Les Polytopes I

Vinyl LP pressing. "Hibiki Hana-Ma" was created in 1969 for the Steel Pavilion of the Japan Iron and Steel Federation at the Expo 1970 in Osaka as musical part of a multimedia show. Even though the work does not bear the designation in it's title, it can be already regarded as a Polytope: it was created for a specific architectural location, lasers and mirrors have been installed: a light choreography by the Japanese artist Keiji Usami accompanied the spectacle. This concept of synchronized laser and light choreographies - now directed by Xenakis himself - can soon be found in Polytope de Cluny 1972 and 1978 again in the Diatope (La Légende d'Eer). But Hibiki Hana-Ma is also a hermaphrodite in another sense: on the Japanese record release from 1970 Seiji Ozawa is credited as conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and Kinshi Tsuruta as Biwa-soloist (a traditional Japanese string instrument). By listening one quickly realizes that the music is not orchestral or Biwa music, but only uses electronically processed recordings as source material for an electroacoustic music.