Structure and Randomness in Iannis Xenakis\u27 Analogique A

The music of late twentieth century composer Iannis Xenakis is often difficult to analyze because it makes use of complex computer-aided composition techniques, often involving randomness. While conventional set-theoretic approaches yield fruitful analysis, computational musicology, or treating music as data and using statistical methods to find trends, is really the analytical counterpart to computer-aided composition necessary to dig deeper into pieces like Xenakis’. In this paper, I apply data visualization and clustering techniques to Xenakis’ Analogique A and follow the same steps he used to create the piece, except in reverse. I then perform close readings of passages that the computational techniques struggle with, applying conventional set theory and Xenakis’ own sieve theory to dig deeper. Finally, I attempt to determine, using these results, where Xenakis followed his stated methods and where he made decisions based on his own aesthetic opinions instead