Iannis Xenakis

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Lore & Background

Giannis Klearchou Xenakis was born in Brăila, Romania, on 29 May 1922, the eldest son of Greek parents. His mother, Fotini Pavlou, a pianist who also spoke German and French, encouraged his early musical interest, giving him a flute and taking the family to the Bayreuth Festival several times. After her death in 1927, when Xenakis was five years old, he was educated by a series of English, French, and German governesses, and then, in 1932, sent to Greece to study at the Anargyrio-Korgialenio boarding school on the Aegean island of Spetses. He excelled in both academics and athletics and sang in the school's boys' choir, where the repertoire included works by Palestrina and Mozart's Requiem, which Xenakis memorized in its entirety. In 1938, after graduating, he moved to Athens to prepare for entrance exams at its National Technical University, also studying Ancient Greek. He took lessons in harmony and counterpoint with Aristotelis Koundouroff. In 1940, he passed the exams, but his studies were cut short by the Greco-Italian War. Xenakis joined the National Liberation Front early during the war, participating in mass protests and demonstrations, and later becoming part of armed resistance. After the Axis forces left, the country plunged into a civil war. In December 1944, during Churchill's martial law, Xenakis became involved in street fighting against British tanks. He was wounded and facially disfigured when shrapnel from a tank blast hit his cheek and left eye, which was blinded. He graduated in 1947 with a degree in civil engineering. Fearing arrest as a left-wing former resistance member, he fled Greece through Italy using a fake passport, arriving in Paris on 11 November 1947. In Greece he was sentenced in absentia to death; the sentence was commuted to ten years' imprisonment in 1951, and only lifted after the fall of the Greek junta in 1974.

Reader's Guide

Xenakis's significance lies in his radical integration of mathematics, architecture, and music. After fleeing to Paris, he worked at Le Corbusier's architectural studio, collaborating on projects such as the priory of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette and designing the Philips Pavilion at Expo 58—the latter completed by Xenakis alone from a basic sketch by Le Corbusier. His early composition Metastaseis (1953–54) was based directly on architectural concepts and introduced independent parts for every musician of the orchestra. He pioneered the use of stochastic processes, game theory, and set theory in composition, and his works often involved spatialization, as in Terretektorh (1966), which dispersed musicians among the audience. He created electronic works using his own UPIC system and staged massive multimedia performances called polytopes. His theoretical writings, particularly Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (French edition 1963, English translation 1971), are regarded as one of his most important publications. Xenakis's legacy endures as a key figure in avant-garde music, influencing electronic and computer music, and his architectural work remains notable for its integration with sound.

Did You Know?

• Xenakis was blinded in his left eye and facially disfigured by shrapnel from a British tank blast during street fighting in December 1944.
• He was sentenced to death in absentia in Greece, later commuted to ten years' imprisonment, and the sentence was only lifted after the fall of the Greek junta in 1974.
• Xenakis memorized Mozart's Requiem in its entirety while singing in his school's boys' choir.
• He designed the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair by himself from a basic sketch by Le Corbusier.
• Olivier Messiaen told Xenakis he was 'so much out of the ordinary' and advised him not to study traditional harmony and counterpoint but to use his background in mathematics and architecture in his music.