Collective Difference: The Pan-American Association of Composers
Collective Difference: The Pan-American Association of Composers
Collective Difference: The Pan-American Association of Composers
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington’s 1927 book Stars and Atoms, which Varèse said<br />
explained both the work’s title and its organization. <strong>The</strong> enclosure read: “At the high<br />
temperature inside a star the battering <strong>of</strong> the particles by one another, and more especially<br />
the collision <strong>of</strong> the ether waves (X-rays) with atoms, cause electrons to be broken <strong>of</strong>f and<br />
set free . . . This breaking away <strong>of</strong> electrons from atoms is called ionization.” 41<br />
Cryptically, Varèse concluded this letter, “Ionisation represents . . . the mystery <strong>of</strong> the<br />
skies <strong>of</strong> America.” 42<br />
Mystery, <strong>American</strong>ness, and the primitive are aspects <strong>of</strong> Varèse’s works<br />
sometimes overlooked because <strong>of</strong> his dedication to abstract music after 1945. His<br />
projects during his time in Montparnasse, however, reveal his enthusiasm for expressing<br />
the primitive. In 1930, at the same time he was working on Ionisation, he was also<br />
writing <strong>The</strong>-One-All-Alone, a stage work that was conceived on a grand scale but never<br />
finished. He wrote instructions to his wife Louise Varèse, who was writing the scenario,<br />
“Don’t forget the aspect <strong>of</strong> returning to the primitive: pounding dance <strong>of</strong> fear, almost<br />
voodooistic prophetic cries—shaking, twitching—and the ending as grand as the heavens.<br />
Apocalypse. Apocalypse.” 43 Though Varèse was writing about <strong>The</strong>-One-All-Alone, it is<br />
easy to hear a pounding dance and voodooistic cries in Ionisation, and the cataclysmic<br />
ending could certainly be interpreted as apocalypse. Generally, analysts have emphasized<br />
the importance <strong>of</strong> rhythmic cells in Ionisation, but a regular pulse that appears in several<br />
large sections is what drives the piece forward; what might be described as a “pounding<br />
dance.” Notably, such a steady pulse is missing in Varèse’s prior works that rely heavily<br />
on percussion: Hyperprism, Intégrales, and Arcana. Evidently, Wallingford Riegger<br />
thought Ionisation expressed a return to the primitive, when he used a recording <strong>of</strong> the<br />
work in a dance composition in 1937. <strong>The</strong> work, presented in its entirety, formed the<br />
climax <strong>of</strong> Riegger’s piece, and was said to express “the survival <strong>of</strong> society out <strong>of</strong> a state<br />
41 Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary, 226. Originally printed in A.S. Eddington, Stars and<br />
Atoms (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927): 17.<br />
42 Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary, 226.<br />
43 Letter from Varèse to Louise Varèse, Divonnes-les-Bains, July 15, 1930. Quoted in Olivia Mattis,<br />
“Edgard Varèse and the Visual Arts,” (Dissertation: Stanford University, 1992), 181.<br />
34