# Kraanerg



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

My favourite ballet score. Written for the grand opening of the Canadian National Arts Centre in Ottawa in the 1960s with choreography by Roland Petit and the set designed by one of my favourite artists (I've written music inspired by one of his works) Victor Vasarely.

From Wikipedia:

_The 75-minute piece is not divided into movements but includes twenty periods of silence of varying length (three of them more than twenty seconds) which are integral to the development. It has three phases of roughly equal duration: the first contains more or less equal portions of both orchestra and tape; the second (beginning after 23 minutes), primarily instruments; and the third (beginning after 52 minutes) primarily tape. The sounds on the tape are derived from instrumental material. The choreography by Petit (who was in charge of the premiere, and divided the work at its midpoint with an intermission) was a critical failure, but the music was widely praised; it was conducted at the premiere by Lukas Foss, who like Vasarely was invited to the project by Xenakis. After a tour of the original ballet that ended in 1972, Kraanerg was largely forgotten for some years. It was revived in 1988 with a new choreography by Australian choreographer Graeme Murphy, a performance which was regarded as much more successful than the original one. However, subsequently the music has usually been performed without the ballet._

There should be more actual ballet performances of this wonderful score! What do you think of it, TCers?
:tiphat:


----------



## Ingélou

Oh dear - once again, something I'd never heard of. A quick google pulled up instrumental scores but also this brief snatch of ballet. 33 seconds doesn't seem much to base my opinion on but ... I like it!


----------



## PetrB

Ingenue said:


> Oh dear - once again, something I'd never heard of. A quick google pulled up instrumental scores but also this brief snatch of ballet. 33 seconds doesn't seem much to base my opinion on but ... I like it!


Here is the full length piece:


----------



## Ingélou

Thanks very much, PetrB! :tiphat:


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Ingenue said:


> Oh dear - once again, something I'd never heard of. A quick google pulled up instrumental scores but also this brief snatch of ballet. 33 seconds doesn't seem much to base my opinion on but ... I like it!


Is that Graeme Murphy talking?


----------



## Crudblud

It is, by my reckoning, a fantastic piece. I remember when I first encountered Xenakis a few years back and got a CD of this piece by the Alpha Centauri Ensemble (which I personally like better than the more popular ST-X recording) and what a worthily intense introduction it is to one of the last century's towering figures. I have not seen it with choreography, though I am not sure what choreography one could augment it with without somehow detracting from it, a _Polytope_ style light show, perhaps, but I remain unconvinced of the potential for positive applications of dance as a visual accompaniment in this case.


----------

