Department of Music Lecture: The Architecture of Xenakis’s Persepolis: Sound, Spatiotemporality, and Ontology

Title:
The Architecture of Xenakis’s Persepolis:  Sound, Spatiotemporality, and Ontology

Abstract:
Iannis Xenakis’s polytopes are immersive, multisensory works that integrate music, architecture, and light. Conceived as a compositional form that extends beyond sound, polytopes incorporate visual and spatiotemporal elements while maintaining a distinctly musical framework through the application of formal techniques such as probability calculations, logical structures, and group theory.

Polytope of Persepolis (1971) marks a shift in Xenakis’s approach, transitioning from earlier polytopes that engaged with modern architecture to site-specific polytopes created in historical locations. Commissioned by the fifth edition of the Shiraz Arts Festival, Persepolis became controversial due to misunderstandings surrounding its symbolism, compositional structure, and sociopolitical context. While previous scholarship has addressed the political and cultural debates surrounding Persepolis, its compositional structure remains underexplored. This gap may be attributed, first, to its unconventional sonic material, which resists traditional analytical methodologies, and second, to the enigmatic nature of its score and sketches, which pose challenges for interpretation.

In this project, I propose a model grounded in categorization and event cognition theory to facilitate the interpretation of Xenakis’s archival materials, including his scores and sketches. This approach decodes the use of fire symbolism as a spatial element in the composition, clarifying both its intended function and the misconceptions surrounding its reception. Furthermore, this study investigates the compositional techniques Xenakis employed to achieve spatialization in his polytopes, situating these methods within the broader tradition of musique concrète, in which he constructed a three-dimensional space through the interplay of sonic and non-sonic elements, composing an immersive work that pioneers spatial approaches to music and sound installations.

Biography:
Khashayar Shahriyari is a PhD student in Music Theory. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in music composition from Tehran University of Art.