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Pierre Boulez

January 26, 2023

Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (French: [pjɛʁ lwi ʒozεf bulɛz]; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music.

Boulez in 1968

Born in Montbrison in the Loire department of France, the son of an engineer, Boulez studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Olivier Messiaen, and privately with Andrée Vaurabourg and René Leibowitz. He began his professional career in the late 1940s as music director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company in Paris. He was a leading figure in avant-garde music, playing an important role in the development of integral serialism (in the 1950s), controlled chance music (in the 1960s) and the electronic transformation of instrumental music in real time (from the 1970s onwards). His tendency to revise earlier compositions meant that his body of work was relatively small, but it included pieces regarded by many as landmarks of twentieth-century music, such as Le Marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli and Répons. His uncompromising commitment to modernism and the trenchant, polemical tone in which he expressed his views on music led some to criticise him as a dogmatist.

Boulez was also one of the most prominent conductors of his generation. In a career lasting more than sixty years, he was music director of the New York Philharmonic and the Ensemble intercontemporain, chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. He made frequent appearances with many other orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. He was known for his performances of the music of the first half of the twentieth century—including Debussy and Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartók, and the Second Viennese School—as well as that of his contemporaries, such as Ligeti, Berio and Carter. His work in the opera house included the Jahrhundertring—the production of Wagner's Ring cycle for the centenary of the Bayreuth Festival—and the world premiere of the three-act version of Alban Berg's Lulu. His recorded legacy is extensive.

He founded several musical institutions: the Domaine musical, Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (IRCAM), Ensemble intercontemporain and Cité de la Musique in Paris, and the Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland.

Biography

1925–1943: Childhood and school days

Pierre Boulez was born on 26 March 1925, in Montbrison, a small town in the Loire department of east-central France, to Léon and Marcelle (née Calabre) Boulez.[1] He was the third of four children: an older sister, Jeanne (1922–2018)[2] and younger brother, Roger (b. 1936) were preceded by a first child, also called Pierre (b. 1920), who died in infancy. Léon (1891–1969), an engineer and technical director of a steel factory, is described by biographers as an authoritarian figure, but with a strong sense of fairness; Marcelle (1897–1985) as an outgoing, good-humoured woman, who deferred to her husband's strict Catholic beliefs, while not necessarily sharing them. The family prospered, moving in 1929 from the apartment above a pharmacy, where Boulez was born, to a comfortable detached house, where he spent most of his childhood.[3]

From the age of seven Boulez went to school at the Institut Victor de Laprade, a Catholic seminary where the thirteen-hour school day was filled with study and prayer. By the age of eighteen he had repudiated Catholicism[4] although later in life he described himself as an agnostic.[5]

As a child, Boulez took piano lessons, played chamber music with local amateurs and sang in the school choir.[6] After completing the first part of his baccalaureate a year early, he spent the academic year of 1940–41 at the Pensionnat St. Louis, a boarding school in nearby Saint-Étienne. The following year he took classes in advanced mathematics at the Cours Sogno in Lyon (a school established by the Lazaristes)[7] with a view to gaining admission to the École Polytechnique in Paris. His father hoped this would lead to a career in engineering.[8] He was in Lyon when the Vichy government fell, the Germans took over and the city became a centre of the resistance.[9]

In Lyon, Boulez first heard an orchestra, saw his first operas (Boris Godunov and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg)[10] and met the well-known soprano Ninon Vallin, who asked him to play for her. Impressed by his ability, she persuaded his father to allow him to apply to the Conservatoire de Lyon. He was rejected but was determined to pursue a career in music. The following year, with his sister's support in the face of opposition from his father, he studied the piano and harmony privately with Lionel de Pachmann (son of the pianist Vladimir).[11] "Our parents were strong, but finally we were stronger than they", Boulez later said.[12] In fact, when he moved to Paris in the autumn of 1943, hoping to enrol at the Conservatoire de Paris, his father accompanied him, helped him to find a room (in the 7th arrondissement) and subsidised him until he could earn a living.[13]

1943–1946: Musical education

In October 1943, he auditioned unsuccessfully for the advanced piano class at the Conservatoire, but he was admitted in January 1944 to the preparatory harmony class of Georges Dandelot. He made such fast progress that, by May 1944, Dandelot described him as "the best of the class".[14]

Around the same time he was introduced to Andrée Vaurabourg, wife of the composer Arthur Honegger. Between April 1944 and May 1946 he studied counterpoint privately with her. He greatly enjoyed working with her and she remembered him as an exceptional student, using his exercises as models until the end of her teaching career.[15] In June 1944 he approached Olivier Messiaen, who wrote in his diary: 'Likes modern music. Wants to study harmony with me from now on.' Boulez began to attend the private seminars which Messiaen gave to selected students; in January 1945, he joined Messiaen's advanced harmony class at the Conservatoire.[16]

Boulez moved to two small attic rooms in the Marais district of Paris, where he lived for the next thirteen years.[17] In February 1945 he attended a private performance of Schoenberg's Wind Quintet, conducted by René Leibowitz, the composer and follower of Schoenberg. Its strict use of twelve-tone technique was a revelation to him and he organised a group of fellow students to take private lessons with Leibowitz. It was here that he also discovered the music of Webern.[18] He eventually found Leibowitz's approach too doctrinaire and broke angrily with him in 1946 when Leibowitz tried to criticise one of his early works.[19]

In June 1945, Boulez was one of four Conservatoire students awarded premier prix. He was described in the examiner's report as "the most gifted—a composer".[20] Although registered at the Conservatoire for the academic year 1945–46, he soon boycotted Simone Plé-Caussade's counterpoint and fugue class, infuriated by what he described as her "lack of imagination", and organised a petition that Messiaen be given a full professorship in composition.[21][22][n 1] Over the winter of 1945–46 he immersed himself in Balinese and Japanese music and African drumming at the Musée Guimet and the Musée de l'Homme in Paris:[24] "I almost chose the career of an ethnomusicologist because I was so fascinated by that music. It gives a different feeling of time."[25]

1946–1953: Early career in Paris

On 12 February 1946, the pianist Yvette Grimaud gave the first public performances of Boulez's music (Douze Notations and Trois Psalmodies) at the Concerts du Triptyque.[26] Boulez earned money by giving maths lessons to his landlord's son.[27] He also played the ondes Martenot (an early electronic instrument), improvising accompaniments to radio dramas and occasionally deputising in the pit orchestra of the Folies Bergère.[28] In October 1946, the actor and director Jean-Louis Barrault engaged him to play the ondes for a production of Hamlet for the new company he and his wife, Madeleine Renaud, had formed at the Théâtre Marigny.[29] Boulez was soon appointed music director of the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault, a post he held for nine years. He arranged and conducted incidental music, mostly by composers whose music he disliked (such as Milhaud and Tchaikovsky), but it gave him the chance to work with professional musicians, while leaving time to compose during the day.[30]

His involvement with the company also broadened his horizons: in 1947 they toured to Belgium and Switzerland ("absolutely pays de cocagne, my first discovery of the big world");[9] in 1948 they took Hamlet to the second Edinburgh International Festival;[31] in 1951 they gave a season of plays in London, at the invitation of Laurence Olivier;[32] and between 1950 and 1957 there were three tours to South America and two to North America.[33] Much of the music he wrote for the company was lost during the student occupation of the Théâtre de l'Odéon in 1968.[34]

The period between 1947 and 1950 was one of intense compositional activity for Boulez. New works included the first two piano sonatas and initial versions of two cantatas on poems by René Char, Le Visage nuptial[n 2] and Le Soleil des eaux.[35][n 3] In October 1951, a substantial work for eighteen solo instruments, Polyphonie X, caused a scandal at its premiere at the Donaueschingen Festival, some audience members disrupting the performance with hisses and whistles.[36]

Around this time, Boulez met two composers who were to be important influences: John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His friendship with Cage began in 1949 when Cage was visiting Paris. Cage introduced Boulez to two publishers (Heugel and Amphion) who agreed to take his recent pieces; Boulez helped to arrange a private performance of Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano.[37] When Cage returned to New York they began an intense, six-year correspondence about the future of music. In 1952 Stockhausen arrived in Paris to study with Messiaen.[38] Although Boulez knew no German and Stockhausen no French, the rapport between them was instant: "A friend translated [and] we gesticulated wildly ... We talked about music all the time—in a way I've never talked about it with anyone else."[39]

Towards the end of 1951, a tour with the Renaud-Barrault company took him to New York for the first time, where he met Stravinsky and Varèse.[38] He stayed at Cage's apartment but their friendship was already cooling as he could not accept Cage's increasing commitment to compositional procedures based on chance; he later broke off contact with him.[40]

In July 1952, Boulez attended the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt for the first time. As well as Stockhausen, Boulez was in contact there with other composers who would become significant figures in contemporary music, including Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, and Henri Pousseur. Boulez quickly became one of the leaders of the post-war modernist movement in the arts. As the music critic Alex Ross observed: "at all times he seemed absolutely sure of what he was doing. Amid the confusion of postwar life, with so many truths discredited, his certitude was reassuring."[41]

1954–1959: Le Domaine musical

 
The Salle Popesco in Paris, formerly the Petit Marigny

In 1954, with the financial backing of Barrault and Renaud, Boulez started a series of concerts at the Petit Marigny theatre. They became known as the Domaine musical. The concerts focused initially on three areas: pre-war classics still unfamiliar in Paris (such as Bartók and Webern), works by the new generation (Stockhausen, Nono) and neglected masters from the past (Machaut, Gesualdo)—although for practical reasons the last category fell away in subsequent seasons.[42] Boulez proved an energetic and accomplished administrator and the concerts were an immediate success.[43] They attracted musicians, painters and writers, as well as fashionable society, but they were so costly that Boulez had to turn to wealthy private patrons for support.[44]

Key events in the Domaine's history included a Webern festival (1955), the European premiere of Stravinsky's Agon (1957) and first performances of Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques (1955) and Sept Haïkaï (1963). The concerts moved to the Salle Gaveau (1956–1959) and then to the Théâtre de l'Odéon (1959–1968). Boulez remained director until 1967, when Gilbert Amy succeeded him.[45]

On 18 June 1955, Hans Rosbaud conducted the first performance of Boulez's best-known work, Le Marteau sans maître[n 4], at the ISCM Festival in Baden-Baden. A nine-movement cycle for alto voice and instrumental ensemble based on poems by René Char,[1] it was an immediate, international success.[46] William Glock wrote: "even at a first hearing, though difficult to take in, it was so utterly new in sound, texture and feeling that it seemed to possess a mythical quality like that of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire."[47] When Boulez conducted the work in Los Angeles in early 1957, Stravinsky attended the performance; he later described the piece as "one of the few significant works of the post-war period of exploration".[1] Boulez dined several times with the Stravinskys and (according to Robert Craft) "soon captivated the older composer with new musical ideas, and an extraordinary intelligence, quickness and humour".[48] Relations between the two composers soured the following year over the first Paris performance of Stravinsky's Threni for the Domaine musical. Poorly planned by Boulez and nervously conducted by Stravinsky, the performance broke down more than once.[49]

In January 1958, the Improvisations sur Mallarmé (I et II) were premiered, forming the kernel of a piece which would grow over the next four years into a vast, five-movement "portrait of Mallarmé", Pli selon pli.[n 5] It received its premiere in Donaueschingen in October 1962.[50]

Around this time, Boulez's relations with Stockhausen grew increasingly tense as (according to the biographer Joan Peyser) he saw the younger man supplanting him as the leader of the avant-garde.[51]

1959–1971: International conducting career

In 1959, Boulez left Paris for Baden-Baden, where he had an arrangement with the South-West German Radio orchestra to work as composer-in-residence and to conduct some smaller concerts,[52] as well as access to an electronic studio where he could work on a new piece (Poésie pour pouvoir).[53][n 6] He moved into, and eventually bought, a large hillside villa, which was his main home for the rest of his life.[54]

During this period, he turned increasingly to conducting. His first engagement as an orchestral conductor had been in 1956, when he conducted the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra while on tour with Barrault.[55] In Cologne he conducted his own Le Visage nuptial in 1957 and—with Bruno Maderna and the composer—the first performances of Stockhausen's Gruppen in 1958. His breakthrough came in 1959 when he replaced the ailing Hans Rosbaud at short notice in demanding programmes of twentieth-century music at the Aix-en-Provence and Donaueschingen Festivals.[56] This led to debuts with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Bavarian Radio Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras.[57] In 1963 he conducted the Orchestre National de France in the 50th anniversary performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, where the piece had had its riotous premiere.[1]

 
George Szell in 1957.

