Marcel FREN – “An artist is never ahead of their time most people are just behind theirs”

Early Life and Influences  Born Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, in Paris on December 22, 1883  Lived with maternal grandfather Claude Cortot in Turin, Italy, who taught him the fundamentals of music at a young age  Tumultuous and Abusive upbringing led him to be secluded yet extremely focused on his work  Although he wrote full scale operas starting at the age of 13, his father burned whatever music he found

As a Young Man  Left home for Paris in 1903 with money he received from his grandfather  Enrolled at Schola Cantorum de Paris, where his talents exceeded that of his peers  Was taught formally by Albert Roussel and befriended the composers Erik Satie, Richard Strauss, and Claude Debussy

Early Work  He was highly dissatisfied with traditional classical music, although he excelled at composing it  Started writing music for orchestra that purposely either bored or discomforted the audience  Had to travel around Europe to always play for new audiences because nobody would see him twice  Left for the United States in 1915, to attract a new audience, compose more avant-garde works, and to avoid World War I

The United States  Found more artistic freedom than in Europe  Was embraced by the artistic community  Found stability in work as a Conductor  Compositions became either increasingly more complex, or incredibly minimalist  Most of his work from this period has been lost or destroyed

Back to Europe  Returned to Paris in 1928 due to severe homesickness and to complete one of his compositions in a different environment  It was there that he composed his best known non electric piece, “Ionisation for Percussion” which he wrote simply to make enough money to return to the United States  Wrote to the Guggenheim Foundation for a grant to build the first electronic music studio  On his return to the United States in the mid-1930s his work became exclusively electronic

Later Life  Later life was mostly plagued with poor health  Admired greatly by those who knew him, but overall his work was largely forgotten  In his later life he started to compose and think of some of the most ambitious projects of his career such as the evolution of free jazz, choral work that involved single pieces using all of the major languages of the world and poems, and short stories being converted into musical form  Died on November 6, 1965

“Father of Electronic Music”  Saw over the construction of the first electronic studio  First classical composer to include electronic instruments  Used seemingly non-melodic objects like the Theremin and the siren to create complex music  Saw over the building of the prototype for the first amplifiers

“Eye Music”  Towards the end of his career he stopped writing music in traditional notation  He would create maps of sound, and write music that was left open for interpretation by the conductor  Very few pieces of his work can be played by a traditional orchestra

Mental Health  Due to a stressful and abusive childhood, I believe Varèse’s mental health was a serious factor in his life and his compositions  His family had a long line of metal disorders  His spontaneity and bizarreness as a person can be heard in his work

Influence in Jazz  Could be considered the main architect of free jazz  In 1957 he held a workshop with several acclaimed jazz musicians  Taught them how to disregard conventional time structures  The recording of them rehearsing under Varèse’s direction is considered to be the first free jazz recording

Frank Zappa  Composer/Musician, obsessed with Varèse  Extremely Influential to Zappa and his music  Popularized Varèse again  Frank Zappa heavily influenced the guitarist Steve Vai,who is one of my biggest influences as a musician

Overview  Immeasurable Influence on music  Influenced a wide variety of other musicians  The Father of Electronic Music and the Father of Avant-Garde Music  Saw that music is not exclusively found in musicians and their instruments, it is found in nature and in everyone

Works Cited  Bernard, Jonathan W. The Music of Edgard Varèse. Yale University Press,  Meyer, Felix and Heidy Zimmermann. Edgard Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary. Boydell Press,  MacDonald, Malcolm. Varèse: Astronomer in Sound. Kahn & Averill Publishers,  Zappa, Frank. Real Frank Zappa Book. Fireside,  “Ionisation for Percussion” by Edgard Varèse (Musical Score)  “Poeme Electronique” by Edgard Varèse (Musical Score)  “Deserts” by Edgard Varèse (Musical Score)  Igor Toronyi – Lalic. “Edgard Varèse dropped bombs on the 20 th Century” The Times  “Edgard Varèse, A Free Jazz Pioneer? NPR

Picture Credits   s400/varese3.jpg   e08.jp 