Question concerning Varese

In some recent liner notes to a concert, the writer states that Varese discovered the theories of Helmholtz from which forever changed his approach to music (1905) .
As the conductor sitting next to me i asked about it to stated, " i don't believe a single word of concert notes anymore" nor had i heard this. thought maybe someone here might have run across such a detail.

Kraig:

"When I was a student at the Paris Conservatoire, I came across a
definition of music that was the first to satisfy me completely,
suggesting as it did a new and freer conception of music. Hoene
Wronski, physicist, chemist, musicologist, and philosopher of the
first part of the 19th century, defined music as "the corporealization
of the intelligence that is in sounds." Looking back, it seems to me
that it was this definition which started me thinking of music as
organized sound instead of sanctified and regimented notes. I began to
resent the arbitrary limitations of the tempered system, especially
after reading at about the same time, Helmholtz's description of his
experiments with sirens in his Physiology of Sound. Wanting to
experiment myself, I went to the Marche aux Puces, where for next to
nothing you could find just about anything, and picked up two small
ones [Ed: sirens]. With these I made my first experiments in what
later I called spatial music. The beautiful parabolas and hyperbolas
of sound the sirens gave me and the haunting quality of the tones made
me aware for the first time of the wealth of music outside the narrow
limits imposed by keyboard instruments."

- Edgard Varese (from p. 42 of "Varese: A looking-glass diary" by
Louise Varese)

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <jszanto@...> wrote:
>
> Kraig:
>
> [quote from Edgard Varese:]
> "... I began to resent the arbitrary limitations of
> the tempered system, especially after reading at about
> the same time, Helmholtz's description of his experiments
> with sirens in his Physiology of Sound. Wanting to
> experiment myself, I went to the Marche aux Puces, where
> for next to nothing you could find just about anything,
> and picked up two small ones [Ed: sirens]. With these
> I made my first experiments in what later I called
> spatial music. The beautiful parabolas and hyperbolas
> of sound the sirens gave me and the haunting quality
> of the tones made me aware for the first time of the
> wealth of music outside the narrow limits imposed by
> keyboard instruments."
>
> - Edgard Varese (from p. 42 of "Varese: A looking-glass diary"
> by Louise Varese)

Ah, so *this* explains why Varese used two sirens
(one high and one low) in the percussion orchestra
of his most famous piece, _Ionisation_. I always
wondered about that.

For those here who have no idea what "the Marche aux Puces"
is: it's French for "flea market", and there's a really
big one in Paris ... at least there was during Varese's
time. I think it's still there, but it's moved to a new
location since his day.

-monz
http://tonalsoft.com
Tonescape microtonal music software