That same year, he conducted his first opera, Berg's Wozzeck at the Opéra National de Paris, directed by Barrault. The conditions were exceptional, with thirty orchestral rehearsals instead of the usual three or four, the critical response was favourable and after the first performance the musicians rose to applaud him.[58] He conducted Wozzeck again in April 1966 at the Frankfurt Opera in a new production by Wieland Wagner.[59]

Wieland Wagner had already invited Boulez to conduct Wagner's Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival later in the season, and Boulez returned to conduct revivals in 1967, 1968 and 1970.[60] He also conducted performances of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with the Bayreuth company at the Osaka Festival in Japan in 1967, but the lack of adequate rehearsal made it an experience he later said he would rather forget.[61] By contrast, his conducting of the new production (by Václav Kašlík) of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande at Covent Garden in 1969 was praised for its combination of "delicacy and sumptuousness".[62]

In 1965, the Edinburgh International Festival staged the first full-scale retrospective of Boulez as composer and conductor.[63] In 1966, he proposed a reorganisation of French musical life to the then minister of culture, André Malraux, but Malraux instead appointed the conservative Marcel Landowski as head of music at the Ministry of Culture. Boulez expressed his fury in an article in the Nouvel Observateur, announcing that he was "going on strike with regard to any aspect of official music in France."[64]

The previous year, in March 1965, he had made his orchestral debut in the United States with the Cleveland Orchestra.[65] He became its principal guest conductor in February 1969, a post he held until the end of 1971.[66] After the death of George Szell in July 1970, he took on the role of music advisor for two years, but the title was largely honorary, owing to his commitments in London and New York.[67] In the 1968–69 season, he also made guest appearances in Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles.[68]

Apart from Pli selon pli, the only substantial new work to emerge in the first half of the 1960s was the final version of Book 2 of his Structures for two pianos.[69] Midway through the decade, however, Boulez appeared to find his voice again and produced a number of new works, including Éclat (1965),[n 7] a short and brilliant piece for small ensemble,[70] which by 1970 had grown into a substantial half-hour work, Éclat/Multiples.[71]

1971–1977: London and New York

Boulez first conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in February 1964, at Worthing, accompanying Vladimir Ashkenazy in a Chopin piano concerto. Boulez recalled the experience: "It was terrible, I felt like a waiter who keeps dropping the plates."[72]

His appearances with the orchestra over the next five years included his debuts at the Proms and at Carnegie Hall (1965)[73] and tours to Moscow and Leningrad, Berlin and Prague (1967).[74] In January 1969 William Glock, controller of music at the BBC, announced his appointment as chief conductor.[75]

External image
  Programme for NYPO Rug Concert, 17 June 1973[76]

Two months later, Boulez conducted the New York Philharmonic for the first time.[77] His performances so impressed both orchestra and management that he was offered the chief conductorship in succession to Leonard Bernstein. Glock was dismayed and tried to persuade him that accepting the New York position would detract both from his work in London and his ability to compose but Boulez could not resist the opportunity (as Glock put it) "to reform the music-making of both these world cities" and in June the New York appointment was confirmed.[78]

His tenure in New York lasted between 1971 and 1977 and was not an unqualified success. The dependence on a subscription audience limited his programming. He introduced more key works from the first half of the twentieth century and, with earlier repertoire, sought out less well-known pieces.[79] In his first season, for example, he conducted Liszt's The Legend of Saint Elizabeth and Via Crucis.[80] Performances of new music were comparatively rare in the subscription series. The players admired his musicianship but came to regard him as dry and unemotional by comparison with Bernstein, although it was widely accepted that he improved the standard of playing.[81] He returned on only three occasions to the orchestra in later years.[82]

His time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was altogether happier. With the resources of the BBC behind him, he could be bolder in his choice of repertoire.[81] There were occasional forays into the nineteenth century, particularly at the Proms (Beethoven's Missa solemnis in 1972; the Brahms German Requiem in 1973),[83] but for the most part he worked intensively with the orchestra on the music of the twentieth century. He conducted works by the younger generation of British composers—such as Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Maxwell Davies—but Britten and Tippett were absent from his programmes.[84] His relations with the musicians were generally excellent.[85] He was chief conductor between 1971 and 1975, continuing as chief guest conductor until 1977. Thereafter he returned to the orchestra frequently until his last appearance at an all-Janáček Prom in August 2008.[86]

In both cities, Boulez sought out venues where new music could be presented more informally: in New York he began a series of "Rug Concerts"—when the seats in Avery Fisher Hall were taken out and the audience sat on the floor—and a contemporary music series called "Prospective Encounters" in Greenwich Village.[87] In London he gave concerts at the Roundhouse, a former railway turntable shed which Peter Brook had also used for radical theatre productions. His aim was "to create a feeling that we are all, audience, players and myself, taking part in an act of exploration".[88]

In 1972, Wolfgang Wagner, who had succeeded his brother Wieland as director of the Bayreuth Festival, invited Boulez to conduct the 1976 centenary production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.[89] The director was Patrice Chéreau. Highly controversial in its first year, according to Barry Millington by the end of the run in 1980 "enthusiasm for the production vastly outweighed disapproval".[90] It was televised around the world.[91]

A small number of new works emerged during this period, of which perhaps the most important is Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna (1975).[92]

1977–1992: IRCAM

 
The IRCAM building at the Centre Pompidou

In 1970 Boulez was asked by President Pompidou to return to France and set up an institute specialising in musical research and creation at the arts complex—now known as the Centre Georges Pompidou—which was planned for the Beaubourg district of Paris. The Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique (IRCAM) opened in 1977.

Boulez’s model was the Bauhaus, which had been a meeting place for artists and scientists of all disciplines.[93] IRCAM's aims included research into acoustics, instrumental design and the use of computers in music.[1] The original building was constructed underground, partly to isolate it acoustically (an above-ground extension was added later).[94] The institution was criticised for absorbing too much state subsidy, Boulez for wielding too much power.[1] At the same time he founded the Ensemble Intercontemporain, a virtuoso ensemble which specialised in twentieth-century music and the creation of new works.[95]

In 1979, Boulez conducted the world premiere of the three-act version of Alban Berg's Lulu at the Paris Opera in Friedrich Cerha’s completion, and in Patrice Chéreau's production.[96] Otherwise he scaled back his conducting commitments to concentrate on IRCAM. Most of his appearances during this period were with his own Ensemble intercontemporain—including tours to the United States (1986), Australia (1988), the Soviet Union (1990) and Canada (1991)[97]—although he also renewed his links in the 1980s with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.[98]

By contrast, he composed significantly more during this period, producing a series of pieces which used the potential, developed at IRCAM, electronically to transform sound in real time. The first of these was Répons (1981–1984), a 40-minute work for soloists, ensemble and electronics. He also radically reworked earlier pieces, including Notations I-IV, a transcription and expansion of tiny piano pieces for large orchestra (1945–1980)[96] and his cantata on poems by René Char, Le Visage nuptial (1946–1989).[99]

In 1980, the five original directors of the IRCAM departments, including the composer Luciano Berio, resigned. Although Boulez declared these changes "very healthy", it clearly represented a crisis in his leadership.[100]

Retrospectives of his music were mounted in Paris (Festival d'Automne, 1981), Baden-Baden (1985) and London (BBC, 1989).[101] From 1976 to 1995, he held the Chair in Invention, technique et langage en musique at the Collège de France.[102] In 1988 he made a series of six programmes for French television, Boulez XXe siècle, each of which focused on a specific aspect of contemporary music (rhythm, timbre, form etc.)[103] He also bought a flat on the 30th floor of a building in the Front de Seine district of Paris.[104]

1992–2006: Return to conducting

 
Boulez at a conference at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 2004

In 1992, Boulez gave up the directorship of IRCAM and was succeeded by Laurent Bayle.[105] He was composer in residence at that year's Salzburg Festival.[101]

The previous year he began a series of annual residencies with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1995 he was named principal guest conductor in Chicago, only the third conductor to hold that position in the orchestra's history. He held the post until 2005, when he became conductor emeritus.[106] His 70th birthday in 1995 was marked by a six-month retrospective tour with the London Symphony Orchestra, taking in Paris, Vienna, New York and Tokyo.[107] In 2001 he conducted a major Bartók cycle with the Orchestre de Paris.[105]

This period also marked a return to the opera house, including two productions with Peter Stein: Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (1992, Welsh National Opera[108] and Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris); and Schoenberg's Moses und Aron (1995, Dutch National Opera[109] and Salzburg Festival). In 2004 and 2005 he returned to Bayreuth to conduct a controversial new production of Parsifal directed by Christoph Schlingensief.[110]

The two most substantial compositions from this period are ...explosante-fixe... (1993), which had its origins in 1972 as a tribute to Stravinsky and which again used the electronic resources of IRCAM,[111] and sur Incises (1998), for which he was awarded the 2001 Grawemeyer Prize for composition.[112]

He continued to work on institutional organisation. He co-founded the Cité de la Musique, which opened in La Villette on the outskirts of Paris in 1995.[27] Consisting of a modular concert hall, museum and mediatheque—with the Paris' Conservatoire on an adjacent site—it became the home to the Ensemble Intercontemporain and attracted a diverse audience.[113] In 2004, he co-founded the Lucerne Festival Academy, an orchestral institute for young musicians, dedicated to music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.[114] For the next ten years he spent the last three weeks of summer working with young composers and conducting concerts with the Academy's orchestra.[115]

2006–2016: Last years

Boulez's last major work was Dérive 2 (2006), a 45-minute piece for eleven instruments.[116] He left a number of compositional projects unfinished, including the remaining Notations for orchestra.[1]

 
Boulez at the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2008 with the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg

He remained active as a conductor over the next six years. In 2007 he was re-united with Chéreau for a production of Janáček's From the House of the Dead (Theater an der Wien, Amsterdam and Aix).[117] In April of the same year, as part of the Festtage in Berlin, Boulez and Daniel Barenboim gave a cycle of the Mahler symphonies with the Staatskapelle Berlin, which they repeated two years later at Carnegie Hall.[118] In late 2007 the Orchestre de Paris and the Ensemble Intercontemporain presented a retrospective of Boulez's music[119] and in 2008 the Louvre mounted the exhibition Pierre Boulez, Œuvre: fragment.[103]

His appearances became more infrequent after an eye operation in 2010 left him with severely impaired sight. Other health problems included a shoulder injury resulting from a fall.[120] In late 2011, when he was already quite frail,[121] he led the combined Ensemble Intercontemporain and Lucerne Festival Academy, with the soprano Barbara Hannigan, in a tour of six European cities of his own Pli selon pli.[122] His final appearance as a conductor was in Salzburg on 28 January 2012 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Mitsuko Uchida in a programme of Schoenberg (Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene and the Piano Concerto), Mozart (Piano Concerto No.19 in F major K459) and Stravinsky (Pulcinella Suite).[123] Thereafter he cancelled all conducting engagements.

Later in 2012, he worked with the Diotima Quartet, making final revisions to his only string quartet, Livre pour quatuor, begun in 1948.[124] In 2013 he oversaw the release on Deutsche Grammophon of Pierre Boulez: Complete Works, a 13-CD survey of all his authorised compositions. He remained Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy until 2014, but his health prevented him from taking part in the many celebrations held across the world for his 90th birthday in 2015.[125] These included a multi-media exhibition at the Musée de la Musique in Paris, which focused in particular on the inspiration Boulez had drawn from literature and the visual arts.[126]

Boulez died on 5 January 2016 at his home in Baden-Baden.[127] He was buried on 13 January in Baden-Baden's main cemetery following a private funeral service at the town's Stiftskirche. At a memorial service the next day at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, eulogists included Daniel Barenboim, Renzo Piano, and Laurent Bayle, then president of the Philharmonie de Paris,[128] whose large concert hall had been inaugurated the previous year, thanks in no small measure to Boulez's influence.[129]

 
Boulez's grave in Baden-Baden, 28 November 2016

Compositions

See also: List of compositions by Pierre Boulez

Juvenilia and student works

Boulez's earliest surviving compositions date from his school days in 1942–43, mostly songs on texts by Baudelaire, Gautier and Rilke.[130] Gerald Bennett describes the pieces as "modest, delicate and rather anonymous [employing] a certain number of standard elements of French salon music of the time—whole-tone scales, pentatonic scales and polytonality".[131]

As a student at the Conservatoire Boulez composed a series of pieces influenced first by Honegger and Jolivet (Prelude, Toccata and Scherzo and Nocturne for solo piano (1944–45))[132] and then by Messiaen (Trois psalmodies for piano (1945) and a Quartet for four ondes Martenot (1945–46)).[133] The encounter with Schoenberg—through his studies with Leibowitz—was the catalyst for his first piece of serial music, the Thème et variations for piano, left hand (1945). Peter O'Hagan describes it as "his boldest and most ambitious work to date".[134]

Douze notations and the work in progress

Boulez completed Douze notations in December 1945. It is in these twelve aphoristic pieces for piano, each twelve bars long, that Bennett first detects the influence of Webern.[135] Shortly after the composition of the piano original, Boulez attempted an (unperformed and unpublished) orchestration of eleven of the pieces.[136] Over a decade later he re-used two of them[n 8] in instrumental interludes in his Improvisation I sur Mallarmé.[137] Then in the mid-1970s he embarked on a further, more radical transformation of the Notations into extended works for very large orchestra,[138] a project which preoccupied him to the end of his life.

This is only the most extreme example of Boulez's tendency to revisit earlier works: "as long as my ideas have not exhausted every possibility of proliferation they stay in my mind."[139] Robert Piencikowski characterises this in part as "an obsessional concern for perfection" and observes that with some pieces "one could speak of successive distinct versions, each one presenting a particular state of the musical material, without the successor invalidating the previous one or vice versa"—although he notes that Boulez almost invariably vetoed the performance of previous versions.[140]

First published works

The Sonatine for flute and piano (1946–1949) was the first work Boulez allowed to be published. A serial work of great energy, its single-movement form was influenced by Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1.[141] Bennett finds in the piece a tone new to Boulez's writing: "a sharp, brittle violence juxtaposed against an extreme sensitivity and delicacy".[142] In the Piano Sonata No. 1 (1946–49) the biographer Dominique Jameux highlights the sheer number of different kinds of attack in its two short movements—and the frequent accelerations of tempo in the second movement—which together create a feeling of "instrumental delirium".[143]

There followed two cantatas based on the poetry of René Char. Of Le Visage nuptial[n 2] Paul Griffiths observes that "Char's five poems speak in hard-edged surrealist imagery of an ecstatic sexual passion", which Boulez reflected in music "on the borders of fevered hysteria". In its original version (1946–47) the piece was scored for small forces (soprano, contralto, two ondes Martenot, piano and percussion). Forty years later Boulez arrived at the definitive version for soprano, mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra (1985–1989).[99] Le Soleil des eaux[n 3] (1948) originated in incidental music for a radio drama by Char. It went through three further versions before reaching its final form in 1965 as a piece for soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra.[144] The first movement (Complainte du lézard amoureux[n 9]) is a love song addressed by a lizard to a goldfinch in the heat of a summer day;[145] the second (La Sorgue) is a violent, incantatory protest against the pollution of the river Sorgue.[146]

The Second Piano Sonata (1947–48) is a half-hour work which requires formidable technical prowess from the performer.[147] Its four movements follow the standard pattern of a classical sonata but in each of them Boulez subverts the traditional model.[148] For Griffiths the violent character of much of the music "is not just superficial: it is expressive of … a need to obliterate what had gone before".[149] Boulez played the work for Aaron Copland, who asked: "But must we start a revolution all over again?"—"Yes, mercilessly", Boulez replied.[150]

Total serialism

That revolution entered its most extreme phase in 1950–1952, when Boulez developed a technique in which not only pitch but other musical parameters—duration, dynamics, timbre and attack—were organised according to serial principles, an approach known as total serialism or punctualism. Messiaen had already made an experiment in this direction in his Mode de valeurs et d'intensités[n 10] for piano (1949). Boulez's first sketches towards total serialism appeared in parts of Livre pour quatuor (Book for Quartet, 1948–49, revised 2011–12), a collection of movements for string quartet from which the players may choose at any one performance, foreshadowing Boulez's later interest in variable form.[151]

In the early 1950s Boulez began to apply the technique rigorously, ordering each parameter into sets of twelve and prescribing no repetition until all twelve had sounded. According to the music critic Alex Ross the resulting surfeit of ever-changing musical data has the effect of erasing at any given point previous impressions the listener may have formed: "the present moment is all there is".[152] Boulez linked this development to a desire by his generation to create a tabula rasa after the war.[153]

