Iannis Xenakis is another composer to have received Mode’s long-term advocacy, and this 15th instalment features a first recording for the original version of his breakthrough piece. The story goes that the composer had tried to interest Hermann Scherchen in several earlier works, with the conductor drawn instead to Metastaseis (1954) and agreeing to perform it were various revisions carried out. These were undertaken and the premiere, conducted by Hans Rosbaud, soon established Xenakis as a seminal figure of the European avant-garde.

Over six decades on and Metastaseis retains much of its expressive pungency and visceral immediacy. This ‘A’ version differs most audibly in terms of string textures evincing the last vestige of Romantic-era richness such as would hardly have escaped notice from Xenakis’s modernist contemporaries. Heard today, however, it stands as a fascinating if raw statement of intent by a composer needing only to take that final step towards stylistic maturity. Hence Terretektorh (1966) and Nomos gamma (1968), which find Xenakis at his most uninhibited. Here musicians are dispersed among the audience in what are early examples of immersive music-making, without need of electronic means. Their physical impact remains undimmed, with the former’s crackling percussive continuum finding contrast in the latter’s onslaught of drums in music whose methodical precision is outweighed by its ritualistic savagery.

Such is the impression conveyed by these performances, in which only a slightly confined balance can be faulted. Alternatives are not numerous: Mario Venzago has already recorded the revision of Metastasis on his fifth volume of Xenakis’s orchestral music (Timpani), while Charles Bruck’s performances of the other pieces (Edition RZ, 9/71) is of largely historical value. The present disc is enhanced by detailed annotations from Ron Squibbs, a pleasure in themselves.