Download Iannis Xenakis is one of the most important composers of the 20th

Iannis Xenakis is one of the most important composers of the 20th century.
His particular musical language, as described in his landmark text
Formalized Music, is based on applications of probability theory and
probability distributions. However, the methods used in specific pieces have
not often been explained in detail. Furthermore, the intuitive side of
Xenakis' work has not been discussed in depth. One of his late works, Mists (1980), for solo piano, is of particular interest
in this regard. Xenakis himself spoke about the mathematical details of the
work in the program notes, and Squibbs has done an exacting analysis of
the piece in his Yale thesis from 1996. It is now possible to try to re-create the algorithms used to compose the
piece, based on the analysis of Squibbs. This sort of applied computational
musicology is particularly suited to the music of Xenakis. Rather than
parsing a score or audio using computers, large sections of Mists can be
programmatically recreated. These recreations can be compared to the
original both visually and aurally. We thus present an applied analysis of Mists. We have written code to
recreate the probabilistic sections of the piece, based on sources from
Xenakis and Squibbs. This allows a detailed examination of when Xenakis is
using the probabilities stated, and when he is adjusting (or ignoring) them
to suit his compositional needs. We will detail these locations, discuss how
Xenakis may have changed the mathematics, and conjecture about why he
may have made these choices. This method provides unique insight into the workings of a unique
composer. In addition to a detailed analysis of Mists, we hope to illuminate
the choices made by Xenakis outside of his formalizations: where the
intuitive side of one of the most important composers of the last century
comes into play.