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Edgard Varèse

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Edgard Varèse

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Also known as Edgar Varèse, Edgard Varese, Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, Varèse

French composer (1883-1965)

OverviewAI-generated

Edgard Varèse (1883–1965) was a French composer, musicologist, and conductor. Born in Paris, he was educated at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Schola Cantorum de Paris, where he studied under Charles-Marie Widor, Albert Roussel, and Vincent d'Indy. His musical output included works in the genres of opera and classical music, associated with the avant-garde and 20th-century classical music movements. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Varèse taught students including Chou Wen-chung and André Jolivet. He spoke English and French and identified as an atheist. His personal library is held at the Harry Ransom Center. He died in New York City.

Synthesized by Vinony from 41 facts across 9 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Europeana Sparql, TMDb, Wikiquote, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
1883
Died
1965
Works
28

Top works

  • The performance guilds of Edgard Varèse
  • The role of parameters in Octandre by Edgard Varèse
  • The music of Edgard Varèse
  • Varèse, vingt ans après---
  • Music of Edgar Varèse

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Sound · Paris, France

Edgard Varèse or Edgar Varèse (both spellings were used by the composer himself at different times in his life) was a French naturalized American composer, born December 22, 1883 in Paris and died November 6, 1965 in New York. Initially trained at the Schola Cantorum and the Paris Conservatory, Varèse found with more independent artists, such as Debussy and Busoni, the necessary encouragement…

Known for

  • Zappa — Self (archive footage)2020
  • Frank Zappa: Phase II - The Big Note — Self (archive footage)2002
  • Frank Zappa: The Present-Day Composer Refuses To Die — Self (archive footage)2000
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Policeman (uncredited)1920
  • A Dark Lantern — Count Wilhelm1920

via TMDB

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
81,437
Total plays
525,139

Tags

contemporary classicalAvant-GardeClassicalmusique concreteexperimental

Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (French: [ɛdɡaːʁ viktɔːʁ aʃil ʃaʁl vaʁɛːz]; also spelled Edgar Varèse; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm and he coined the term "organized sound" in reference to his own musical aesthetic. Varèse's conception of music reflected his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded". <a hr

via Last.fm · Edgard Varèse

Quotes

  • Our musical alphabet is poor and illogical. Music, which should pulsate with life, needs new means of expression, and science alone can infuse it with youthful vigor. Why, Italian Futurists, have you slavishly reproduced only what is commonplace and boring in the bustle of our daily lives. I dream of instruments obedient to my thought and which with their contribution of a whole new world of unsuspected sounds, will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm.
  • Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes.
  • Contrary to general belief, an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs. I was the first composer to explore, so to speak, musical outer space.
  • I was not influenced by composers as much as by natural objects and physical phenomena. As a child, I was tremendously impressed by the qualities and character of the granite I found in Burgundy, where I often visited my grandfather...So I was always in touch with things of stone and with this kind of pure structural architecture — without frills or unnecessary decoration. All of this became an integral part of my thinking at a very early stage.
  • There is an idea, the basis of an internal structure, expanded and split into different shapes or groups of sound constantly changing in shape, direction, and speed, attracted and repulsed by various forces. The form of the work is a consequence of this interaction. Possible musical forms are as limitless as the exterior forms of crystals.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
( 1883-12-22 ) December 22, 1883, Paris, France
Died
November 6, 1965 (1965-11-06) (aged 81), New York City, U.S.
Occupations
Composer music theorist

via Wikipedia infobox

Works in European collections

1 object attributed to Edgard Varèse, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana

~24 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse ( French: [ɛdɡaʁ viktɔʁ aʃil ʃaʁl vaʁɛz]; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American avant-garde composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coined the term "organized sound" in reference to his own musical aesthetic. Varèse's conception of music reflected his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded". He conceived the elements of his music in terms of "sound-masses", likening their organization to the natural phenomenon of crystallization. Varèse thought that "to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise", and he posed the question, "what is music but organized noises?"

Although his complete surviving works only last about three hours, he has been recognized as an influence by several major composers of the late 20th century. Varèse saw potential in using electronic media for sound production, and his use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music". Writer Henry Miller described him as "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound".

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Edgard Varèse” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (7)