Anestis Logothetis

Super Tip! Last copies... Anestis Logothetis (1921-1994) is known as one of the leading pioneers of 20th century composition.   His graphic notation system, developed around 1958, is a milestone in the evolution of musical notation. Logothetis employs this system to different ways of imprinting the contemporary sound on the score in order to express the sense of space in musical notation and redefine the roles of the composer, the performer and the audience, during the composition and performance of a piece.  

This 5Lp Box-Set with large 32 page booklet covers a selection of his electroacoustic works composed between 1960 and 1980.

What makes Logothetis singular is his graphic notation system, developed around 1958: not conventional scores but visual maps of symbols, signs, and suggestive images that redefine the relationship between composer, performer, and audience at every performance. This 5LP box set (VOD176), with its 32-page bilingual booklet, presents a selection of his electroacoustic works composed between 1960 and 1980, drawn from tapes that effectively never reached public distribution during his lifetime. The recordings move between manipulated tape textures, electronic feedback studies, piano and electronics, and concrete sound collage, always organised according to a logic that is simultaneously rigorous and irreducibly personal. A composer who belongs in the same sentence as Iannis Xenakis and Helmut Lachenmann, issued here in a strictly limited edition of 500 numbered copies.

Anestis Logothetis was born 27 October 1921 in Pyrgos of East Romylia (today Burgas of Bulgaria) from greek parents. He studied at The Academy of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna:  music theory (Erwin Ratz), composition (Alfred Uhl,), piano (Herrmann. Schwertmann) and conducting (Hans Swarowsky). From 1952 a series of scholarships (most of them from Austrian government), allow him to realize his ideas in composition. He has followed lectures of composition in Rome wit scholarship of the Italian government (1956, 1958-59), and 1957 he worked on Studio of Electronic Music of WDR (Cologne) by Gottfried Michael Koenig. Till the end of 1950 he has developed his own graphical notation system, composing all the rest of his pieces with it. 1981 he was invited from the Electronic Music Studio of Stockholm where he wrote his first piece of computer music. Besides the numerous works for instrument and voices he wrote also operas and radio plays (Hörspiele) in collaboration with many broadcasts (SR/WDR/NDR/ORF).

He was honoured with the «Theodor Körner» price (1960 and 1963), while got ex-equo with Iannis Xenakis the 1st price of the "Athens Technological Institute" of Konstantinos Doxiadis (funded by Manos Hatjidakis). He got the Award of the City of Vienna (1985) and Golden Medal of the City of Vienna (1986), the honorary price of the Austrian Federal Ministries of Education, Arts and Sports (1989) and the "Floriana" price for his piece Mantratelurium (1933). Many exhibitions with "graphical scores" were organized in Austria, United States, Athens ("Ora" Gallery 1975) and Thessaloniki. Logothetis died from cancer in 1994.