Collective Difference: The Pan-American Association of Composers

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