For a change of pace, I thought I might compose a comparatively pleasant read, by not assaulting the words of a reading, but instead engaging it with even a small amount of sympathy. I know, I know, one feels the need to jump up and check a window, to ensure that human existence is not crashing down about our ears, but in fact, I found the Meyer / Zimmermann edition upon Varese to be a useful and fascinating tome, elephantine though it may be.

Full disclosure: I have not read it in its entirety, yet anyway, but have read a few of the articles whose title theses intrigued, and associations with, plus thoughts upon, Edgard Varese, were invoked. Of course, consideration of this volume, after having read Taruskin upon Varese, reminds me that some books exist only with which to do battle, and a punch or so ought to be thrown per invitation. Taruskin proclaims Varese to be American down to his toenails, and that his extant output can only be a product of his newfound American loyalties. To this I say, phoee! Varese came to America during the years around the Great War, and the artistic culture of Europe by that time was seized by revolutions in all the arts. Artistic radicalism, such as Dada, arrived on the boat to Ellis Island about the same time that Varese did, both were European imports and equivalent in their fully-formed nature by then. Varese did produce his works of reknown upon arrival in America, but his last European works remain unheard, and nobody can claim knowledge of their radicalism or lack thereof. In America, Varese did not thrive, but in fact starved, since American audiences were in no way prepared to countenance his music in the day.

Varese' quarter-century compositional silence is legendary, but the Meyer / Zimmermann book propose sundry activities that kept Varese from the composition table during those years: Ill health, a seven-year stint in Paris that produced concerts of his work and the completion of Ionisation, but less than hoped, and significantly, a good number of years spent attempting the premiere of a huge work, Espace, which fell to shreds only by the 1940s. Of course, the standard reasons for his silence are valid as well: his discouragement at the poor reception of his published works, and his pause in his work in anticipation of new instruments.

The 1927-1933 time in Paris makes for an interesting meditation. There, Varese met Leon Theremin, and was introduced to the first electronic instrument. Varese loved it, and wrote it into his first post-Paris (and last pre-silence) work, Ecuatorial. One cannot help but wonder why Varese did not flash with enthusiasm for the next electronic instrument, the Ondes, as much. The most interesting fact to be found in the article concerning Varese and La Jeune France is that Andre Jolivet was a Varese student. Aha! thinks the reader, so Varese did have a student. And what a fine learner was Jolivet. I, myself, am quite fond of Jolivet's work, not least because he did indeed utilize the Ondes with enthusiasm. Of course to a comparison of the music of Varese and Jolivet seems a fool's errand: to detect even a scrap of the teacher's ethic on the student is a challenge to credibility.

The article hastens to point out that Varese left France three years before La Jeune France mounts its very first concert, so connection is forced, but one cannot help but wonder if Varese and another favorite of myself, Olivier Messiaen, ever conferred. To compare the music of the two seems a hopeless effort; Messiaen devoted every last not of his work to the greater glory of God, and Varese apparently found inspiration only from within. Also, Messiaen, who did write a theoretical text on his music, and taught a generation of younger composers, offers a scholarly body of work that largely escapes Varese. Messiaen's musical theories are well-defined, and a prepared listener can readily find his theories put into practice, while Varese' theories are conversational at best, and challenge the listener to detect them.

Nonetheless, some curious parallels between the two composers can be noted. First, Messiaen, towards the end of his compositional career, favored the winds-and-percussion ensembles that Varese liked, so much so that Messiaen's ensembles of the 1960s to 1980s approach identicality to those of Varese. Also, Messiaen favored writing pieces that displayed One Big Idea at a time, so that the listener is not confused by parallel elaborations, but knows where he is at at any given moment in the work. So too does Varese' music often follow that ethic. Since music is a strictly temporal artform, Varese learned early on that the audial analogy to multiple geometric shapes in space must entail some sequencing over time. To play your four sound objects at exactly the same time is to offer the listener a large lump of mud. Varese understood that to effect his geometric analogy he had to establish his motives serially, and hence they sound, in that respect, rather closer to the music of Messiaen.

Did Varese ever hear any Messiaen? The Meyer / Zimmermann book wondered aloud whether he may have been in attendance when Messiaen's early orchestral work Les Offrandes Oubliees was premiered, though Messiaen was still in a neo-Debussy mood at this time, which Varese would have by then been well beyond theoretically, so what little Messiaen Varese would have heard would not have appealed. Did Messiaen ever hear Varese? Here the answer would likely be "yes, indeed". In the quarter-century by which Messiaen survived Varese, he must have had numerous opportunities to hear the crazy Frenchman-cum-American, and could not help but not the superficial resemblance of many of their two works. Little point in further inquiry, since they are both dead.