His works in this idiom are Polyphonie X (1950–51; withdrawn) for 18 instruments, the two musique concrète études (1951–52; withdrawn), and Structures, Book I for two pianos (1951–52).[151] Speaking of Structures, Book I in 2011 Boulez described it as a piece in which "the responsibility of the composer is practically absent. Had computers existed at that time I would have put the data through them and made the piece that way. But I did it by hand...It was a demonstration through the absurd." Asked whether it should still be listened to as music, Boulez replied: "I am not terribly eager to listen to it. But for me it was an experiment that was absolutely necessary."[153]

Le Marteau sans maître and Pli selon pli

Structures, Book I was a turning point for Boulez. Recognising a lack of expressive flexibility in the language (described in his essay "At the Limit of Fertile Land..."),[154] Boulez loosened the strictness of total serialism into a more supple and strongly gestural music: "I am trying to rid myself of my thumbprints and taboos", he wrote to Cage.[155] The most significant result of this new freedom was Le Marteau sans maître[n 4] (1953–1955), described by Griffiths and Bill Hopkins as a "keystone of twentieth-century music".[151] Three short poems by Char form the starting-point for three interlocking cycles. Four movements are vocal settings of the poems (one is set twice), the other five are instrumental commentaries. According to Hopkins and Griffiths the music is characterised by abrupt tempo transitions, passages of broadly improvisatory melodic style and exotic instrumental colouring.[151] The piece is scored for contralto soloist with alto flute, xylorimba, vibraphone, percussion, guitar and viola. Boulez said that the choice of these instruments showed the influence of non-European cultures, to which he had always been attracted.[156]

For the text of his next major work, Pli selon pli[n 5] (1957–1989), Boulez turned to the symbolist poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé, attracted by its extreme density and radical syntax.[157] At seventy minutes, it is his longest composition. Three Improvisations—of increasing complexity—on individual sonnets are framed by two orchestral movements, into which fragments of other poems are embedded.[158] Boulez's word-setting, which in the first Improvisation is straightforwardly syllabic, becomes ever more melismatic, to the point where the words cannot be distinguished. Boulez's stated aim was to make the sonnets become the music at a deeper, structural level.[159] The piece is scored for soprano and large orchestra, often deployed in chamber groups. Boulez described its sound-world, rich in percussion, as "not so much frozen as extraordinarily 'vitrified'".[160] The work had a complex genesis, reaching its definitive form in 1989.[161]

Controlled chance

From the 1950s Boulez experimented with what he called "controlled chance" and he developed his views on aleatoric music in the articles "Aléa"[162] and "Sonate, que me veux-tu?"[n 11], in which he wrote of "the investigation of a relative world, a permanent 'discovering' rather like the state of 'permanent revolution'".[163]

Peyser observes that Boulez's use of chance is different from John Cage’s. In Cage's music the performers are often free to create unforeseen sounds, with the aim of removing the composer's intention from the music; in Boulez's music they choose between possibilities that have been written out by the composer.[164] When applied to the order of sections, this is sometimes described as "mobile form", a technique devised by Earle Brown, who was inspired by the mobile sculptures of Alexander Calder. Brown and Cage introduced Boulez to Calder when Boulez was visiting New York in 1952.[165]

Boulez employed variants of the technique in a number of works over the next two decades: in the Third Piano Sonata (1955–1957, revised 1963) the pianist may choose different routes through the score and in one movement (Trope) has the option of omitting certain passages altogether;[166] in Éclat[n 7] (1965), the conductor triggers the order in which each player joins the ensemble; in Domaines (1961–1968) it is the soloist who dictates the order in which the sections are played by his movement around the stage. In later works, such as Cummings ist der Dichter[n 12] (1970, revised 1986)—a chamber cantata for 16 solo voices and small orchestra using a poem by E. E. Cummings—the conductor is given choice as to the order of certain events but there is no freedom for the individual player. In its original version Pli selon pli also contained elements of choice for the instrumentalists, but much of this was eliminated in later revisions.

By contrast Figures—Doubles—Prismes (1957–1968) is a fixed work with no chance element. Piencikowski describes it as "a great cycle of variations whose components interpenetrate each other instead of remaining isolated in the traditional manner".[167] It is notable for the unusual layout of the orchestra, in which the various families of instruments (woodwind, brass etc.) are scattered across the stage rather than being grouped together.[168]

Middle-period works

Jonathan Goldman identifies a major aesthetic shift in Boulez's work from the mid-1970s onwards, characterised variously by the presence of thematic writing, a return to vertical harmony and to clarity and legibility of form.[169] Boulez himself said: "the envelope is simpler. The contents are not ... I think in my recent work it is true that the first approach is more direct, and the gesture is more obvious, let's say."[170] The works from this period are amongst his most frequently performed.

For Goldman, Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna (1974–75) marks the beginning of this development. Boulez wrote this twenty-five minute work as an epitaph for his friend and colleague, the Italian composer and conductor, who died in 1973 at the age of 53. The piece is divided into fifteen sections, the orchestra into eight groups. The odd-numbered sections are conducted; in the even-numbered sections the conductor merely sets each group in motion and its progress is regulated by a percussionist beating time. In his dedication Boulez described the work as "a ritual of disappearance and survival";[171] Griffiths refers to the work's "awesome grandeur".[172]

Notations I–IV (1980) are the first four transformations of piano miniatures from 1945 into pieces for very large orchestra. In his review of the New York premiere, Andrew Porter wrote that the single idea of each original piece "has, as it were, been passed through a many-faceted bright prism and broken into a thousand linked, lapped, sparkling fragments", the finale "a terse modern Rite ... which sets the pulses racing".[173]

Dérive 1[n 13] (1984), dedicated to William Glock on his retirement from the Bath Festival,[75] is a short quintet in which the piano takes the lead. The material is derived from six chords and, according to Ivan Hewett, the piece "shuffles and decorates these chords, bursting outwards in spirals and eddies, before returning to its starting point". At the end the music "shivers into silence".[175]

Works with electronics

Boulez compared the experience of listening to pre-recorded electronic music in the concert hall to a crematorium ceremony. His real interest lay in the instantaneous transformation of instrumental sounds but the technology was not available until the founding of IRCAM in the 1970s. Before then he had produced Deux Etudes (1951) for magnetic tape for Pierre Schaeffer's Groupe Recherche de la Radiodiffusion Française,[176] as well as a large-scale piece for live orchestra with tape, Poésie pour pouvoir (1958)[n 6]. He was dissatisfied with both pieces and withdrew them.[177]

The first piece completed at IRCAM was Répons (1980–1984).[n 14] In this forty-minute work an instrumental ensemble is placed in the middle of the hall, while six soloists surround the audience: two pianos, harp, cimbalom, vibraphone and glockenspiel/xylophone. It is their music which is transformed electronically and projected through the space. Peter Heyworth described the moment when they enter, some ten minutes into the piece: "it is as though a great window were thrown open, through which a new sound world enters, and with it a new world of the imagination. Even more impressive is the fact that there is no longer a schism between the worlds of natural and electronic sounds, but rather a continuous spectrum."[179]

Dialogue de l'ombre double (1982–1985)[n 15] for clarinet and electronics grew out of a fragment of Domaines and was a gift for Luciano Berio on his 60th birthday. Lasting around eighteen minutes, it is a dialogue between a solo clarinet (played live, though sometimes reverberated through an offstage piano) and its double (in passages pre-recorded by the same musician and projected around the hall). Boulez approved transcriptions of the piece for bassoon (in 1995) and for recorder (in 2011).

In the early 1970s he had worked on an extended chamber piece called …explosante-fixe…[n 16] for eight solo instruments, electronically transformed by a machine called a halophone, but the technology was still primitive and he eventually withdrew it.[180] He re-used some of its material in other works, including a later piece with the same name.[181] This definitive version, recorded commercially, was composed at IRCAM between 1991 and 1993 for MIDI-flute and two accompanying flutes with ensemble and live electronics. By this time the technology was such that the computer could follow the score and respond to triggers from the players.[182] According to Griffiths, "the principal flute is caught as if in a hall of mirrors, its line imitated in what the other flutes play, and then in the contributions of the larger ensemble.".[183] Hopkins and Griffiths describe it as "music characteristically caught between thrill and desperation".[151]

Anthèmes II for violin and electronics (1997) grew out of a piece for solo violin Anthèmes I (1991), which Boulez wrote for the Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in Paris and which in turn derived from material in the original …explosante-fixe…[171] The virtuoso writing for the instrument is captured by the electronic system, transformed in real time and propelled around the space to create what Jonathan Goldman calls a "hyper-violin". Although this gives rise to effects of speed and complexity which no violinist could achieve, Boulez restricts the palette of electronic sounds so that their source, the violin, is always recognisable.[184]

Last works

In later works Boulez relinquished electronics, although Griffiths suggests that in sur Incises (1996–1998)[n 17] the choice of like but distinct instruments, spread across the platform, enabled Boulez to create effects of harmonic, timbral and spatial echo for which he previously used electronic means. The piece is scored for three pianos, three harps and three percussionists (including steel drums) and grew out of Incises (1993–2001), a short piece written for a piano competition.[185] In an interview in 2013 he described it as his most important work—"because it is the freest".[186]

Notation VII (1999), marked "hieratic" in the score, is the longest of the orchestral Notations. According to Griffiths: "what was abrupt in 1945 is now languorous; what was crude is now done with a lifetime's experience and expertise; what was simple is fantastically embellished, even submerged."[187]

Dérive 2 started out in 1988 as a five-minute piece, dedicated to Elliott Carter on his 80th birthday; by 2006 it was a 45-minute work for eleven instruments and Boulez's last major composition. According to Claude Samuel, Boulez wanted to explore rhythmic shifts, tempo changes and superimpositions of different speeds, inspired in part by his contact with the music of György Ligeti. Boulez described it as "a sort of narrative mosaic".[171]

Unfinished works

A distinction may be made between works which Boulez was actively progressing and those which he put to one side despite their potential for further development. In the latter category, the archives contain three unpublished movements of the Third Piano Sonata[188] and further sections of Éclat/Multiples which, if performed, would practically double its length.[189]

As for works Boulez was known to be working on in his later years, the premieres of two more orchestral Notations (V and VI) were announced by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for May 2006, but postponed.[190] He was in the process of developing Anthèmes 2 into a large-scale work for violin and orchestra for Anne-Sophie Mutter[191] and spoke of writing an opera based on Beckett's Waiting for Godot.[192] None of these projects came to fruition.

Character and personal life

As a young man Boulez was an explosive, often confrontational figure. Jean-Louis Barrault, who knew him in his twenties, caught the contradictions in his personality: "his powerful aggressiveness was a sign of creative passion, a particular blend of intransigence and humour, the way his moods of affection and insolence succeeded one another, all these had drawn us near to him."[193] Messiaen said later: "He was in revolt against everything."[194] Indeed, at one point Boulez turned against Messiaen, describing his Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine as "brothel music" and saying that the Turangalîla-Symphonie made him vomit.[27] It was five years before relations were restored.[195]

In a 2000 article in The New Yorker Alex Ross described him as a bully.[196] Boulez did not disagree: "Certainly I was a bully. I'm not ashamed of it at all. The hostility of the establishment to what you were able to do in the Forties and Fifties was very strong. Sometimes you have to fight against your society."[25] The most notorious instance of this is Boulez's declaration in 1952 that "any musician who has not experienced‍—‌I do not say understood, but truly experienced‍—‌the necessity of dodecaphonic music is USELESS. For his whole work is irrelevant to the needs of his epoch."[197]

On the other hand, those who knew him well often referred to his loyalty, both to individuals and to organisations.[198] When his mentor, the conductor Roger Désormière, was paralysed by a stroke in 1952 Boulez sent scripts to French Radio in Désormière's name so that the older man could collect the fee.[199] The writer Jean Vermeil, who observed Boulez in the 1990s in the company of Jean Batigne (founder of the Percussions de Strasbourg), discovered "a Boulez asking about the health of a musician in the Strasbourg orchestra, about another player's children, a Boulez who knew everyone by name and who reacted to each person's news with sadness or with joy".[200] In later life, he was known for his charm and personal warmth.[1] Of his humour, Gerard McBurney wrote that it "depended on his twinkling eyes, his perfect timing, his infectious schoolboy giggle, and his reckless compulsion always to say what the other person would not expect".[201]

 
Senecio, Head of a Man (1922) by Paul Klee

Boulez read widely and identified Proust, Joyce and Kafka as particular influences.[202] He had a lifelong interest in the visual arts. He wrote extensively about the painter Paul Klee and collected contemporary art, including works by Joan Miró, Francis Bacon, Nicolas de Staël and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, all of whom he knew personally.[203] He also had close links with three of the leading philosophers of the time: Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes.[204]

He was a keen walker and, when he was at home in Baden-Baden, spent the late afternoons and much of the weekends walking in the Black Forest.[205] He owned an old farmhouse in the Alpes-de-Hautes-Provence department of France and built another, modern home on the same land in the late 1970s.[104]

In its obituary, The New York Times reported that "about his private life he remained tightly guarded".[206] Boulez acknowledged to Joan Peyser that there was a passionate affair in 1946, described as "intense and tormented" and which Peyser suggested was the trigger for the "wild, courageous works" of that period.[207] After Boulez's death, his sister Jeanne told the biographer Christian Merlin that the affair was with the actress María Casares, but Merlin concludes that there is little evidence to support this.[208] The author and blogger Norman Lebrecht, who knew Boulez, speculated that he was gay, citing the fact that for many years he shared his home in Baden-Baden with Hans Messner,[1] whom he sometimes referred to as his valet.[209] In his portrait for The New Yorker, published shortly after Boulez's death under the title The Magus, Alex Ross described him as "affable, implacable, unknowable".[192]

Conducting

Boulez was one of the leading conductors of the second half of the twentieth century. In a career lasting more than sixty years he directed most of the world's major orchestras. He was entirely self-taught, although he said that he learnt a great deal from attending Désormière's and Hans Rosbaud's rehearsals.[210] He also cited George Szell as an influential mentor.[211]

 
Pierre Boulez conducting at The Royal Concertgebouw in 1963.

