Edgard Varèse Complete Works

The French-born Edgar Varèse (1883-1965), believed music to be both an art and a science. His pioneering use of electronic instruments like the theremin, along with his theory of “organized sound” has earned him the impressive title of “Father of Electronic Music”. Varèse spent the early twenties as a starving composer in NYC, writing works like the percussionless “Octandre” and “Intégrales”, his first piece to use the term “spatial music”. Upon returning to Paris in 1928, he composed the celebrated “Ionisation”, the first piece ever written for an entirely percussion ensemble (13 percussionist playing 40 instruments). His 1936 piece, “Density 21.5”, written for solo flute for the premiere of George Barrère’s new platinum flute, is one of the great masterpieces for unaccompanied flute. It is also one of the only compositions written by Varèse during this decade. His next major work, “Déserts”, was in fact not written until 1950. It was the first piece ever written for magnetic tape and orchestra and was meant to be the soundtrack to a film which would juxtapose images of actual deserts with images from past wars (the great ‘deserts’ of civilization).