Edgard VAR?SE</title<meta name="description" content="Artists and Composers - Edgard VAR?SE "><meta name="keywords" content="varese, paris, edgard, music, composer, classical, album, soprano, orchestra, instrument, electronic, theremin, sound, engineer, new york"> </head> <body bgcolor="#000033"> <table cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4" border="0" width="800">  <tr> <td width="120">   <table cellspacing="0" class="menu"> <tr><td class="blnk"> <center> <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00004TY4W?ie=UTF8&tag=digitdaydr-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B00004TY4W"><img border="0" src="/images/amazon/41D6HM0VXNL._SL110_.jpg"></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=digitdaydr-21&l=as2&o=2&a=B00004TY4W" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> </center> </td></tr> </table>  </td>  <td align="left" width="890"> <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.digital-daydreams.com/logo_title.swf" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="600" height="110" id="newlogo" align="middle"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/> <param name="movie" value="http://www.digital-daydreams.com/logo_title.swf"/> <param name="loop" value="false"/> <param name="menu" value="false"/> <param name="quality" value="best"/> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"/> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000033"/> <p style="text-align:center;"> <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflash/"> Get Flash</a> </p> <noscript> Sorry your Browser isn't able to play Flash. </noscript> </object>  </td> </tr>  <tr valign="top">  <td width="120" align="center"> <table cellspacing="0" class="forum" width="110"><tr><td class="hed"><a href="/forum/">FORUM</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/forum/gigs/">UK Gig Guide</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/forum/gigs/venues/">UK Music Venues</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/forum/news/">Music News</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/forum/directory/">Directory</a></td></tr></table><table cellspacing="0" class="enc" width="110"><tr><td class="hed"><a href="/enc/">ENCYCLOPAEDIA</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/enc/history/">History</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/enc/composers/">Composers</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/enc/quotations.php">Quotations</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/enc/world/">World</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/enc/instruments/">Instruments</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/enc/calendar.php">Calendar</a></td></tr></table><table cellspacing="0" class="tech" width="110"><tr><td class="hed"><a href="/tech/">TECHNICAL</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/tech/show_tech_sect.php?section=Hardware">Hardware</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/tech/show_tech_sect.php?section=MIDI">MIDI</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/tech/show_tech_sect.php?section=Audio">Audio</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/tech/show_tech_sect.php?section=Science">Science</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/tech/show_tech_sect.php?section=Programming">Programming</a></td></tr></table><table cellspacing="0" class="theory" width="110"><tr><td class="hed"><a href="/theory/">THEORY</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/theory/show_section.php?section=Western Music Theory">Tutorials</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/theory/show_section.php?section=Notation">Notation</a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="/theory/tools/">Tools</a></td></tr></table> </td>  <td align="left"><div class="enc"><a href="../../index.php">Home</a> | <a href="../index.php">Encylopaedia</a> | <a href="index.php">Composers</a> | VAR?SE<h4>Edgard VAR?SE <font color="silver">(1883-1965)</font></h4><IMG SRC="Varese.gif" BORDER=0 alt="Edgard Varese" WIDTH="123" HEIGHT="168"> <p> Var?se was born in Paris in 1883. He managed to lose most of his early compositions in a fire and destroyed a few others himself. Only 14 complete works are known to survive today. Throughout his career he was fascinated by sound and the qualities of individual sounds and movements. He paid disregard to tonality and melody and was constantly looking for new sounds and new instruments or instrumental combinations. He favoured percussion, wind and brass as he liked the intensity they gave and avoided those with vibrato such as string instruments. He thought rhythm important as a structural basis and he greatly developed the use of rhythm in his compositions. He was also familiar with the works of <a href="show_composer.php?id=121">Schoenberg</a>, <a href="show_composer.php?id=39">Debussy</a> and <a href="show_composer.php?id=134">Stravinski</a>. </p> <p> In 1900 his grandfather took him to the notorious first performance of "Le Sacre du Printemps" in Paris. He created a scandal in 1910 with his tone poem "Bourgogne" which is now lost. He moved to America in 1915 where he found the public more accepting towards his ideas. All his surviving music dates after his emigration to New York. </p> <p> His orchestral works include "Offrandes" (1921) for soprano and small orchestra, "Opus 1, Ameriques" (1921) scored for very large orchestra, "Hyperprism" (1922-23) which was written for small orchestra consisting of flute, clarinet, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones and 16 percussion instruments including the siren, gongs, cymbals and a lion's roar (string drum), and "Octandre" (1923). </p> <p> He gave lectures on the idea of sound within music and had theories concerning sound masses interacting and colliding. He thought that music should be experienced physically rather than through the acceptance and understanding of a harmonic system. These ideas can be heard in his compositions from the 1920s and 1930s such as "Integrales" (1924-25), "Arcana" (1925-27) which is based on a single idea of 11 notes, and his most famous work "Ionisation" (1931) for 13 percussion instruments which he wrote while in Paris. It is believed to be the first western piece for percussion alone based around intricate rhythmic polyphony. His "Density 21.5" work for flute in 1936 was commissioned for a flute made out of platinum and having a density of 21.5. </p> <p> He became an American citizen from 1926 onwards. He was very interested in the possibilities of electronic music and was among the first composers to incorporate electronic aspects into his work. His "Ecuatotial" (1932-34) was composed for voices, brass and two theremins. He also used the tape recorder and collected sounds for his "Deserts" piece (1945) in which Edvard Munch's painting <i>The Scream</i> finds its musical analogue. </p> <p> In 1928 he went to Paris and stayed for 5 years where he became friends with Pierre Schaeffer, a French sound engineer who also gave concerts of noises from various sources. It was Schaeffer who pioneered the idea of "Musique concrete" and Var&egraese completed the electronic section of "Deserts" in Schaeffer's Paris studio. </p> <p> From 1953 onwards he began to tirelessly experiment with unusual sounds and instrument combinations, with much of his work being patterns of rhythm and accents. Such work included "Good Friday Procession in Verges" (1955) and "Poeme electronique" (1957) which was performed through four hundred loud speakers in Le Corbusier's Philips pavilion at the Brussel's world fair in 1958. </p> <p> He attempted to create a new kind of music which was more appropriate to the skyscrapers of New York where he lived. He wanted the ear to be the final judge of music. He returned back to live media for his final works based around the subject of the night but none were ever completed. He died in New York in 1965. </p> <p> <div class="accent">Essential Albums:</div> Click on album cover to buy. </p> <table> <tr><td> <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000AFR8/digitaldaydre-20" target="_blank"><IMG SRC="albums/varese_the_complete_works.gif" border="0" alt="The Complete Works" hspace="3" vspace="3" WIDTH="90" HEIGHT="90"></a> </td></tr> <tr><td> </table> <p> </p></div> <tr><td colspan="2"> <hr/> <table cellspacing="0" class="forum"> <tr><td class="blnk">Errors, omissions, comments? Send us your <a href="/feedback.php?caller=/enc/composers/show_composer.php">feedback</a></td></tr> </table> <br/>   <script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td></tr></table>   <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/s/link-enhancer?tag=digitdaydr-21&o=2"> </script> <noscript> <img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/s/noscript?tag=digitdaydr-21" alt="" /> </noscript></body> </html>