Boulez gave various reasons for conducting as much as he did. He gave his first concerts for the Domaine musical because its financial resources were limited: "I told myself that, being much less expensive, I would have a go myself."[212] He also said that the best possible training for a composer was "to have to play or conduct his own works and to face their difficulties of execution"—yet on a practical level he sometimes struggled to find time to compose given his conducting commitments.[213] The writer and pianist Susan Bradshaw thought this was deliberate and related to a sense of being overshadowed as a composer by Stockhausen, who from the late 1950s was increasingly prolific. The French litterateur and musicologist Pierre Souvchinsky disagreed: "Boulez became a conductor because he had a great gift for it."[214]

Not everyone agreed about the greatness of that gift. For the conductor Otto Klemperer, he was "without doubt the only man of his generation who is an outstanding conductor and musician".[215] Hans Keller expressed a more critical opinion:

"Boulez cannot phrase – it is as simple as that...the reason being that he ignores the harmonic implications of any structure he is dealing with, to the extent of utterly disregarding harmonic rhythm and hence all characteristic rhythm in tonal music..."[216]

Joan Peyser considered that:

..."in general Boulez conducts what he loves magnificently, conducts what he likes very well and, with rare exceptions, gives stiff performances of the classic and romantic repertoire."[217]

He worked with many leading soloists and had particularly long-term collaborations with Daniel Barenboim and Jessye Norman.[218]

According to Peter Heyworth, Boulez produced a lean, athletic sound which, underpinned by his rhythmic exactitude, could generate an electric sense of excitement. The ability to reveal the structure of a score and to clarify dense orchestral textures were hallmarks of his conducting. He conducted without a baton and, as Heyworth observed: "there is no trace of theatre—not even the rather theatrical sort of economy that was practised by Richard Strauss."[219] According to Boulez: "outward excitement uses up inner excitement."[220]

Boulez's ear for sound was legendary: "there are countless stories of him detecting, for example, faulty intonation from the third oboe in a complex orchestral texture," Paul Griffiths wrote in The New York Times.[206] Oliver Knussen, himself a well-known composer-conductor, observed that "his rehearsals are models of clear-headedness and professional courtesy—he effortlessly commands respect."[221] Nicholas Kenyon wrote of Boulez's rehearsal ethos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra:

"Boulez is supremely efficient...his rehearsal requirements have always been absolutely precise. He knows exactly what can be done and what cannot...He knows how to organise a rehearsal without fuss, even when there are countless platform changes, switches of personnel, electronics and staging to consider. For orchestral administrators, concert managers, orchestral porters, he is the easiest, kindest and best organised of conductors."[222]

Opera

 
The 1976 centenary production of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival, conducted by Boulez

Boulez also conducted in the opera house. His chosen repertoire was small and included no Italian opera. Apart from Wagner, he conducted only twentieth-century works. Of his work with Wieland Wagner on Wozzeck and Parsifal, Boulez said: "I would willingly have hitched, if not my entire fate, then at least a part of it, to someone like him, for [our] discussions about music and productions were thrilling."

They planned other productions together, including Salome and Elektra, Boris Godunov and Don Giovanni. However, by the time rehearsals for their Bayreuth Parsifal began Wieland was already gravely ill and he died in October 1966.[223]

When the Frankfurt Wozzeck was revived after Wieland's death, Boulez was deeply disillusioned by the working conditions: "there was no rehearsal, no care taken over anything. The cynicism of the way an opera house like that was run disgusted me. It still disgusts me."

He later said[61] that it was this experience which prompted his notorious remarks in an interview the following year in Der Spiegel, in which he claimed that "no opera worth mentioning had been composed since 1935", that "a Beatles record is certainly cleverer (and shorter) than a Henze opera" and that "the most elegant" solution to opera's moribund condition would be "to blow the opera houses up".[224]

In 1967, Boulez, theatre director Jean Vilar and choreographer Maurice Béjart were asked to devise a scheme for the reform of the Paris Opéra, with a view to Boulez becoming its music director. Their plan was derailed by the political fallout from the 1968 student protests.[225] Later, in the mid-1980s, Boulez became vice president of the planned Opéra Bastille in Paris, working with Daniel Barenboim, who was to be its music director. In 1988 a newly-appointed director, Pierre Bergé, dismissed Barenboim. Boulez withdrew in solidarity.[226]

In the event, Boulez conducted only specific projects—in productions by leading stage directors—when he could be satisfied that conditions were right. Thanks to his years with the Barrault company, the theatrical dimension was as important to him as the musical and he always attended staging rehearsals.[227]

 
Patrice Chéreau

For the centenary Ring in Bayreuth, Boulez originally asked Ingmar Bergman then Peter Brook to direct, both of whom refused. Peter Stein initially agreed but withdrew in 1974.[228] Patrice Chéreau, who was primarily a theatre director, accepted and went on to create one of the defining opera productions of modern times. According to Allan Kozinn the production "helped open the floodgates of directorial reinterpretation of opera" (sometimes known as Regietheater). Chéreau treated the story in part as an allegory of capitalism, drawing on ideas that George Bernard Shaw explored in The Perfect Wagnerite in 1898. He updated the action to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, using imagery of the industrial age,[91] and he achieved an unprecedented degree of naturalism in the singers' performances.[90] Boulez's conducting was no less controversial, emphasising continuity, flexibility and transparency over mythic grandeur and weight.[229] In its first year the production met with hostility from the largely conservative audience, and around thirty orchestral musicians refused to work with Boulez in subsequent seasons.[230] Both production and musical realisation grew in stature over the following four years and after the final performance in 1980 there was a 90-minute ovation.[231] Boulez worked with Chéreau again on Berg's Lulu in Paris (1979) and Janáček's From the House of the Dead in Vienna (2007).

His other preferred director was Peter Stein. Of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande Boulez had written: "I don't like the French tradition of sweetness and gentleness ... [the work] is not gentle at all, but cruel and mysterious."[232] Stein realised that vision in his staging for Welsh National Opera in 1992, John Rockwell describing it as "an abstract, angry Pelléas, one perhaps over-intent on emphasizing the score's links to modernity".[233] David Stevens described their 1995 production of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron in Amsterdam as "theatrically and musically thrilling".[234]

From the mid-1960s, Boulez spoke of composing an opera himself. His attempts to find a librettist were unsuccessful: "both times the writer has died on me, so I'm a bit superstitious about looking for a third candidate".[61] From the late 1960s he exchanged ideas with the radical French playwright and novelist Jean Genet and a subject—treason—was agreed on.[235] Parts of a draft libretto were found among Genet's papers after his death in 1986.[236] Boulez later turned to the German playwright Heiner Müller, who was working on a reduction of Aeschylus's Oresteia when he died in 1995, again without leaving anything usable.[61] In the 1980s he discussed with Patrice Chéreau an adaptation of Genet's 1961 play Les Paravents (The Screens), which was planned for the 1989 opening of the Opéra Bastille in Paris, but this too came to nothing.[237] In a 1996 interview Boulez said that he was thinking of Edward Bond's The War Plays or Lear, "but only thinking".[61] When news emerged in 2010 that he was working on an opera based on Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, few believed such an ambitious undertaking could be realised so late in the day.[236]

Recording

Boulez's first recordings date from his time with the Domaine musical in the late 1950s and early 1960s and were made for the French Vega label. They document his first thoughts on works which he would subsequently re-record (such as Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No.1), as well as pieces to which he did not return in the studio (such as Stravinsky's Renard and Stockhausen's Zeitmaße). They also include the first of his five recordings of Le Marteau sans maître (with contralto Marie-Thérèse Cahn). In 2015 Universal Music brought these recordings together in a 10-CD set.[238]

 
Arnold Schoenberg by Egon Schiele (1917)

Between 1966 and 1989 he recorded for Columbia Records (later Sony Classical). Among the first projects were the Paris Wozzeck (with Walter Berry) and the Covent Garden Pelléas et Mélisande (with George Shirley and Elisabeth Söderström). He made a highly praised recording of The Rite of Spring with the Cleveland Orchestra and a number of recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra, including rarities such as Berlioz's Lélio and the first complete recording of Mahler's Das klagende Lied. The LSO also contributed to the Webern edition which Boulez supervised, consisting of all the works with opus numbers. He produced a wide-ranging survey of the music of Schoenberg, including Gurrelieder and Moses und Aron (with the BBC Symphony Orchestra), as well as less well-known works such as the unaccompanied choral music. He also recorded the orchestral works of Ravel with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra.[239] As for Boulez's own music, in 1969 there was a first recording of Pli selon pli (with Halina Łukomska as soprano soloist) and recordings of Rituel and Éclat/Multiples. In 2014 Sony Classical issued Pierre Boulez—The Complete Columbia Album Collection on 67 CDs.[239]

Three operatic projects from this period were picked up by other labels: the Bayreuth Ring was released on video and LP by Philips; the Bayreuth Parsifal and Paris Lulu were recorded for Deutsche Grammophon.[240]

In the 1980s, he also recorded for the Erato label, mostly with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, with a greater emphasis on the music of his contemporaries (Berio, Ligeti, Carter etc.), as well as a survey of some of his own music, including Le Visage nuptial, Le Soleil des eaux and Figures—Doubles—Prismes. In 2015 Erato issued Pierre Boulez—The Complete Erato Recordings on 14 CDs.[239] For EMI in 1984 he recorded a number of pieces on Frank Zappa's album The Perfect Stranger with the Ensemble Intercontemporain.[241]

From 1991, onwards Boulez recorded under an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. It centred on the orchestras of Chicago and Cleveland in the United States and Vienna and Berlin in Europe.[242] He re-recorded much of his core repertoire—the orchestral music of Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartók—and oversaw a second Webern edition, including the unpublished works. His own late music featured prominently, including Répons, ...explosante-fixe... and sur Incises. There was also a recording of Pli selon pli (with Christine Schäfer) in its definitive version, incorporating revisions made in the late 1980s. Composers new to his discography included Richard Strauss, Szymanowski and Anton Bruckner—his recording of the Eighth Symphony met with particular acclaim.[243] The most significant addition to his recorded repertoire was the multi-orchestra cycle of the Mahler symphonies and vocal works with orchestra.[244] An 88-disc set of all Boulez's recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Philips and Decca was issued in 2022.[245]

In addition, many hundreds of concerts conducted by Boulez are held in the archives of radio stations and orchestras. In 2005 the Chicago Symphony Orchestra released a 2-CD set of broadcasts by Boulez, focusing on works which he had not recorded commercially, including Janáček's Glagolitic Mass and Messiaen's L'ascension.[246]

Performing

Early in his career Boulez sometimes performed publicly as a pianist. In 1955 he accompanied the tenor Jean Giraudeau in a recording of songs by Stravinsky and Mussorgsky.[247] Between 1957 and 1959 he gave several performances of his own Third Piano Sonata[248] (a performance he gave in Darmstadt on 30 August 1959 was issued on CD in 2016).[249] He also gave recitals of music for two pianos with Yvonne Loriod.[250] In the 1960s and 1970s he occasionally included songs for voice and piano in orchestral programmes, for example accompanying Christa Ludwig in songs by Berg at a New York Philharmonic Orchestra concert in February 1972.[251] A rare example of his pianism in later life was a short film made by Austrian television in 1992, in which Boulez played his early Notations.[252]

Writing and teaching

According to Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Boulez was one of two twentieth-century composers who wrote most prolifically about music, the other being Schoenberg.[253] Ironically, it was with a 1952 article with the inflammatory title "Schoenberg is Dead", published in the British journal The Score shortly after the older composer's death, that Boulez first attracted international attention as a writer.[254] This highly polemical piece, in which he attacked Schoenberg for his conservatism, contrasting it with Webern's radicalism, caused widespread controversy.[255]

Jonathan Goldman points out that, over the decades, Boulez's writings addressed very different readerships: in the 1950s the cultured Parisian attendees of the Domaine musical; in the 1960s the specialised avant-garde composers and performers of the Darmstadt and Basel courses; and, between 1976 and 1995, the highly literate but non-specialist audience of the lectures he gave as Professor of the Collège de France.[256] Much of Boulez's writing was linked to specific occasions, whether a first performance of a new piece, notes for a recording or a eulogy for a lost colleague. Generally he avoided publishing detailed analyses, other than one of The Rite of Spring. As Nattiez points out: "as a writer Boulez is a communicator of ideas rather than of technical information. This may sometimes prove disappointing to composition students, but it is no doubt a peculiarity of his writing that explains its popularity with non-musicians."[257]

Boulez's writings have appeared in English as Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship, Boulez on Music Today, Orientations: Collected Writings and Pierre Boulez, Music Lessons: The Complete Collège de France Lectures. Throughout his career he also expressed himself through long-form interviews, of which perhaps the most substantial are those with Antoine Goléa (1958), Célestin Deliège (1975) and Jean Vermeil (1989).[258] In addition, two volumes of correspondence have been published: with the composer John Cage (from the period 1949–62);[259] and with the anthropologist and ethnomusicologist André Schaeffner (from 1954 to 1970).[260]

Boulez taught at the Darmstadt Summer School most years between 1954 and 1965.[261] He was professor of composition at the Musik Akademie Basel in Switzerland (1960–63) and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University in 1963. He also taught privately in the early part of his career.[151] Students included the composers Richard Rodney Bennett,[262] Jean-Claude Éloy and Heinz Holliger.[153]

Legacy

An article published for Boulez's 80th birthday in The Guardian revealed that Boulez's fellow-composers had divided, and sometimes equivocal, views about him:

  • George Benjamin: "[Boulez] has produced a catalogue of wondrously luminous and scintillating works. Within them a rigorous compositional skill is coupled to an imagination of extraordinary aural refinement".
  • Oliver Knussen: "a man who fashions his scores with the fanatical idealism of a medieval monk minutely illuminating volumes"
  • John Adams: "a mannerist, a niche composer, a master who worked with a very small hammer".
  • Alexander Goehr: "[Boulez's] failures will be better than most people's successes".[221]

When Boulez died in January 2016, he left no will. In 1986 he entered into an agreement to place his musical and literary manuscripts with the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland.[263] In December 2017, the Bibliothèque nationale de France announced that the Boulez estate had made a substantial donation of Boulez's private papers and possessions not covered by the Sacher contract, including 220 metres of books, 50 metres of archives and correspondence, as well as scores, photographs, recordings and about 100 other objects.[264]

 
Philharmonie de Paris: Grande salle Pierre Boulez

In October 2016, the large concert hall of the Philharmonie de Paris, for which Boulez campaigned for many years, was renamed the Grande salle Pierre Boulez.[265] In March 2017, a new concert hall, the Pierre Boulez Saal, designed by Frank Gehry, was opened in Berlin under the auspices of the Barenboim–Said Academy. It is home to a new Boulez Ensemble, made up of members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Berlin Staatskapelle and guest musicians from Berlin and around the world.[266]

Boulez's music continues to be taken up by interpreters of the next generation. In September 2016 Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic paired Boulez's Éclat with Mahler's 7th Symphony for an international tour.[267] In May and June 2017 many of Boulez's major works, including ...explosante-fixe... and Répons, were performed at the Vienna Konzerthaus 38th International Festival by Klangforum Wien, conducted by Baldur Brönnimann.[268] In October 2017, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted by Matthias Pinscher, gave four performances of Répons over two evenings at the Park Avenue Armory, New York, in a presentation conceived by Pierre Audi.[269] In September 2018 the first edition of the Pierre Boulez Biennial took place in Paris and Berlin, a joint initiative by the Philharmonie de Paris and the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim. Performances of Boulez's music were set in the context of works which influenced him.[270] The second Biennial was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, but a modified version went ahead (online in 2020, in person in 2021), with a particular focus on the piano music.[271]

