Programme Index

Discover 11,128,835 listings and 279,767 playable programmes from the BBC

Radio 3's Fifty Modern Classics

Iannis Xenakis's Nomos Alpha

Duration: 11 minutes

First broadcast:

Available for over a year

Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explains how Iannis Xenakis uses the symmetry of a cube to determine musical parameters in Nomos Alpha for solo cello; Paul Griffiths highlights the composer's innovations in the fields of sound and instrumental writing; and we hear an archive interview in which Xenakis credits his teacher Olivier Messiaen in helping him to find his own compositional voice. Show less

About this data

This data is drawn from the data stream that informs BBC's iPlayer and Sounds. The information shows what was scheduled to be broadcast, meaning it was/is subject to change and may not be accurate. More