In our interview, Martin Grubinger talks about his love for to the music of Xenakis. “Xenakis is for everybody”, says the Austrian percussionist. “There’s a high, very high intellectual level in this music and, on the other hand deep emotion, and that’s a fantastic combination.”

Do you remember your first encounter with Xenakis’s music?
I remember I was 6 years old, and I heard Peter Sadlo performing Xenakis’s Rebonds B, and this was so fascinating to me. He was playing it at Munich Gasteig, the Munich Philharmonic Hall, and I was captivated: the wood-blocks, the combination with the drums, the change between the rhythmic structure and this kind of improvisation on the wood-blocks and then the roll back to the rhythmic structure again with the sixteenth note on the bongo and the kind of melody on the left hand….

From this day on I was in love with Xenakis. After that I started to work on his pieces. It took me a long time, but I started with Xenakis very early, and I played all the pieces: Kassandra, Rebonds A & B, Persephassa, and Pléïades, plus Psappha. For percussionists, Xenakis is what we call in German a “Schutzheiliger” (guardian angel).

As a student I performed all these pieces in concerts, Rebonds B of course, Rebonds A. Once we performed a whole Xenakis program with Okho, Persephassa, and Pléïades in one night. And people came—two thousand people— just to listen to Xenakis’s music, and you know this was so intense, so special, it had such a power, such an impact—a musical impact— but also, his music goes deep into your heart, so I would say that without Xenakis, percussion would be in another situation entirely.

Is there any model, any master, any interpreter, or any colleague who has influenced you in the way of performing?
Two performers did: Sylvio Gualda and Peter Sadlo, and both these performers really had such a strong impact on me. I listened to all the recordings, and of course I went to ARD competition and listened to the different interpretations of Psappha. But at the end, it’s pure fun, and that’s the fantastic thing. There’s a high, very high intellectual level in this music and, on the other hand deep emotion, and that’s the fantastic combination in the music of Xenakis. We did Pléïades in Salzburg Festival, and at the end there was a standing ovation. People who had never been in contact with Xenakis’s music before were fascinated. We loved to play it, and we tried to express our emotion about this music to the people.

Also the form is great, and the rhythm of the work. That’s Pléïades with its four movements and its ending: Claviers, Métaux, Mélanges, and Peaux. In the ending you know the movement with the rolls. Then yes, this is simply something special.

Are you still preparing it? Is the music so difficult that you need to keep working on it, or is it now really standing in the repertoire for you?
We have it in the repertoire; we deeply believe that for each concert it has to be prepared very strictly and very carefully. According to the acoustics, but also according to the tightness of playing that is really perfect.

Do you have any plans to do it in the open air in Bregenz?
I would love to. I hope we can do it next year or in two years at the Salzburg Festival in front of the festival halls or at the Domplatz, with the special acoustics, because I think you can express this music to a very large audience as Xenakis is for everybody. It is contemporary music with high intellectual character, but it is for everybody, and it should be expressed not just to a small group of people. This sounds a little bit strange maybe but we believe that our Pléïades interpretation and our Persephassa interpretation are right now at the level where we really can say: “this is what we want to express to people.”

You’re talking about the Percussive Planet Ensemble; tell us a little bit more as the web is quite silent about it.
The Percussive Planet Ensemble was founded at the Bonn Beethoven Festival in 2006. The members are all student colleagues and teachers of mine. They are so focused on music by Xenakis, Rihm, Cerha, and we just played a new piece by Cerha entitled Étoile at the Salzburg Festival and commissioned by the Salzburg Festival. These people are so dedicated to music by Xenakis because all of them also played the solo pieces, the Rebonds, Psappha, and Okho. They are perfect.

What about the name of the ensemble?
We have a project that is called The Percussive Planet, and it is a kind of music, a percussive journey through all five continents in one evening; so we do samba, salsa, tango, African drumming, contemporary music, funk, fusion, rock, pop, jazz, just in one evening, minimal music and so on; that’s why we called the project “The Percussive Planet.”

You have spoken about Xenakis’s composition, the form that is very structured, the emotions. What is the most difficult thing when you concentrate, when you go on stage and you perform Xenakis? You said on Bavarian TV, that after Pléïades you were all going to bed, even you.
I told my colleagues in the Percussive Planet Ensemble that at the end of Xenakis’s Pléïades, when we do the last drumming movement, on the congas, after this no one should have any power left to play again. And that is because I want my musicians just to give everything they have until the last Peaux part.

That’s a kind of meditation in some way.
Yes, and it must be really tight, and then you know it must be played with such an impact. The ending must be played really with the last you can give as a performer. After that, there is just nothing because you cannot play anything as an encore after Xenakis’s Pléïades. It has such a deep impact. I so much look forward to doing it soon because it’s THE perfect piece.

Did you have talks with conductors explaining to you the same thing about some symphony works? Is that really only for percussionists, this kind of feeling? You have to manage an economy of… I don’t know, it was the first time I heard from a musician this kind of thing; it was really close to Eastern meditation. You know exactly how to manage your time economically and energetically.
Yes, that’s interesting. I would say it’s our philosophy of playing because we deeply feel and think that it’s our duty just to give everything we can give into this piece. And for instance, Métaux in Pléïades, it’s not so easy for people to listen to it. I mean it’s complicated. There are high frequencies, and sometimes it’s really loud, but on the other hand it’s so important for us to play all these different colors you know with the wooden sticks, with the soft mallets, the medium mallets, the hard mallets, in real pianissimo. I want them to play real pianissimo, and then you can hear six players in pianissimo on the Sixxen, so on the metal parts.

Can Xenakis’s music be part of the regular repertoire?
You know, Xenakis’s percussion works are so popular in Austria; every student plays Rebonds, Psappha, and all these works. I think this is maybe the biggest challenge, to ask our contemporary musicians to bring this to the “normal” repertoire. I think this is so important, that our conductors and large orchestras start just to do it as a repertoire piece.

Have you performed Xenakis’s music in Paris?
My biggest wish would be to perform Pléïades and others Xenakis pieces in Paris once, and this because it is the center of his music.


Interview: Éric Denut