Honours and awards

State honours awarded to Boulez included Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE); and Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Among his many awards, Boulez listed the following in his Who's Who entry: Grand Prix de la Musique, Paris, 1982; Charles Heidsieck Award for Outstanding Contribution to Franco-British Music, 1989; Polar Music Prize, Stockholm, 1996; Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal, 1999; Wolf Prize, Israel, 2000; Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, University of Louisville, 2001; Glenn Gould Prize, Glenn Gould Foundation, 2002; Kyoto Prize, Japan, 2009; De Gaulle-Adenauer Prize, 2011; Giga-Hertz Prize, 2011; Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Venice Biennale, 2012; Gloria Artis Gold Medal, 2012; Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music, 2012; Karol Szymanowski Prize, Foundation Karol Szymanowski, 2012; Frontiers of Knowledge Award, BBVA Foundation, 2013, and nine honorary doctorates from universities and conservatoires in Belgium, Great Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic and the United States.[272]

Notes, references and sources

Notes

  1. ^ In the event Messiaen was not appointed professor of composition until 1949.[23]
  2. ^ a b The Nuptial Countenance.
  3. ^ a b The Sun of the Waters,
  4. ^ a b The Hammer without a Master.
  5. ^ a b Fold upon Fold.
  6. ^ a b Poetry for Power.
  7. ^ a b The French word has many meanings, including "splinter" and "burst".
  8. ^ Nos. 5 and 9.
  9. ^ Lament of the Lovesick Lizard.
  10. ^ Mode of Duration and Dynamics.
  11. ^ What do you want from me, sonata?
  12. ^ Cummings is the Poet.
  13. ^ Explaining the title in a letter to Glock, Boulez referred to the fact that the music "derived" from material in Répons but also that one meaning of "dérive" is the drifting of a boat in the wind or current.[174]
  14. ^ The title is a reference to plainchant, in which the solo singer alternates with a choir. It reflects the interplay between the soloists and the ensemble (or, as Samuel puts it: the individual and the community).[178]
  15. ^ Dialogue of the Double Shadow. The title refers to a scene in Paul Claudel's play Le Soulier de satin (The Satin Slipper). Boulez acknowledged that the work had a theatrical aspect.[171]
  16. ^ The title of the work is a quotation from André Breton's L'Amour fou: "convulsive beauty will be erotic-veiled, exploding-fixed, magic-circumstantial, or it will not be."[171]
  17. ^ The title refers to the fact that the piece elaborates "on" the piano piece Incises.

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  272. ^ Boulez, Pierre, (26 March 1925–5 Jan. 2016), Who's Who & Who Was Who. Oxford University Press, 1 December 2016. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U8205. ISBN 978-0-19-954089-1.

