Pleiades or “multitudes,” since there are six percussionists, and the four sections are titled: Mélanges (Blends), Métaux (Metals), Claviers (Keyboards), and Peaux (Skins).

Rhythm is the fundamental element of this work, inspired by concepts such as periodicity, copying, repetition, reproduction, concord, pseudo-concord, and discord. In Pléïades the idea of repeating (copying) a given event or state in which our physical universe is immersed finds its musical continuation in tonality. I have therefore taken up a double task: that of constructing a non-Western scale that could be performed on diatonic keyboard instruments, and that of creating a new metallophone called sixxen. 

Iannis Xenakis