Xenais: A l'Ile de Goree

A L'Ile de Goree (1986): For Harpsichord and Ensemble (1.1.1.1 1.1.1 2.1.1.1.1) Named after the slave trading island off the coast of Dakar. Less dissonant work, begins with a beautiful and harmonically staic cluster with resonance that recurs modified at the end. Do I detect Bminor? F#, G, A, Bb, Cb, D, C#, E = B, C#, D, E, F#, G, A, A# = B harmonic minor + A. This gesture - like waves lapping on shore - lasts much too short, before a rather rhythmic rest of hte piece. Xenakis makes the first extensive use of (subtle) multiphonics since, was it, Akrata, and begins using ensemble vertical sonorities extensively, including a rather lazily notated unison spatial bit. A very strange nd beuatiful trumpet plus other brass melody at the end, but still these pitch sieves aren't really used as scales in a harmonic or contrapuntal sense, they are used as a compound sonority as if pandiatonicism is attached to different collections of pitches from the standard diatonic.