Polla Ta Dhina

Polla Ta Dhina, from 1962, is Xenakis's first work with vocals and lyrics.

Here the voices are those of a children's choir declaiming on a single note (the chorister's A) the Hymn to Man, Lord of the Seas and the Earth from Sophocles' Antigone. There is a great contrast between the simplicity of the vocal part and the expansiveness of the orchestral part, which chromatically utilizes the entire sound space, from piccolo to double bass.

The instrumental textures are also very complex and in constant movement, ranging from the initial rhythms of the woodwinds and percussion, to swarms of glissandos from the strings, to the sustained chords of the brass, reiterating the contrast.

Iannis Xenakis is Polla Ta Dhina (1962), for children chorus & orchestra
Paris Instrumental Ensemble for Contemporary Music, Children Chorus of Notre Dame de Paris, Cond. Konstantin Simonovitch

Back