Offrandes (in English, Offerings) is a short composition for soprano and chamber orchestra by French composer Edgard Varèse.
Offrandes, entitled Dedications for the premiere,[1] was written on a commission by the International Composers' Guild, of which Varèse himself was the director.
[2] The piece, finished in 1921, was completed shortly after Varèse released a manifesto praising composers and attacking performers.
[7] In these two settings, the melody did not prevail over duration and timbre, and there is a shift of orchestral powers: the strings are underpowered whereas the percussion is strongly emphasized, both in presence and in number of musicians.
Varèse aimed to eliminate the performer's lung capacity as a limiting factor, ensuring that long, extreme notes in his compositions could be sustained without interruption.