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Pierre Boulez

63K views 308 replies 72 participants last post by  Richannes Wrahms 
#1 · (Edited)
I couldnt find a thread and as Ive been getting into some of his music a lot lately, I thought Id make one.

Boulez was a student of Messiaen. A very ideological man with great passion and from what Ive seen and read, great intellect. In his younger days he was known for attacking certain schools of music which didnt fit in with his view of art, but he is a little more moderate nowadays. He's written in quite a few different styles, total serialism to gestural music, and convinced Stravinsky to start writing in a serial style. Hes written a few great masterpieces imo; the 2nd piano sonata which caused the pianist to burst into tears upon first sight of the score; Le Marteau Sans Maitre, a beautiful serialist song cycle exploring subtle differences in timbre.

He works slowly and often revises his works many times throughout his career.

Of course he is also a fabulous conductor who brings great clarity to the score. I value his recordings, and also enjoyed seeing him conduct and rehearse in the Concertgebouw.

The work im currently grappling are his Derives, particularly the 1st. Magnificent pieces.

If you are a fan, I can recommend the book; 'conversations with Boulez', which was really illuminating.
 
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#10 ·
The third is a little mysterious in terms of performances and editions etc...

Did you know it was a result of many articles and essays dealing with aleatorism in music? He criticised aleatoric practises and proposed a new method, this sonata being the product. It may help you to take a look at some of these writings.
 
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#3 ·
Nice post. I've got a 4-disc set on Erato which contains both 'core' output and also some of his lesser-know material but omits signature works such as the aforementioned Le marteau sans maitre and the 2nd piano sonata, so those would probably be the two principal works I'd turn to next whenever I get around to it. That said, 4 discs has been enough for me anyway over the years as they contain sufficient variety (and difficulty) to continue sustaining me for a long time to come!

Of the recordings that feature Boulez as a conductor, I must give credit to his Bruckner 8. I bought it on spec more out of morbid curiosity than anything to see how his cold-fish Darmstadt logic (my preconception) would interact with Bruckner's epic religious-based soundworld but I needn't have worried - Boulez produced a performance that was both warm and clear and although it's one of the shortest 8ths I've heard it never sounds rushed or forced.
 
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#6 ·
Boulez is probably my favourite living composer. My favourite works by him are the three piano sonatas, Pli selon pli, Éclat, Messagesquisse, …explosante-fixe…, Dérive 1 and Sur incises.

It's a shame he has devoted so much time to conducting, for although a great conductor, he is an even greater composer. Unfortunately, the merits of his conducting vis-à-vis those of his music according to most are reminiscent of the position in which Mahler found himself over 100 years ago.
 
#7 ·
Bah! Humbug!

On a more serious note:

One of my Internet friends has been championing Boulez's music for decades. He persuaded me to 'make the effort'. I can find no way in; the hillbilly mentality maybe.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I have his three piano sonatas played by Idil Biret on Naxos, and also the second one played by Maurizio Pollini on his DGG collection of modern piano works. I think both are useful to appreciate this work, but I prefer Biret's more fiery and no-holds-barred style. I remember the first sonata for kind of having a sound-world not unlike Debussy, or kind of streching that aesthetic as far as it goes into atonal. The second sonata I remember for it's complex counterpoint, esp. the final movement, that kind of broken toccata, and the peaks and troughs I also hear in Webern's music. Then the third sonata I like for the way the keys are hit and allowed to decay and the strings just naturally resonate, kind of treating the piano as a percussion instrument rather than a mini orchestra. Gamelan?

Gamelan, the feel of Asian music, is certainly present in Le Marteau Sans Maître, one of the most complex scores since Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (who admired the work greatly, he said it was one of the finest to come out of the younger generation). Boulez's changing time signatures and the onomatopoeia of the vocal part really bring the Surrealist poetry of Rene Char to life. This work is also part of a long line streching back to Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, a seminal work of song-cycle genre in the 20th century.

I have the album which Vaneyes put an image of above (the third image), I don't mind the two shorter works - a piece for 8 cellos which is my favourite on the disc, and also an electroacoustic piece with solo violin, which is interesting if not much else - but I simply don't 'get' Sur Incises. Maybe it's too complex for me. But even Copland said that while Boulez produced fine scores, even he as a fellow composer found them overly complex, and could understand if even a seasoned classical listener would think similarly. Sur Incises is said to be like a musical labyrinth, so it's probably successful in that way, I can't make head nor tail of it.

Of other works I've heard, the Derive pieces where interesting and had this visceral 'gut' impact on me.

I have no time for his ideology, or his former ideology. But I can separate the man from his compositions. He may have mellowed in old age, but so too has the world changed around him. If he said the things he said when he was young - eg. that Shostakovich was like a third pressing of Mahler - not many people would agree with him today. Then there's IRCAM - the institute for electronic music research in Paris - which many see as a kind of white elephant.

As for his conducting, I am okay with that, but I like my Second Viennese School composers to be done with a little more bite and a tad less detachment, but that may well be a matter of detail and very subjective.
 
