Editorial Review:

Amazon.com essential recording:
For a composer who is (now) recognizably part of the 20th-century classical canon, the French émigré Edgard Varèse's output was astoundingly meager. Just 15 compositions from his entire life (he destroyed the compositions from his early years, and was a merciless editor of his own material in general) made it out to the listening world. Varèse was caught in the chasm between the music of yesterday and the music of tomorrow: scoring music for modified theremin, steamboat whistles, or air sirens, all balanced with the force of a large orchestra; writing pieces based on the flows of water and wind because that's what shapes the earth; using the concepts of chemical reactions and specific gravity as a basis for his music. Using extremes of contrast, dissonance, and variety in sound, Varèse's pieces had power in the way he attacked and shaped the sound he imagined. From Ionisation (1929), scored almost entirely for unpitched percussion, to the electronic-only, three-dimensionally produced Poeme Electronique (1958), he's provided a foundation that many genres, musicians, and composers were to build from not only for the next 40 years, but inevitably beyond. --Robin Edgerton









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• Varese: Arcana; Ameriques; Ionization; Offrandes; Density 21.5; Octandre; Integrales
• The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
• Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time
• Penderecki: Anaklasis; Threnody; etc.
• The Ligeti Project II: Lontano / Atmosphères / Apparitions / San Francisco Polyphony / Concert Românesc - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Jonathan Nott
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Disc 1:

1. Chanson de là-haut
2. La Croix du Sud
3. Octandre: Assez lent
4. Octandre: Très vif et nerveux
5. Octandre: Grave - Animé et jubilatoire
6. 1st episode
7. 1st interpolation of organised sound
8. 2nd episode
9. 2nd interpolation
10. 3rd episode
11. 3rd interpolation
12. 4th episode

Rating: - Good Production, Now Where's the Simonovich Reissue?
Varese was always frustrated by interpretations of his works and longed for the day when he could electronically produce his music, directly realizing his compositions exactly as he intended them. Theoretically that leaves us two works--Poeme Electronique and the tape interpolations on Deserts--as reference points. I suppose it would be simple-minded to turn exclusively to these works for guidance in how Varese should be played, but I can't help but refer to them myself because the tape interpolations on Deserts were what got me hooked on Varese in the first place. Unlike many here, I never was much of a Zappa fan and didn't even know he listened to Varese. No, my pop music idol was Hendrix, and it was easy to move from Hendrix's long feedback solos to the electronic portions of Deserts.

Anyway, my preference in Varese performances is for big, sonorous, lyrical, and passionate productions like Chailly's. They seem truer to the spirit of Varese's electronic works than the drier, intellectualized performances of Boulez. For me, the gold standard in Varese recordings is Konstantin Simonovich and the Paris Contemporary Music Ensemble, an Angel disc that appears to be out of print (Deserts, Ionisation, Integrales, Density 21.5). It combines precision with rich sound and a somewhat languid pace--true to Varese's desire to have his music flow like a river, with various currents moving at differing speeds.

Unfortunately, on the Chailly disc the production of Poeme Electronique is strangely flat--as noted by another reviewer here. Compared to the version on the Columbia disc "The Varese Album", now re-issued, the problem seems to be that the Chailly version has greatly cut down on the echo--or digital delay, or whatever the term is for the gizmo that creates ambience and gives one the impression of being in a very resonant, "live" room. This piece was composed for performance in a concrete-shell building with 400 speakers lining the ceiling, allowing the sounds to move around and intersect--the ultimate in Varese's concept of music as sound sculpture in space. He was also fond of room ambience, hearing it as though the sounds were detaching themselves from their source and floating freely in the space. The version on the Chailly disc may be truer to what was actualy played, because the building itself provided a lot of ambience, but it sounds really dry and anemic here. There's nothing wrong with adapting a tape piece for home phono performance by fattening up the ambience to simulate what it sounds like in live performance; and so I would recommend the Columbia disc for its offering of Poeme Electronique (but not much else, unfortunately--to me, the performances sound rushed, dry, and indifferent).

A couple of other quibbles with the Chailly production: I agree with others here that there are parts which get lost in the shuffle and some better clarity would be nice; and the flute player on Density 21.5 completely misses the concept, in the middle of the piece, that the sound is supposed to come from the keys of the flute being tapped down hard--in other words, the flute becomes a percussion instrument--rather than from the player's breath. But on the whole I find the Chailly recording to be very satisfying.

By the way, I've enjoyed reading a lot of the reviews here. Not the kind of thing people typically chat about at cocktail parties, and I'm afraid I may have developed Varese tunnel vision with my dedication to the Simonovich recording; so I'm glad to share the the differing perspectives I've found here.

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Rating: - Agree with "Mistake" review
I completely agree with the mistake review. Wen-Chung had not the right, or the talent to complete and/or revise any of Varese' pieces. This set is not, in any way, representative of Varese's vision and is solely about Wen-Chung riding Varese's coattails.

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Rating: - Lighten Up Please
I once heard that Frank Zappa was inspired by Varese, so I decided to give him a listen. Now I understand why I never really took to the Mothers of Invention. Varese's composing style seems very heavy handed. Generally the brass and percussive pieces are really (and too often) over-layered and over-the-top, and his use of percussive toys is, all to often, way over done. The electronic experimentations seem disjointed and simple and don't really seem to fit well and the vocals seem a bit silly. Having said these things, three pieces (11-12 minutes of sound out a 140 minute-plus 2 disk box) did work very well for me - Ionisation, Density 12.5 and Dance For Burgess, which were all on disk 2. So now I program these as an enjoyable little 3 piece suite.

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Rating: - Superb with just one reservation
This complete works of Varèse, superbly performed and recorded, is a fine accomplishment. My only disappointment was its version of Poème Elèctronique being the sole representation of that ground-breaking work that still holds up for me today as one of the finest pieces of electronic music yet created. It is interesting to be able to hear the version in this collection, which appears to be a loving restoration of what must have been primarily the raw, performing version, to be further enhanced during its performances in a very large space? What I miss in the present version is the more clearly heard textures of its huge sound palette; the resonant and often humerous interplay between them, and its dramatic sweep as it was presented on a sparcely documented stereo mix that first appeared on a Columbia Records LP, later reissued on a CD, now out of print. That one is surely more like an actual performance, presumably mixed to re-create as well as possible then what it might have sounded like over its four hundred loudspeakers in the Philips Pavillion. I hope there will be further reissues. To me the CBS version's drama and energy are more like that of the performances of the other pieces in this wonderful Complete Works set. -Curt Wittig

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Rating: - Go ahead, test your intelligence...
Varese is one of the more unique composers in music history. Originally born in France, then emigrating to America, his music is extrememly challenging, and he had enormous influence on Frank Zappa in particular. Zappa used to play Varese to test the intelligence of his friends, and most of them used to look at him like he was "out of his f---ing mind" as he put it. As a major Zappa fan, I bought this compliation, and I love every minute of it. This 2 CD set contains all of Varese's work (needless to say, Edgar wasn't very prolific). You really hear Varese's influence in Zappa's work. Some favorite pieces are Deserts, Poem Electronique, and Un Grand Sommeil Noir (Original Version). Varese's music reminds me of universes being created, in all their violence, beauty, and glory. Instruments crashing down upon one another. This music is reminiscent of Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh and his orchestral work especially. Varese is one of the great 20th century composers, like Aaron Copland, John Cage, and Conlon Nancarrow. Superb....