Iannis Xenakis - Mikka

Mikka, for violin (1971) Irvine Arditti, violin Although he had been using the sliding glissando gesture as an integral part of his musical vocabulary from the beginning, by the early 1970s Xenakis was searching for the means to integrate this effect into a generalized approach to melodic line. Mikka (1971) was his first such attempt. In this piece for solo violin (usually paired with Mikka "S" of 1975) a sustained line snakes its way up and down the range of the instrument; however, there are no specific notes, only a continuously moving glissando. Mikka is a brief work, a mere four minutes in duration. While basically continuous, it falls into two parts: the first is smooth and continuous, while the second adds intermittent shifts to a serrated tremolo bowing. As part of the overall contour, the glissando line migrates up to the instrument's highest register before falling quickly at the close. There is something impersonal about Mikka; the steely, unadorned sliding tone of the violin recalls an electronic oscillator being triggered by a random voltage generator. On the other hand, it challenges the performer to develop a new approach to the instrument. As the line is in continuous motion, there is no way for the hand to orient itself according to traditional finger positions: A novel relationship between the hand, fingerboard, and ear is therefore part of the performing experience. The technical facility thereby achieved serves the performer well in all kinds of contexts, as all good etudes do. [allmusic.com] Art by Hans Hartung