Stochastics and Granular Sound in Xenakis' Electroacoustic Music ()

In some of his early electroacoustic pieces, Xenakis pursued ground-breaking explorations in territories that, in retrospect, appear quintessential to his work in general. If we consider those electroacoustic works alongside with orchestra music like Pithoprakta (1955-56) and Achorripsis (1956-57), we get a composite picture where the theory of "stochastic music" is often managed in conjunction with a theory of sound in terms of "sonic quanta". After all, Xenakis' first proposal as to the granular nature of sound is found in a paper on stochastic music (written in 1959). We can argue that the laws of stochastics and a kind of quantum-oriented understanding of sound were somehow closely connected in Xenakis' mind. In this paper I discuss and try to characterize that connection.