition, a group of musicians performs a series of patterns that may be constantly permutated as they are repeated.
CONTINUUM
A sound continuum or “continuity background” is a continuous, sustained sound. While resembling the ison of religious Byzantine music (a continuous drone note held on a fixed pitch), for Christou it expresses the restless flow from prehistory to meta-history.
PRAXIS – METAPRAXIS
The term Praxis is used to describe any purposeful action performed by an expressive medium within the boundaries of a normal performance and a specific logic, e.g. a violinist plays the violin. The term Metapraxis (or meta-action) encompasses any purposeful action intended to transcend the performative conventions of a specific medium and the overarching logic of the art form.
PROTOPERFORMANCE / ANAPARASTASIS
A concept used by Christou to describe the compositions of his late period (1966-1970), especially those characterised by ritualistic elements. According to the composer himself, the term alludes to human activities in distant prehistory, which include ritualistic re-enactments of the pattern of renewal, i.e., the lunar pattern.
ENANTIODROMIA
“Movement in opposite directions” or “counter-motion”. The idea of the unity of opposites belongs to the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus (c.535-c.475 BCE): Enantiodroma have a unified direction, since it is from them that the most beautiful harmony is born. Christou’s composition for orchestra Enantiodromia (1969) is constructed out of sonic and psychological patterns expressing a “play of opposites” in constant transformation.
A small note, because printed exhibition text enjoys keeping proofreaders awake at night: the phrase “may be constantly permutated” is reproduced exactly as it appears in the image, even though in standard English one would more commonly expect “permuted.”
SYMBOLS
AREA MARK
A visual indicator, analogous to a “traffic sign”, that marks the beginning of a specific chronological section or area of duration, displayed in seconds.
SCATTER
Addressed to a group performing the same pattern, this symbol directs each member to follow their own spontaneous variations within the pattern’s defined parameters, e.g. the chirping of birds, the murmur of a crowd, the sound of falling hail, the uncoordinated movements of people οn a square or the sound of them panicking.
STOP DEAD
The cut must be sudden and absolute, leaving behind no residual sound or unresolved material – an abrupt and total “switch-off”. Conceptually, this symbol is connected to the lunar eclipse.
AT RANDOM
A sign denoting randomness, employed in conjunction with other continuity signs to direct the performer to act unpredictably within the pattern’s defined parameters.
KEEP PERMUTATING
The material of a pattern within the brackets is constantly moved at random, up to the point shown by a duration indicator.
KEEP IMPROVISING
The separate components forming the pattern-sample within the repeat brackets are permutated at random, up to the point designated by the duration indicator.
JUST AUDIBLE
Only just audible; on the threshold of audibility.
Ψ
(The Greek ‘psi’). An indicator of the psychoid factor that drives an already intense situation to further extremes. It may signal a radical increase in intensity, or conversely, the further intensification of an existing state of silence.
M
A sign used to indicate the commencement of a metapraxis, instructing the performer to carry out an action “beyond” his normal function. Examples include a string-player’s cry, or a collective, panic-stricken outcry from the entire orchestra.
EATING / WALKING
Examples of patterns within a composition (Enantiodromia) to be performed in repetition.