Sources

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January 26, 2023
pierre, boulez, pierre, louis, joseph, boulez, french, pjɛʁ, ʒozεf, bulɛz, march, 1925, january, 2016, french, composer, conductor, writer, founder, several, musical, institutions, dominant, figures, post, western, classical, music, boulez, 1968, born, montbri. Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez French pjɛʁ lwi ʒozef bulɛz 26 March 1925 5 January 2016 was a French composer conductor and writer and the founder of several musical institutions He was one of the dominant figures of post war Western classical music Boulez in 1968 Born in Montbrison in the Loire department of France the son of an engineer Boulez studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Olivier Messiaen and privately with Andree Vaurabourg and Rene Leibowitz He began his professional career in the late 1940s as music director of the Renaud Barrault theatre company in Paris He was a leading figure in avant garde music playing an important role in the development of integral serialism in the 1950s controlled chance music in the 1960s and the electronic transformation of instrumental music in real time from the 1970s onwards His tendency to revise earlier compositions meant that his body of work was relatively small but it included pieces regarded by many as landmarks of twentieth century music such as Le Marteau sans maitre Pli selon pli and Repons His uncompromising commitment to modernism and the trenchant polemical tone in which he expressed his views on music led some to criticise him as a dogmatist Boulez was also one of the most prominent conductors of his generation In a career lasting more than sixty years he was music director of the New York Philharmonic and the Ensemble intercontemporain chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra He made frequent appearances with many other orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra He was known for his performances of the music of the first half of the twentieth century including Debussy and Ravel Stravinsky and Bartok and the Second Viennese School as well as that of his contemporaries such as Ligeti Berio and Carter His work in the opera house included the Jahrhundertring the production of Wagner s Ring cycle for the centenary of the Bayreuth Festival and the world premiere of the three act version of Alban Berg s Lulu His recorded legacy is extensive He founded several musical institutions the Domaine musical Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique musique IRCAM Ensemble intercontemporain and Cite de la Musique in Paris and the Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland Contents 1 Biography 1 1 1925 1943 Childhood and school days 1 2 1943 1946 Musical education 1 3 1946 1953 Early career in Paris 1 4 1954 1959 Le Domaine musical 1 5 1959 1971 International conducting career 1 6 1971 1977 London and New York 1 7 1977 1992 IRCAM 1 8 1992 2006 Return to conducting 1 9 2006 2016 Last years 2 Compositions 2 1 Juvenilia and student works 2 2 Douze notations and the work in progress 2 3 First published works 2 4 Total serialism 2 5 Le Marteau sans maitre and Pli selon pli 2 6 Controlled chance 2 7 Middle period works 2 8 Works with electronics 2 9 Last works 2 10 Unfinished works 3 Character and personal life 4 Conducting 5 Opera 6 Recording 7 Performing 8 Writing and teaching 9 Legacy 10 Honours and awards 11 Notes references and sources 11 1 Notes 11 2 References 11 3 SourcesBiography Edit1925 1943 Childhood and school days Edit Pierre Boulez was born on 26 March 1925 in Montbrison a small town in the Loire department of east central France to Leon and Marcelle nee Calabre Boulez 1 He was the third of four children an older sister Jeanne 1922 2018 2 and younger brother Roger b 1936 were preceded by a first child also called Pierre b 1920 who died in infancy Leon 1891 1969 an engineer and technical director of a steel factory is described by biographers as an authoritarian figure but with a strong sense of fairness Marcelle 1897 1985 as an outgoing good humoured woman who deferred to her husband s strict Catholic beliefs while not necessarily sharing them The family prospered moving in 1929 from the apartment above a pharmacy where Boulez was born to a comfortable detached house where he spent most of his childhood 3 From the age of seven Boulez went to school at the Institut Victor de Laprade a Catholic seminary where the thirteen hour school day was filled with study and prayer By the age of eighteen he had repudiated Catholicism 4 although later in life he described himself as an agnostic 5 As a child Boulez took piano lessons played chamber music with local amateurs and sang in the school choir 6 After completing the first part of his baccalaureate a year early he spent the academic year of 1940 41 at the Pensionnat St Louis a boarding school in nearby Saint Etienne The following year he took classes in advanced mathematics at the Cours Sogno in Lyon a school established by the Lazaristes 7 with a view to gaining admission to the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris His father hoped this would lead to a career in engineering 8 He was in Lyon when the Vichy government fell the Germans took over and the city became a centre of the resistance 9 In Lyon Boulez first heard an orchestra saw his first operas Boris Godunov and Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg 10 and met the well known soprano Ninon Vallin who asked him to play for her Impressed by his ability she persuaded his father to allow him to apply to the Conservatoire de Lyon He was rejected but was determined to pursue a career in music The following year with his sister s support in the face of opposition from his father he studied the piano and harmony privately with Lionel de Pachmann son of the pianist Vladimir 11 Our parents were strong but finally we were stronger than they Boulez later said 12 In fact when he moved to Paris in the autumn of 1943 hoping to enrol at the Conservatoire de Paris his father accompanied him helped him to find a room in the 7th arrondissement and subsidised him until he could earn a living 13 1943 1946 Musical education Edit In October 1943 he auditioned unsuccessfully for the advanced piano class at the Conservatoire but he was admitted in January 1944 to the preparatory harmony class of Georges Dandelot He made such fast progress that by May 1944 Dandelot described him as the best of the class 14 Andree Vaurabourg Around the same time he was introduced to Andree Vaurabourg wife of the composer Arthur Honegger Between April 1944 and May 1946 he studied counterpoint privately with her He greatly enjoyed working with her and she remembered him as an exceptional student using his exercises as models until the end of her teaching career 15 In June 1944 he approached Olivier Messiaen who wrote in his diary Likes modern music Wants to study harmony with me from now on Boulez began to attend the private seminars which Messiaen gave to selected students in January 1945 he joined Messiaen s advanced harmony class at the Conservatoire 16 Boulez moved to two small attic rooms in the Marais district of Paris where he lived for the next thirteen years 17 In February 1945 he attended a private performance of Schoenberg s Wind Quintet conducted by Rene Leibowitz the composer and follower of Schoenberg Its strict use of twelve tone technique was a revelation to him and he organised a group of fellow students to take private lessons with Leibowitz It was here that he also discovered the music of Webern 18 He eventually found Leibowitz s approach too doctrinaire and broke angrily with him in 1946 when Leibowitz tried to criticise one of his early works 19 In June 1945 Boulez was one of four Conservatoire students awarded premier prix He was described in the examiner s report as the most gifted a composer 20 Although registered at the Conservatoire for the academic year 1945 46 he soon boycotted Simone Ple Caussade s counterpoint and fugue class infuriated by what he described as her lack of imagination and organised a petition that Messiaen be given a full professorship in composition 21 22 n 1 Over the winter of 1945 46 he immersed himself in Balinese and Japanese music and African drumming at the Musee Guimet and the Musee de l Homme in Paris 24 I almost chose the career of an ethnomusicologist because I was so fascinated by that music It gives a different feeling of time 25 1946 1953 Early career in Paris Edit Jean Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud in 1952 by Carl Van Vechten On 12 February 1946 the pianist Yvette Grimaud gave the first public performances of Boulez s music Douze Notations and Trois Psalmodies at the Concerts du Triptyque 26 Boulez earned money by giving maths lessons to his landlord s son 27 He also played the ondes Martenot an early electronic instrument improvising accompaniments to radio dramas and occasionally deputising in the pit orchestra of the Folies Bergere 28 In October 1946 the actor and director Jean Louis Barrault engaged him to play the ondes for a production of Hamlet for the new company he and his wife Madeleine Renaud had formed at the Theatre Marigny 29 Boulez was soon appointed music director of the Compagnie Renaud Barrault a post he held for nine years He arranged and conducted incidental music mostly by composers whose music he disliked such as Milhaud and Tchaikovsky but it gave him the chance to work with professional musicians while leaving time to compose during the day 30 His involvement with the company also broadened his horizons in 1947 they toured to Belgium and Switzerland absolutely pays de cocagne my first discovery of the big world 9 in 1948 they took Hamlet to the second Edinburgh International Festival 31 in 1951 they gave a season of plays in London at the invitation of Laurence Olivier 32 and between 1950 and 1957 there were three tours to South America and two to North America 33 Much of the music he wrote for the company was lost during the student occupation of the Theatre de l Odeon in 1968 34 The period between 1947 and 1950 was one of intense compositional activity for Boulez New works included the first two piano sonatas and initial versions of two cantatas on poems by Rene Char Le Visage nuptial n 2 and Le Soleil des eaux 35 n 3 In October 1951 a substantial work for eighteen solo instruments Polyphonie X caused a scandal at its premiere at the Donaueschingen Festival some audience members disrupting the performance with hisses and whistles 36 Around this time Boulez met two composers who were to be important influences John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen His friendship with Cage began in 1949 when Cage was visiting Paris Cage introduced Boulez to two publishers Heugel and Amphion who agreed to take his recent pieces Boulez helped to arrange a private performance of Cage s Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano 37 When Cage returned to New York they began an intense six year correspondence about the future of music In 1952 Stockhausen arrived in Paris to study with Messiaen 38 Although Boulez knew no German and Stockhausen no French the rapport between them was instant A friend translated and we gesticulated wildly We talked about music all the time in a way I ve never talked about it with anyone else 39 Towards the end of 1951 a tour with the Renaud Barrault company took him to New York for the first time where he met Stravinsky and Varese 38 He stayed at Cage s apartment but their friendship was already cooling as he could not accept Cage s increasing commitment to compositional procedures based on chance he later broke off contact with him 40 In July 1952 Boulez attended the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt for the first time As well as Stockhausen Boulez was in contact there with other composers who would become significant figures in contemporary music including Luciano Berio Luigi Nono Bruno Maderna and Henri Pousseur Boulez quickly became one of the leaders of the post war modernist movement in the arts As the music critic Alex Ross observed at all times he seemed absolutely sure of what he was doing Amid the confusion of postwar life with so many truths discredited his certitude was reassuring 41 1954 1959 Le Domaine musical Edit The Salle Popesco in Paris formerly the Petit Marigny In 1954 with the financial backing of Barrault and Renaud Boulez started a series of concerts at the Petit Marigny theatre They became known as the Domaine musical The concerts focused initially on three areas pre war classics still unfamiliar in Paris such as Bartok and Webern works by the new generation Stockhausen Nono and neglected masters from the past Machaut Gesualdo although for practical reasons the last category fell away in subsequent seasons 42 Boulez proved an energetic and accomplished administrator and the concerts were an immediate success 43 They attracted musicians painters and writers as well as fashionable society but they were so costly that Boulez had to turn to wealthy private patrons for support 44 Key events in the Domaine s history included a Webern festival 1955 the European premiere of Stravinsky s Agon 1957 and first performances of Messiaen s Oiseaux exotiques 1955 and Sept Haikai 1963 The concerts moved to the Salle Gaveau 1956 1959 and then to the Theatre de l Odeon 1959 1968 Boulez remained director until 1967 when Gilbert Amy succeeded him 45 On 18 June 1955 Hans Rosbaud conducted the first performance of Boulez s best known work Le Marteau sans maitre n 4 at the ISCM Festival in Baden Baden A nine movement cycle for alto voice and instrumental ensemble based on poems by Rene Char 1 it was an immediate international success 46 William Glock wrote even at a first hearing though difficult to take in it was so utterly new in sound texture and feeling that it seemed to possess a mythical quality like that of Schoenberg s Pierrot lunaire 47 When Boulez conducted the work in Los Angeles in early 1957 Stravinsky attended the performance he later described the piece as one of the few significant works of the post war period of exploration 1 Boulez dined several times with the Stravinskys and according to Robert Craft soon captivated the older composer with new musical ideas and an extraordinary intelligence quickness and humour 48 Relations between the two composers soured the following year over the first Paris performance of Stravinsky s Threni for the Domaine musical Poorly planned by Boulez and nervously conducted by Stravinsky the performance broke down more than once 49 In January 1958 the Improvisations sur Mallarme I et II were premiered forming the kernel of a piece which would grow over the next four years into a vast five movement portrait of Mallarme Pli selon pli n 5 It received its premiere in Donaueschingen in October 1962 50 Around this time Boulez s relations with Stockhausen grew increasingly tense as according to the biographer Joan Peyser he saw the younger man supplanting him as the leader of the avant garde 51 1959 1971 International conducting career Edit In 1959 Boulez left Paris for Baden Baden where he had an arrangement with the South West German Radio orchestra to work as composer in residence and to conduct some smaller concerts 52 as well as access to an electronic studio where he could work on a new piece Poesie pour pouvoir 53 n 6 He moved into and eventually bought a large hillside villa which was his main home for the rest of his life 54 During this period he turned increasingly to conducting His first engagement as an orchestral conductor had been in 1956 when he conducted the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra while on tour with Barrault 55 In Cologne he conducted his own Le Visage nuptial in 1957 and with Bruno Maderna and the composer the first performances of Stockhausen s Gruppen in 1958 His breakthrough came in 1959 when he replaced the ailing Hans Rosbaud at short notice in demanding programmes of twentieth century music at the Aix en Provence and Donaueschingen Festivals 56 This led to debuts with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Bavarian Radio Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras 57 In 1963 he conducted the Orchestre National de France in the 50th anniversary performance of Stravinsky s The Rite of Spring at the Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris where the piece had had its riotous premiere 1 George Szell in 1957 That same year he conducted his first opera Berg s Wozzeck at the Opera National de Paris directed by Barrault The conditions were exceptional with thirty orchestral rehearsals instead of the usual three or four the critical response was favourable and after the first performance the musicians rose to applaud him 58 He conducted Wozzeck again in April 1966 at the Frankfurt Opera in a new production by Wieland Wagner 59 Wieland Wagner had already invited Boulez to conduct Wagner s Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival later in the season and Boulez returned to conduct revivals in 1967 1968 and 1970 60 He also conducted performances of Wagner s Tristan und Isolde with the Bayreuth company at the Osaka Festival in Japan in 1967 but the lack of adequate rehearsal made it an experience he later said he would rather forget 61 By contrast his conducting of the new production by Vaclav Kaslik of Debussy s Pelleas et Melisande at Covent Garden in 1969 was praised for its combination of delicacy and sumptuousness 62 In 1965 the Edinburgh International Festival staged the first full scale retrospective of Boulez as composer and conductor 63 In 1966 he proposed a reorganisation of French musical life to the then minister of culture Andre Malraux but Malraux instead appointed the conservative Marcel Landowski as head of music at the Ministry of Culture Boulez expressed his fury in an article in the Nouvel Observateur announcing that he was going on strike with regard to any aspect of official music in France 64 The previous year in March 1965 he had made his orchestral debut in the United States with the Cleveland Orchestra 65 He became its principal guest conductor in February 1969 a post he held until the end of 1971 66 After the death of George Szell in July 1970 he took on the role of music advisor for two years but the title was largely honorary owing to his commitments in London and New York 67 In the 1968 69 season he also made guest appearances in Boston Chicago and Los Angeles 68 Apart from Pli selon pli the only substantial new work to emerge in the first half of the 1960s was the final version of Book 2 of his Structures for two pianos 69 Midway through the decade however Boulez appeared to find his voice again and produced a number of new works including Eclat 1965 n 7 a short and brilliant piece for small ensemble 70 which by 1970 had grown into a substantial half hour work Eclat Multiples 71 1971 1977 London and New York Edit Boulez first conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in February 1964 at Worthing accompanying Vladimir Ashkenazy in a Chopin piano concerto Boulez recalled the experience It was terrible I felt like a waiter who keeps dropping the plates 72 His appearances with the orchestra over the next five years included his debuts at the Proms and at Carnegie Hall 1965 73 and tours to Moscow and Leningrad Berlin and Prague 1967 74 In January 1969 William Glock controller of music at the BBC announced his appointment as chief conductor 75 External image Programme for NYPO Rug Concert 17 June 1973 76 Two months later Boulez conducted the New York Philharmonic for the first time 77 His performances so impressed both orchestra and management that he was offered the chief conductorship in succession to Leonard Bernstein Glock was dismayed and tried to persuade him that accepting the New York position would detract both from his work in London and his ability to compose but Boulez could not resist the opportunity as Glock put it to reform the music making of both these world cities and in June the New York appointment was confirmed 78 His tenure in New York lasted between 1971 and 1977 and was not an unqualified success The dependence on a subscription audience limited his programming He introduced more key works from the first half of the twentieth century and with earlier repertoire sought out less well known pieces 79 In his first season for example he conducted Liszt s The Legend of Saint Elizabeth and Via Crucis 80 Performances of new music were comparatively rare in the subscription series The players admired his musicianship but came to regard him as dry and unemotional by comparison with Bernstein although it was widely accepted that he improved the standard of playing 81 He returned on only three occasions to the orchestra in later years 82 His time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was altogether happier With the resources of the BBC behind him he could be bolder in his choice of repertoire 81 There were occasional forays into the nineteenth century particularly at the Proms Beethoven s Missa solemnis in 1972 the Brahms German Requiem in 1973 83 but for the most part he worked intensively with the orchestra on the music of the twentieth century He conducted works by the younger generation of British composers such as Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Maxwell Davies but Britten and Tippett were absent from his programmes 84 His relations with the musicians were generally excellent 85 He was chief conductor between 1971 and 1975 continuing as chief guest conductor until 1977 Thereafter he returned to the orchestra frequently until his last appearance at an all Janacek Prom in August 2008 86 In both cities Boulez sought out venues where new music could be presented more informally in New York he began a series of Rug Concerts when the seats in Avery Fisher Hall were taken out and the audience sat on the floor and a contemporary music series called Prospective Encounters in Greenwich Village 87 In London he gave concerts at the Roundhouse a former railway turntable shed which Peter Brook had also used for radical theatre productions His aim was to create a feeling that we are all audience players and myself taking part in an act of exploration 88 In 1972 Wolfgang Wagner who had succeeded his brother Wieland as director of the Bayreuth Festival invited Boulez to conduct the 1976 centenary production of Wagner s Der Ring des Nibelungen 89 The director was Patrice Chereau Highly controversial in its first year according to Barry Millington by the end of the run in 1980 enthusiasm for the production vastly outweighed disapproval 90 It was televised around the world 91 A small number of new works emerged during this period of which perhaps the most important is Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna 1975 92 1977 1992 IRCAM Edit The IRCAM building at the Centre Pompidou In 1970 Boulez was asked by President Pompidou to return to France and set up an institute specialising in musical research and creation at the arts complex now known as the Centre