Expressiveness and Meaning in the Electroacoustic Music of Iannis Xenakis. The case of La Légende d'Eer

International audienceThis presentation proposes to address the issues of expressiveness and meaning in respect toIannis Xenakis' approach to electroacoustic music. One of the characteristics of his music isthat it cannot be approached through a linear and discursive comprehension. Like manymodernist composers, Xenakis has sought to escape the language model in favor of aconception of music as an "energetic" and "spatial" phenomenon. However, such an approachdoes not go without a redefinition of the manner by which the issues of signification in musicare understood. As we will show, if it is still possible to speak of "signification" or "meaning"in this context, it is in terms of spatial immersion in the manner similar to the perception ofthe countless sonorous events with which we are flooded in our daily environments. Oneaspect to consider is that electroacoustic material, for the most part, evades the semioticcodifications that, in tonal music, once oriented the meaning that a musical work couldconvey. Music is no longer set inside a quasi-lexical logic based upon culturally codifiedfigure-types. In this respect, such music benefits from a large, expressive freedom that playson parameters that directly affect listeners on a sensitive and physical level. Xenakis' music isunfolding a world in which the listeners' perceptions and interpretations are actively solicited.It is the aim of this paper to address this issue. For the purpose of this discussion, we will takeLa légende d'Eer as an example