#12 ·
The following recording was released recently. It encludes Boulez's Dérive 1 & 2, #2 is world premiere recording on this CD. They call for modest chamber forces without electronic extensions and are conceived as continuations of works in progress. All three also work with compositional techniques derived from canon and heterophony and each of them is dedicated to people close to Boulez himself.

 
#13 · (Edited)
I have been listening to Boulez's 'Rituel', I think it's one of my favorites pieces of him. It has a very 'primitive' sound, like a modern and blurred version of some ancient funeral march. I see surreal images of a primitive funeral in the middle of a modern city, with glass buildings and angular details, but always in a dream like context, where you see nonsensical images but you, in the dream, don't perceive that they are nonsensical. I love that kind of images.

 
#14 ·
I agree!

I was lucky enough to see the Concertgebouworkest perform it a few months ago, and the spatial arrangement of the sound really added to my appreciation
 
#17 ·
One of the best piano recordings is on HATART, and has Boulez' Structures coupled with a John Cage piece. Very illuminating to hear the similarities in these works, it makes a very satisfying (and relaxing) listening experience, with lots of space. The liner notes are very illuminating.

An obscure Boulez as conductor item is the remastered "Handel Water Music" on Sony. Who woulda thunk?
 
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#19 ·
One of the best piano recordings is on HATART, and has Boulez' Structures coupled with a John Cage piece. Very illuminating to hear the similarities in these works, it makes a very satisfying (and relaxing) listening experience, with lots of space. The liner notes are very illuminating. [...]
Is that Structures Livre 1 or 2? And are the pianists you mention the Kontarskys or Aimard and Boffard?
 
#23 · (Edited)
There's one thing I'd like to know about him. I'm always finding quotes of him saying something negative about this or that composer (and he said something negative about A LOT of composers). Even the ones who influenced him, Webern is too simple, Messiaen wrote brothel music... I'm ok with a person with strong opinions, but is there anything that he really likes? Something that he consider a masterpiece? I mean, I think I he likes Mahler because he dismissed both Shostakhovic and Rochberg saying that he compares negatively to him.
 
#24 ·
I think Boulez likes French and German composers best. Ravel, Debussy, Messiaen, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Here he talks in very good terms about Debussy's "Jeux" (also the etudes, and late style in general) and Ligeti's Violin Concerto (and late style in general). Also Kurtag and Carter.

I really like that interview, he makes some really, really interesting and purely musical commentaries, a "masterclass".

Boulez is really a very clever man. He's capable of appreciating music at various different levels, and also of noticing different facets. In that interview, he gives really detailed critiques, he points out the different presences and absences in the styles of the composers he's talking about. His comments there are always multi-faceted and therefore very interesting and balanced.
 
#27 · (Edited)
The Opinions of Boulez

I do not think Boulez is anymore opinionated than some of the members of TC.

At times I disagree with Boulez but at least when he dislikes a composer he has performed the music and is very familiar with it.
 
#33 ·
I usually attribute character flaws in a person with the way their parents raised them. I read about how strict Boulez' father was, and how he and his sister 'defeated them.' A French Catholic background, I assume. Then you read about how OCD he is, like having ten identical suits hanging in his closet, and that's all. He has said that he 'lived like a monk,' with total dedication to music, at the exclusion of all else. So, give the guy a break; he's a totally dedicated genius, in my opinion, and I don't expect him to be a 'nice guy' or a good politician. I do hope he is nice to me if I should ever meet him. He was nice to Frank Zappa.
 
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#35 ·
http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/music/boulez.html

But still his relationship with his home country remained problematic. Although he conducted several important works in Paris throughout the Sixties, he was consistently slighted by the French Establishment, which had numerous ties to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. In 1964, the government overlooked Boulez's suggestions to invigorate the French musical scene, and appointed a second-rate neo-Romantic composer to the Ministry office of Musical Director. Boulez was furious, cancelling all his appearances, severing his connection to the Domaine, and even forbidding the Orchestre de Paris to play his works.

I've been trying out, through all sorts of searches, who this "second rate neo-romantic composer" would be, anyone here have an idea?
 
#37 ·
Boulez is the George Jones of modern music. Who's gonna fill his shoes?
 
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#43 ·
What a great Mozartian he was. I say that because of this wonderful recording of ealry Mozart concertos, made with Yvonne Loriod. God alone knows why they made such a bizarrre recording, they must have felt some sort of special affinity for this little known music. And it shows.

View attachment 42408
There's also a recording of him conducting Pires in the Mozart Concerto No. 20.
 
#44 · (Edited)
Yeah, that Mozart with Pires is beautiful! Get this CD for more...it sounds great in DTS surround.

http://amzn.com/B005LL4TZ0

The program consists of Ravel's 'Le Tombeau de Couperin,' Mozart's D Minor Piano Concerto, K. 466, and Bartók's 'Concerto for Orchestra'--three favorites well-loved by general audiences and cognoscenti alike.
 
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