Georges Pompidou which was planned for the Beaubourg district of Paris The Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique Musique IRCAM opened in 1977 Boulez s model was the Bauhaus which had been a meeting place for artists and scientists of all disciplines 93 IRCAM s aims included research into acoustics instrumental design and the use of computers in music 1 The original building was constructed underground partly to isolate it acoustically an above ground extension was added later 94 The institution was criticised for absorbing too much state subsidy Boulez for wielding too much power 1 At the same time he founded the Ensemble Intercontemporain a virtuoso ensemble which specialised in twentieth century music and the creation of new works 95 In 1979 Boulez conducted the world premiere of the three act version of Alban Berg s Lulu at the Paris Opera in Friedrich Cerha s completion and in Patrice Chereau s production 96 Otherwise he scaled back his conducting commitments to concentrate on IRCAM Most of his appearances during this period were with his own Ensemble intercontemporain including tours to the United States 1986 Australia 1988 the Soviet Union 1990 and Canada 1991 97 although he also renewed his links in the 1980s with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra 98 By contrast he composed significantly more during this period producing a series of pieces which used the potential developed at IRCAM electronically to transform sound in real time The first of these was Repons 1981 1984 a 40 minute work for soloists ensemble and electronics He also radically reworked earlier pieces including Notations I IV a transcription and expansion of tiny piano pieces for large orchestra 1945 1980 96 and his cantata on poems by Rene Char Le Visage nuptial 1946 1989 99 In 1980 the five original directors of the IRCAM departments including the composer Luciano Berio resigned Although Boulez declared these changes very healthy it clearly represented a crisis in his leadership 100 Retrospectives of his music were mounted in Paris Festival d Automne 1981 Baden Baden 1985 and London BBC 1989 101 From 1976 to 1995 he held the Chair in Invention technique et langage en musique at the College de France 102 In 1988 he made a series of six programmes for French television Boulez XXe siecle each of which focused on a specific aspect of contemporary music rhythm timbre form etc 103 He also bought a flat on the 30th floor of a building in the Front de Seine district of Paris 104 1992 2006 Return to conducting Edit Boulez at a conference at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels in 2004 In 1992 Boulez gave up the directorship of IRCAM and was succeeded by Laurent Bayle 105 He was composer in residence at that year s Salzburg Festival 101 The previous year he began a series of annual residencies with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra In 1995 he was named principal guest conductor in Chicago only the third conductor to hold that position in the orchestra s history He held the post until 2005 when he became conductor emeritus 106 His 70th birthday in 1995 was marked by a six month retrospective tour with the London Symphony Orchestra taking in Paris Vienna New York and Tokyo 107 In 2001 he conducted a major Bartok cycle with the Orchestre de Paris 105 This period also marked a return to the opera house including two productions with Peter Stein Debussy s Pelleas et Melisande 1992 Welsh National Opera 108 and Theatre du Chatelet Paris and Schoenberg s Moses und Aron 1995 Dutch National Opera 109 and Salzburg Festival In 2004 and 2005 he returned to Bayreuth to conduct a controversial new production of Parsifal directed by Christoph Schlingensief 110 The two most substantial compositions from this period are explosante fixe 1993 which had its origins in 1972 as a tribute to Stravinsky and which again used the electronic resources of IRCAM 111 and sur Incises 1998 for which he was awarded the 2001 Grawemeyer Prize for composition 112 He continued to work on institutional organisation He co founded the Cite de la Musique which opened in La Villette on the outskirts of Paris in 1995 27 Consisting of a modular concert hall museum and mediatheque with the Paris Conservatoire on an adjacent site it became the home to the Ensemble Intercontemporain and attracted a diverse audience 113 In 2004 he co founded the Lucerne Festival Academy an orchestral institute for young musicians dedicated to music of the twentieth and twenty first centuries 114 For the next ten years he spent the last three weeks of summer working with young composers and conducting concerts with the Academy s orchestra 115 2006 2016 Last years Edit Boulez s last major work was Derive 2 2006 a 45 minute piece for eleven instruments 116 He left a number of compositional projects unfinished including the remaining Notations for orchestra 1 Boulez at the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2008 with the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden Baden und Freiburg He remained active as a conductor over the next six years In 2007 he was re united with Chereau for a production of Janacek s From the House of the Dead Theater an der Wien Amsterdam and Aix 117 In April of the same year as part of the Festtage in Berlin Boulez and Daniel Barenboim gave a cycle of the Mahler symphonies with the Staatskapelle Berlin which they repeated two years later at Carnegie Hall 118 In late 2007 the Orchestre de Paris and the Ensemble Intercontemporain presented a retrospective of Boulez s music 119 and in 2008 the Louvre mounted the exhibition Pierre Boulez Œuvre fragment 103 His appearances became more infrequent after an eye operation in 2010 left him with severely impaired sight Other health problems included a shoulder injury resulting from a fall 120 In late 2011 when he was already quite frail 121 he led the combined Ensemble Intercontemporain and Lucerne Festival Academy with the soprano Barbara Hannigan in a tour of six European cities of his own Pli selon pli 122 His final appearance as a conductor was in Salzburg on 28 January 2012 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Mitsuko Uchida in a programme of Schoenberg Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene and the Piano Concerto Mozart Piano Concerto No 19 in F major K459 and Stravinsky Pulcinella Suite 123 Thereafter he cancelled all conducting engagements Later in 2012 he worked with the Diotima Quartet making final revisions to his only string quartet Livre pour quatuor begun in 1948 124 In 2013 he oversaw the release on Deutsche Grammophon of Pierre Boulez Complete Works a 13 CD survey of all his authorised compositions He remained Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy until 2014 but his health prevented him from taking part in the many celebrations held across the world for his 90th birthday in 2015 125 These included a multi media exhibition at the Musee de la Musique in Paris which focused in particular on the inspiration Boulez had drawn from literature and the visual arts 126 Boulez died on 5 January 2016 at his home in Baden Baden 127 He was buried on 13 January in Baden Baden s main cemetery following a private funeral service at the town s Stiftskirche At a memorial service the next day at the Church of Saint Sulpice in Paris eulogists included Daniel Barenboim Renzo Piano and Laurent Bayle then president of the Philharmonie de Paris 128 whose large concert hall had been inaugurated the previous year thanks in no small measure to Boulez s influence 129 Boulez s grave in Baden Baden 28 November 2016Compositions EditSee also List of compositions by Pierre Boulez Juvenilia and student works Edit Boulez s earliest surviving compositions date from his school days in 1942 43 mostly songs on texts by Baudelaire Gautier and Rilke 130 Gerald Bennett describes the pieces as modest delicate and rather anonymous employing a certain number of standard elements of French salon music of the time whole tone scales pentatonic scales and polytonality 131 As a student at the Conservatoire Boulez composed a series of pieces influenced first by Honegger and Jolivet Prelude Toccata and Scherzo and Nocturne for solo piano 1944 45 132 and then by Messiaen Trois psalmodies for piano 1945 and a Quartet for four ondes Martenot 1945 46 133 The encounter with Schoenberg through his studies with Leibowitz was the catalyst for his first piece of serial music the Theme et variations for piano left hand 1945 Peter O Hagan describes it as his boldest and most ambitious work to date 134 Douze notations and the work in progress Edit Boulez completed Douze notations in December 1945 It is in these twelve aphoristic pieces for piano each twelve bars long that Bennett first detects the influence of Webern 135 Shortly after the composition of the piano original Boulez attempted an unperformed and unpublished orchestration of eleven of the pieces 136 Over a decade later he re used two of them n 8 in instrumental interludes in his Improvisation I sur Mallarme 137 Then in the mid 1970s he embarked on a further more radical transformation of the Notations into extended works for very large orchestra 138 a project which preoccupied him to the end of his life This is only the most extreme example of Boulez s tendency to revisit earlier works as long as my ideas have not exhausted every possibility of proliferation they stay in my mind 139 Robert Piencikowski characterises this in part as an obsessional concern for perfection and observes that with some pieces one could speak of successive distinct versions each one presenting a particular state of the musical material without the successor invalidating the previous one or vice versa although he notes that Boulez almost invariably vetoed the performance of previous versions 140 First published works Edit The Sonatine for flute and piano 1946 1949 was the first work Boulez allowed to be published A serial work of great energy its single movement form was influenced by Schoenberg s Chamber Symphony No 1 141 Bennett finds in the piece a tone new to Boulez s writing a sharp brittle violence juxtaposed against an extreme sensitivity and delicacy 142 In the Piano Sonata No 1 1946 49 the biographer Dominique Jameux highlights the sheer number of different kinds of attack in its two short movements and the frequent accelerations of tempo in the second movement which together create a feeling of instrumental delirium 143 There followed two cantatas based on the poetry of Rene Char Of Le Visage nuptial n 2 Paul Griffiths observes that Char s five poems speak in hard edged surrealist imagery of an ecstatic sexual passion which Boulez reflected in music on the borders of fevered hysteria In its original version 1946 47 the piece was scored for small forces soprano contralto two ondes Martenot piano and percussion Forty years later Boulez arrived at the definitive version for soprano mezzo soprano chorus and orchestra 1985 1989 99 Le Soleil des eaux n 3 1948 originated in incidental music for a radio drama by Char It went through three further versions before reaching its final form in 1965 as a piece for soprano mixed chorus and orchestra 144 The first movement Complainte du lezard amoureux n 9 is a love song addressed by a lizard to a goldfinch in the heat of a summer day 145 the second La Sorgue is a violent incantatory protest against the pollution of the river Sorgue 146 The Second Piano Sonata 1947 48 is a half hour work which requires formidable technical prowess from the performer 147 Its four movements follow the standard pattern of a classical sonata but in each of them Boulez subverts the traditional model 148 For Griffiths the violent character of much of the music is not just superficial it is expressive of a need to obliterate what had gone before 149 Boulez played the work for Aaron Copland who asked But must we start a revolution all over again Yes mercilessly Boulez replied 150 Total serialism Edit That revolution entered its most extreme phase in 1950 1952 when Boulez developed a technique in which not only pitch but other musical parameters duration dynamics timbre and attack were organised according to serial principles an approach known as total serialism or punctualism Messiaen had already made an experiment in this direction in his Mode de valeurs et d intensites n 10 for piano 1949 Boulez s first sketches towards total serialism appeared in parts of Livre pour quatuor Book for Quartet 1948 49 revised 2011 12 a collection of movements for string quartet from which the players may choose at any one performance foreshadowing Boulez s later interest in variable form 151 In the early 1950s Boulez began to apply the technique rigorously ordering each parameter into sets of twelve and prescribing no repetition until all twelve had sounded According to the music critic Alex Ross the resulting surfeit of ever changing musical data has the effect of erasing at any given point previous impressions the listener may have formed the present moment is all there is 152 Boulez linked this development to a desire by his generation to create a tabula rasa after the war 153 His works in this idiom are Polyphonie X 1950 51 withdrawn for 18 instruments the two musique concrete etudes 1951 52 withdrawn and Structures Book I for two pianos 1951 52 151 Speaking of Structures Book I in 2011 Boulez described it as a piece in which the responsibility of the composer is practically absent Had computers existed at that time I would have put the data through them and made the piece that way But I did it by hand It was a demonstration through the absurd Asked whether it should still be listened to as music Boulez replied I am not terribly eager to listen to it But for me it was an experiment that was absolutely necessary 153 Le Marteau sans maitre and Pli selon pli Edit Structures Book I was a turning point for Boulez Recognising a lack of expressive flexibility in the language described in his essay At the Limit of Fertile Land 154 Boulez loosened the strictness of total serialism into a more supple and strongly gestural music I am trying to rid myself of my thumbprints and taboos he wrote to Cage 155 The most significant result of this new freedom was Le Marteau sans maitre n 4 1953 1955 described by Griffiths and Bill Hopkins as a keystone of twentieth century music 151 Three short poems by Char form the starting point for three interlocking cycles Four movements are vocal settings of the poems one is set twice the other five are instrumental commentaries According to Hopkins and Griffiths the music is characterised by abrupt tempo transitions passages of broadly improvisatory melodic style and exotic instrumental colouring 151 The piece is scored for contralto soloist with alto flute xylorimba vibraphone percussion guitar and viola Boulez said that the choice of these instruments showed the influence of non European cultures to which he had always been attracted 156 Stephane Mallarme For the text of his next major work Pli selon pli n 5 1957 1989 Boulez turned to the symbolist poetry of Stephane Mallarme attracted by its extreme density and radical syntax 157 At seventy minutes it is his longest composition Three Improvisations of increasing complexity on individual sonnets are framed by two orchestral movements into which fragments of other poems are embedded 158 Boulez s word setting which in the first Improvisation is straightforwardly syllabic becomes ever more melismatic to the point where the words cannot be distinguished Boulez s stated aim was to make the sonnets become the music at a deeper structural level 159 The piece is scored for soprano and large orchestra often deployed in chamber groups Boulez described its sound world rich in percussion as not so much frozen as extraordinarily vitrified 160 The work had a complex genesis reaching its definitive form in 1989 161 Controlled chance Edit From the 1950s Boulez experimented with what he called controlled chance and he developed his views on aleatoric music in the articles Alea 162 and Sonate que me veux tu n 11 in which he wrote of the investigation of a relative world a permanent discovering rather like the state of permanent revolution 163 Peyser observes that Boulez s use of chance is different from John Cage s In Cage s music the performers are often free to create unforeseen sounds with the aim of removing the composer s intention from the music in Boulez s music they choose between possibilities that have been written out by the composer 164 When applied to the order of sections this is sometimes described as mobile form a technique devised by Earle Brown who was inspired by the mobile sculptures of Alexander Calder Brown and Cage introduced Boulez to Calder when Boulez was visiting New York in 1952 165 Boulez employed variants of the technique in a number of works over the next two decades in the Third Piano Sonata 1955 1957 revised 1963 the pianist may choose different routes through the score and in one movement Trope has the option of omitting certain passages altogether 166 in Eclat n 7 1965 the conductor triggers the order in which each player joins the ensemble in Domaines 1961 1968 it is the soloist who dictates the order in which the sections are played by his movement around the stage In later works such as Cummings ist der Dichter n 12 1970 revised 1986 a chamber cantata for 16 solo voices and small orchestra using a poem by E E Cummings the conductor is given choice as to the order of certain events but there is no freedom for the individual player In its original version Pli selon pli also contained elements of choice for the instrumentalists but much of this was eliminated in later revisions By contrast Figures Doubles Prismes 1957 1968 is a fixed work with no chance element Piencikowski describes it as a great cycle of variations whose components interpenetrate each other instead of remaining isolated in the traditional manner 167 It is notable for the unusual layout of the orchestra in which the various families of instruments woodwind brass etc are scattered across the stage rather than being grouped together 168 Middle period works Edit Jonathan Goldman identifies a major aesthetic shift in Boulez s work from the mid 1970s onwards characterised variously by the presence of thematic writing a return to vertical harmony and to clarity and legibility of form 169 Boulez himself said the envelope is simpler The contents are not I think in my recent work it is true that the first approach is more direct and the gesture is more obvious let s say 170 The works from this period are amongst his most frequently performed For Goldman Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna 1974 75 marks the beginning of this development Boulez wrote this twenty five minute work as an epitaph for his friend and colleague the Italian composer and conductor who died in 1973 at the age of 53 The piece is divided into fifteen sections the orchestra into eight groups The odd numbered sections are conducted in the even numbered sections the conductor merely sets each group in motion and its progress is regulated by a percussionist beating time In his dedication Boulez described the work as a ritual of disappearance and survival 171 Griffiths refers to the work s awesome grandeur 172 Notations I IV 1980 are the first four transformations of piano miniatures from 1945 into pieces for very large orchestra In his review of the New York premiere Andrew Porter wrote that the single idea of each original piece has as it were been passed through a many faceted bright prism and broken into a thousand linked lapped sparkling fragments the finale a terse modern Rite which sets the pulses racing 173 Derive 1 n 13 1984 dedicated to William Glock on his retirement from the Bath Festival 75 is a short quintet in which the piano takes the lead The material is derived from six chords and according to Ivan Hewett the piece shuffles and decorates these chords bursting outwards in spirals and eddies before returning to its starting point At the end the music shivers into silence 175 Works with electronics Edit Boulez compared the experience of listening to pre recorded electronic music in the concert hall to a crematorium ceremony His real interest lay in the instantaneous transformation of instrumental sounds but the technology was not available until the founding of IRCAM in the 1970s Before then he had produced Deux Etudes 1951 for magnetic tape for Pierre Schaeffer s Groupe Recherche de la Radiodiffusion Francaise 176 as well as a large scale piece for live orchestra with tape Poesie pour pouvoir 1958 n 6 He was dissatisfied with both pieces and withdrew them 177 The first piece completed at IRCAM was Repons 1980 1984 n 14 In this forty minute work an instrumental ensemble is placed in the middle of the hall while six soloists surround the audience two pianos harp cimbalom vibraphone and glockenspiel xylophone It is their music which is transformed electronically and projected through the space Peter Heyworth described the moment when they enter some ten minutes into the piece it is as though a great window were thrown open through which a new sound world enters and with it a new world of the imagination Even more impressive is the fact that there is no longer a schism between the worlds of natural and electronic sounds but rather a continuous spectrum 179 Dialogue de l ombre double 1982 1985 n 15 for clarinet and electronics grew out of a fragment of Domaines and was a gift for Luciano Berio on his 60th birthday Lasting around eighteen minutes it is a dialogue between a solo clarinet played live though sometimes reverberated through an offstage piano and its double in passages pre recorded by the same musician and projected around the hall Boulez approved transcriptions of the piece for bassoon in 1995 and for recorder in 2011 In the early 1970s he had worked on an extended chamber piece called explosante fixe n 16 for eight solo instruments electronically transformed by a machine called a halophone but the technology was still primitive and he eventually withdrew it 180 He re used some of its material in other works including a later piece with the same name 181 This definitive version recorded commercially was composed at IRCAM between 1991 and 1993 for MIDI flute and two accompanying flutes with ensemble and live electronics By this time the technology was such that the computer could follow the score and respond to triggers from the players 182 According to Griffiths the principal flute is caught as if in a hall of mirrors its line imitated in what the other flutes play and then in the contributions of the larger ensemble 183 Hopkins and Griffiths describe it as music characteristically caught between thrill and desperation 151 Anthemes II for violin and electronics 1997 grew out of a piece for solo violin Anthemes I 1991 which Boulez wrote for the Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in Paris and which in turn derived from material in the original explosante fixe 171 The virtuoso writing for the instrument is captured by the electronic