Biography Of Edgard Varese

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Edgard Varese

Edgard Varèse was a 20th century conductor and composer born on December 22, 1883 in Paris, France, but eventually immigrating to the United States in 1915 and eventually becoming a U.S. citizen in 1926. He experimented with taped music, electronic instruments and technology. He is considered an innovator due to his use of early electronic musical instruments and for utilizing new techniques in sound production. (Estrerlla N.D)
Edgard was classed as a pioneer of the avant-garde movement in music; he experimented with electronic music and some highly original experimentation in the uses and organization of rhythm. These works for which he is best known are those in which he completely rejects traditional melody and harmony, but instead building these compositions from blocks of sounds, relying on tone color, texture and rhythm. (Janus 2008)

Biography

Varese began work on his first composition in the United States, Ameriques, which was finished in 1921. It was after he had finished this he founded the International Composers' Guild, which was devoted to the new compositions of both American and European composers. Between 1918 and 1936, he began working on music that broke from European influences. His work Hyperprism in 1923, which was a piece that caused a riot in the audience as a lot of the audience got up and left. Although His most popular work by throughout his time was Ionisation written between 1929-31 which introduced the siren as a musical instrument. Towards the end of his life he composed Deserts, a collage of taped sounds, which was a unique, frightening masterpiece of the atomic age. Deserts was the first important work of electronic music, and Varese was recognized as a significant force in music. (T...

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...ied Heone Wronsky who was a philosopher and gave him the idea of organized sound. Which is why both pieces have a lot of percussive or electronic sounds in them. (Janus 2008)

In conclusion Varese was a man of art and science. Because of this it gave him the inspiration he needed to write the type of music that he did. By using ampex tape recorders in pieces and adding odd instrument into the orchestra that others would have not normally of done. His pieces of music varied throughout his life slightly changing techniques but generally sticking to the stuff he knew. Edgard Varese had a very important role in western music. He was the first to experiment with electronic music before the technology was properly there. Once the technology finally caught up with him, he thrived the most through this time. This lead to him being known as the father of electronic music.

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