What can one add to such a write-up? With trepidation I offer a few personal details, taken from his
obituary in
The Independent.
He was born in Braila, Romania, on 29 May 1922, though his birth certificate was lost in the War and some relatives have said he was born in 1921. He was the eldest of three brothers. His mother was a proficient pianist, who died when he was five. His father had a passion for opera, and took the family to Paris and Bayreuth for it.
Living in Paris in 1950 he was invited to make a fourth for dinner, and met Françoise Gargouil. They lived together thereafter. In 1953 her employers, disapproving of their "concubinage", threatened to dismiss her, and they were married in a simple ceremony. It was a very happy marriage. They had one daughter.
In 1992 his seventieth birthday was celebrated across the world, and his work was being performed somewhere every day of the year.
Iannis Xenakis, Greece's greatest composer, died yesterday, 4 February 2001, in Paris.