EXAMINING THE ‘HYPER’ STATUS OF VARÈSE’S ‘PRISM’

Tijana Ilišević

doi:10.5937/10.5937/newso23061119I

Tijana Ilišević University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Department of Music Theory

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5937/10.5937/newso23061119I

Keywords: Edgard Varèse, sonorism, Hyperprism, sound masses, pc set theory, goal-directed processes, chromatic aggregate

Abstract

This paper offers an interpretation of the composition Hyperprism by Edgard Varèse. It provides an explanation of the work’s possible meanings, placing emphasis on the investigation of the “hyper” status of the work as a “prism”. Relying on the composer’s poetics and bearing in mind his scientific approach to sound and sound articulation, this paper proposes the interpretation of the meaning of Hyperprism from the perspectives of geometry, optics, and mineralogy.

Author Biography

Tijana Ilišević, University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Department of Music Theory

Tijana Ilišević is born in Belgrade. She obtained her master’s and PhD degree in musical theory from the Faculty of Music, Department of Music Theory, University of Arts in Belgrade. She has been a Teaching Associate at the Department of Music Theory at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade since 2017. She has presented papers at international conferences on music theory and analysis in Serbia (2017, 2019), England (SotonMAC2019), and Italy (2022). Her research interests include the narratological, semiotic, semantic, psychological, and hermeneutic analysis of 20^th-century post-tonal music.