system transformed in real time and propelled around the space to create what Jonathan Goldman calls a hyper violin Although this gives rise to effects of speed and complexity which no violinist could achieve Boulez restricts the palette of electronic sounds so that their source the violin is always recognisable 184 Last works Edit In later works Boulez relinquished electronics although Griffiths suggests that in sur Incises 1996 1998 n 17 the choice of like but distinct instruments spread across the platform enabled Boulez to create effects of harmonic timbral and spatial echo for which he previously used electronic means The piece is scored for three pianos three harps and three percussionists including steel drums and grew out of Incises 1993 2001 a short piece written for a piano competition 185 In an interview in 2013 he described it as his most important work because it is the freest 186 Notation VII 1999 marked hieratic in the score is the longest of the orchestral Notations According to Griffiths what was abrupt in 1945 is now languorous what was crude is now done with a lifetime s experience and expertise what was simple is fantastically embellished even submerged 187 Derive 2 started out in 1988 as a five minute piece dedicated to Elliott Carter on his 80th birthday by 2006 it was a 45 minute work for eleven instruments and Boulez s last major composition According to Claude Samuel Boulez wanted to explore rhythmic shifts tempo changes and superimpositions of different speeds inspired in part by his contact with the music of Gyorgy Ligeti Boulez described it as a sort of narrative mosaic 171 Unfinished works Edit A distinction may be made between works which Boulez was actively progressing and those which he put to one side despite their potential for further development In the latter category the archives contain three unpublished movements of the Third Piano Sonata 188 and further sections of Eclat Multiples which if performed would practically double its length 189 As for works Boulez was known to be working on in his later years the premieres of two more orchestral Notations V and VI were announced by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for May 2006 but postponed 190 He was in the process of developing Anthemes 2 into a large scale work for violin and orchestra for Anne Sophie Mutter 191 and spoke of writing an opera based on Beckett s Waiting for Godot 192 None of these projects came to fruition Character and personal life EditAs a young man Boulez was an explosive often confrontational figure Jean Louis Barrault who knew him in his twenties caught the contradictions in his personality his powerful aggressiveness was a sign of creative passion a particular blend of intransigence and humour the way his moods of affection and insolence succeeded one another all these had drawn us near to him 193 Messiaen said later He was in revolt against everything 194 Indeed at one point Boulez turned against Messiaen describing his Trois petites liturgies de la presence divine as brothel music and saying that the Turangalila Symphonie made him vomit 27 It was five years before relations were restored 195 In a 2000 article in The New Yorker Alex Ross described him as a bully 196 Boulez did not disagree Certainly I was a bully I m not ashamed of it at all The hostility of the establishment to what you were able to do in the Forties and Fifties was very strong Sometimes you have to fight against your society 25 The most notorious instance of this is Boulez s declaration in 1952 that any musician who has not experienced I do not say understood but truly experienced the necessity of dodecaphonic music is USELESS For his whole work is irrelevant to the needs of his epoch 197 On the other hand those who knew him well often referred to his loyalty both to individuals and to organisations 198 When his mentor the conductor Roger Desormiere was paralysed by a stroke in 1952 Boulez sent scripts to French Radio in Desormiere s name so that the older man could collect the fee 199 The writer Jean Vermeil who observed Boulez in the 1990s in the company of Jean Batigne founder of the Percussions de Strasbourg discovered a Boulez asking about the health of a musician in the Strasbourg orchestra about another player s children a Boulez who knew everyone by name and who reacted to each person s news with sadness or with joy 200 In later life he was known for his charm and personal warmth 1 Of his humour Gerard McBurney wrote that it depended on his twinkling eyes his perfect timing his infectious schoolboy giggle and his reckless compulsion always to say what the other person would not expect 201 Senecio Head of a Man 1922 by Paul Klee Boulez read widely and identified Proust Joyce and Kafka as particular influences 202 He had a lifelong interest in the visual arts He wrote extensively about the painter Paul Klee and collected contemporary art including works by Joan Miro Francis Bacon Nicolas de Stael and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva all of whom he knew personally 203 He also had close links with three of the leading philosophers of the time Gilles Deleuze Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes 204 He was a keen walker and when he was at home in Baden Baden spent the late afternoons and much of the weekends walking in the Black Forest 205 He owned an old farmhouse in the Alpes de Hautes Provence department of France and built another modern home on the same land in the late 1970s 104 In its obituary The New York Times reported that about his private life he remained tightly guarded 206 Boulez acknowledged to Joan Peyser that there was a passionate affair in 1946 described as intense and tormented and which Peyser suggested was the trigger for the wild courageous works of that period 207 After Boulez s death his sister Jeanne told the biographer Christian Merlin that the affair was with the actress Maria Casares but Merlin concludes that there is little evidence to support this 208 The author and blogger Norman Lebrecht who knew Boulez speculated that he was gay citing the fact that for many years he shared his home in Baden Baden with Hans Messner 1 whom he sometimes referred to as his valet 209 In his portrait for The New Yorker published shortly after Boulez s death under the title The Magus Alex Ross described him as affable implacable unknowable 192 Conducting EditBoulez was one of the leading conductors of the second half of the twentieth century In a career lasting more than sixty years he directed most of the world s major orchestras He was entirely self taught although he said that he learnt a great deal from attending Desormiere s and Hans Rosbaud s rehearsals 210 He also cited George Szell as an influential mentor 211 Pierre Boulez conducting at The Royal Concertgebouw in 1963 Boulez gave various reasons for conducting as much as he did He gave his first concerts for the Domaine musical because its financial resources were limited I told myself that being much less expensive I would have a go myself 212 He also said that the best possible training for a composer was to have to play or conduct his own works and to face their difficulties of execution yet on a practical level he sometimes struggled to find time to compose given his conducting commitments 213 The writer and pianist Susan Bradshaw thought this was deliberate and related to a sense of being overshadowed as a composer by Stockhausen who from the late 1950s was increasingly prolific The French litterateur and musicologist Pierre Souvchinsky disagreed Boulez became a conductor because he had a great gift for it 214 Not everyone agreed about the greatness of that gift For the conductor Otto Klemperer he was without doubt the only man of his generation who is an outstanding conductor and musician 215 Hans Keller expressed a more critical opinion Boulez cannot phrase it is as simple as that the reason being that he ignores the harmonic implications of any structure he is dealing with to the extent of utterly disregarding harmonic rhythm and hence all characteristic rhythm in tonal music 216 Joan Peyser considered that in general Boulez conducts what he loves magnificently conducts what he likes very well and with rare exceptions gives stiff performances of the classic and romantic repertoire 217 He worked with many leading soloists and had particularly long term collaborations with Daniel Barenboim and Jessye Norman 218 According to Peter Heyworth Boulez produced a lean athletic sound which underpinned by his rhythmic exactitude could generate an electric sense of excitement The ability to reveal the structure of a score and to clarify dense orchestral textures were hallmarks of his conducting He conducted without a baton and as Heyworth observed there is no trace of theatre not even the rather theatrical sort of economy that was practised by Richard Strauss 219 According to Boulez outward excitement uses up inner excitement 220 Boulez s ear for sound was legendary there are countless stories of him detecting for example faulty intonation from the third oboe in a complex orchestral texture Paul Griffiths wrote in The New York Times 206 Oliver Knussen himself a well known composer conductor observed that his rehearsals are models of clear headedness and professional courtesy he effortlessly commands respect 221 Nicholas Kenyon wrote of Boulez s rehearsal ethos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra Boulez is supremely efficient his rehearsal requirements have always been absolutely precise He knows exactly what can be done and what cannot He knows how to organise a rehearsal without fuss even when there are countless platform changes switches of personnel electronics and staging to consider For orchestral administrators concert managers orchestral porters he is the easiest kindest and best organised of conductors 222 Opera Edit The 1976 centenary production of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival conducted by Boulez Boulez also conducted in the opera house His chosen repertoire was small and included no Italian opera Apart from Wagner he conducted only twentieth century works Of his work with Wieland Wagner on Wozzeck and Parsifal Boulez said I would willingly have hitched if not my entire fate then at least a part of it to someone like him for our discussions about music and productions were thrilling They planned other productions together including Salome and Elektra Boris Godunov and Don Giovanni However by the time rehearsals for their Bayreuth Parsifal began Wieland was already gravely ill and he died in October 1966 223 When the Frankfurt Wozzeck was revived after Wieland s death Boulez was deeply disillusioned by the working conditions there was no rehearsal no care taken over anything The cynicism of the way an opera house like that was run disgusted me It still disgusts me He later said 61 that it was this experience which prompted his notorious remarks in an interview the following year in Der Spiegel in which he claimed that no opera worth mentioning had been composed since 1935 that a Beatles record is certainly cleverer and shorter than a Henze opera and that the most elegant solution to opera s moribund condition would be to blow the opera houses up 224 In 1967 Boulez theatre director Jean Vilar and choreographer Maurice Bejart were asked to devise a scheme for the reform of the Paris Opera with a view to Boulez becoming its music director Their plan was derailed by the political fallout from the 1968 student protests 225 Later in the mid 1980s Boulez became vice president of the planned Opera Bastille in Paris working with Daniel Barenboim who was to be its music director In 1988 a newly appointed director Pierre Berge dismissed Barenboim Boulez withdrew in solidarity 226 In the event Boulez conducted only specific projects in productions by leading stage directors when he could be satisfied that conditions were right Thanks to his years with the Barrault company the theatrical dimension was as important to him as the musical and he always attended staging rehearsals 227 Patrice Chereau For the centenary Ring in Bayreuth Boulez originally asked Ingmar Bergman then Peter Brook to direct both of whom refused Peter Stein initially agreed but withdrew in 1974 228 Patrice Chereau who was primarily a theatre director accepted and went on to create one of the defining opera productions of modern times According to Allan Kozinn the production helped open the floodgates of directorial reinterpretation of opera sometimes known as Regietheater Chereau treated the story in part as an allegory of capitalism drawing on ideas that George Bernard Shaw explored in The Perfect Wagnerite in 1898 He updated the action to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries using imagery of the industrial age 91 and he achieved an unprecedented degree of naturalism in the singers performances 90 Boulez s conducting was no less controversial emphasising continuity flexibility and transparency over mythic grandeur and weight 229 In its first year the production met with hostility from the largely conservative audience and around thirty orchestral musicians refused to work with Boulez in subsequent seasons 230 Both production and musical realisation grew in stature over the following four years and after the final performance in 1980 there was a 90 minute ovation 231 Boulez worked with Chereau again on Berg s Lulu in Paris 1979 and Janacek s From the House of the Dead in Vienna 2007 His other preferred director was Peter Stein Of Debussy s Pelleas et Melisande Boulez had written I don t like the French tradition of sweetness and gentleness the work is not gentle at all but cruel and mysterious 232 Stein realised that vision in his staging for Welsh National Opera in 1992 John Rockwell describing it as an abstract angry Pelleas one perhaps over intent on emphasizing the score s links to modernity 233 David Stevens described their 1995 production of Schoenberg s Moses und Aron in Amsterdam as theatrically and musically thrilling 234 From the mid 1960s Boulez spoke of composing an opera himself His attempts to find a librettist were unsuccessful both times the writer has died on me so I m a bit superstitious about looking for a third candidate 61 From the late 1960s he exchanged ideas with the radical French playwright and novelist Jean Genet and a subject treason was agreed on 235 Parts of a draft libretto were found among Genet s papers after his death in 1986 236 Boulez later turned to the German playwright Heiner Muller who was working on a reduction of Aeschylus s Oresteia when he died in 1995 again without leaving anything usable 61 In the 1980s he discussed with Patrice Chereau an adaptation of Genet s 1961 play Les Paravents The Screens which was planned for the 1989 opening of the Opera Bastille in Paris but this too came to nothing 237 In a 1996 interview Boulez said that he was thinking of Edward Bond s The War Plays or Lear but only thinking 61 When news emerged in 2010 that he was working on an opera based on Samuel Beckett s Waiting for Godot few believed such an ambitious undertaking could be realised so late in the day 236 Recording EditBoulez s first recordings date from his time with the Domaine musical in the late 1950s and early 1960s and were made for the French Vega label They document his first thoughts on works which he would subsequently re record such as Schoenberg s Chamber Symphony No 1 as well as pieces to which he did not return in the studio such as Stravinsky s Renard and Stockhausen s Zeitmasse They also include the first of his five recordings of Le Marteau sans maitre with contralto Marie Therese Cahn In 2015 Universal Music brought these recordings together in a 10 CD set 238 Arnold Schoenberg by Egon Schiele 1917 Between 1966 and 1989 he recorded for Columbia Records later Sony Classical Among the first projects were the Paris Wozzeck with Walter Berry and the Covent Garden Pelleas et Melisande with George Shirley and Elisabeth Soderstrom He made a highly praised recording of The Rite of Spring with the Cleveland Orchestra and a number of recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra including rarities such as Berlioz s Lelio and the first complete recording of Mahler s Das klagende Lied The LSO also contributed to the Webern edition which Boulez supervised consisting of all the works with opus numbers He produced a wide ranging survey of the music of Schoenberg including Gurrelieder and Moses und Aron with the BBC Symphony Orchestra as well as less well known works such as the unaccompanied choral music He also recorded the orchestral works of Ravel with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra 239 As for Boulez s own music in 1969 there was a first recording of Pli selon pli with Halina Lukomska as soprano soloist and recordings of Rituel and Eclat Multiples In 2014 Sony Classical issued Pierre Boulez The Complete Columbia Album Collection on 67 CDs 239 Three operatic projects from this period were picked up by other labels the Bayreuth Ring was released on video and LP by Philips the Bayreuth Parsifal and Paris Lulu were recorded for Deutsche Grammophon 240 In the 1980s he also recorded for the Erato label mostly with the Ensemble Intercontemporain with a greater emphasis on the music of his contemporaries Berio Ligeti Carter etc as well as a survey of some of his own music including Le Visage nuptial Le Soleil des eaux and Figures Doubles Prismes In 2015 Erato issued Pierre Boulez The Complete Erato Recordings on 14 CDs 239 For EMI in 1984 he recorded a number of pieces on Frank Zappa s album The Perfect Stranger with the Ensemble Intercontemporain 241 From 1991 onwards Boulez recorded under an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon It centred on the orchestras of Chicago and Cleveland in the United States and Vienna and Berlin in Europe 242 He re recorded much of his core repertoire the orchestral music of Debussy Ravel Stravinsky and Bartok and oversaw a second Webern edition including the unpublished works His own late music featured prominently including Repons explosante fixe and sur Incises There was also a recording of Pli selon pli with Christine Schafer in its definitive version incorporating revisions made in the late 1980s Composers new to his discography included Richard Strauss Szymanowski and Anton Bruckner his recording of the Eighth Symphony met with particular acclaim 243 The most significant addition to his recorded repertoire was the multi orchestra cycle of the Mahler symphonies and vocal works with orchestra 244 An 88 disc set of all Boulez s recordings for Deutsche Grammophon Philips and Decca was issued in 2022 245 In addition many hundreds of concerts conducted by Boulez are held in the archives of radio stations and orchestras In 2005 the Chicago Symphony Orchestra released a 2 CD set of broadcasts by Boulez focusing on works which he had not recorded commercially including Janacek s Glagolitic Mass and Messiaen s L ascension 246 Performing EditEarly in his career Boulez sometimes performed publicly as a pianist In 1955 he accompanied the tenor Jean Giraudeau in a recording of songs by Stravinsky and Mussorgsky 247 Between 1957 and 1959 he gave several performances of his own Third Piano Sonata 248 a performance he gave in Darmstadt on 30 August 1959 was issued on CD in 2016 249 He also gave recitals of music for two pianos with Yvonne Loriod 250 In the 1960s and 1970s he occasionally included songs for voice and piano in orchestral programmes for example accompanying Christa Ludwig in songs by Berg at a New York Philharmonic Orchestra concert in February 1972 251 A rare example of his pianism in later life was a short film made by Austrian television in 1992 in which Boulez played his early Notations 252 Writing and teaching EditAccording to Jean Jacques Nattiez Boulez was one of two twentieth century composers who wrote most prolifically about music the other being Schoenberg 253 Ironically it was with a 1952 article with the inflammatory title Schoenberg is Dead published in the British journal The Score shortly after the older composer s death that Boulez first attracted international attention as a writer 254 This highly polemical piece in which he attacked Schoenberg for his conservatism contrasting it with Webern s radicalism caused widespread controversy 255 Jonathan Goldman points out that over the decades Boulez s writings addressed very different readerships in the 1950s the cultured Parisian attendees of the Domaine musical in the 1960s the specialised avant garde composers and performers of the Darmstadt and Basel courses and between 1976 and 1995 the highly literate but non specialist audience of the lectures he gave as Professor of the College de France 256 Much of Boulez s writing was linked to specific occasions whether a first performance of a new piece notes for a recording or a eulogy for a lost colleague Generally he avoided publishing detailed analyses other than one of The Rite of Spring As Nattiez points out as a writer Boulez is a communicator of ideas rather than of technical information This may sometimes prove disappointing to composition students but it is no doubt a peculiarity of his writing that explains its popularity with non musicians 257 Boulez s writings have appeared in English as Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship Boulez on Music Today Orientations Collected Writings and Pierre Boulez Music Lessons The Complete College de France Lectures Throughout his career he also expressed himself through long form interviews of which perhaps the most substantial are those with Antoine Golea 1958 Celestin Deliege 1975 and Jean Vermeil 1989 258 In addition two volumes of correspondence have been published with the composer John Cage from the period 1949 62 259 and with the anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Andre Schaeffner from 1954 to 1970 260 Boulez taught at the Darmstadt Summer School most years between 1954 and 1965 261 He was professor of composition at the Musik Akademie Basel in Switzerland 1960 63 and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University in 1963 He also taught privately in the early part of his career 151 Students included the composers Richard Rodney Bennett 262 Jean Claude Eloy and Heinz Holliger 153 Legacy EditAn article published for Boulez s 80th birthday in The Guardian revealed that Boulez s fellow composers had divided and sometimes equivocal views about him George Benjamin Boulez has produced a catalogue of wondrously luminous and scintillating works Within them a rigorous compositional skill is coupled to an imagination of extraordinary aural refinement Oliver Knussen a man who fashions his scores with the fanatical idealism of a medieval monk minutely illuminating volumes John Adams a mannerist a niche composer a master who worked with a very small hammer Alexander Goehr Boulez s failures will be better than most people s successes 221 When Boulez died in January 2016 he left no will In 1986 he entered into an agreement to place his musical and literary manuscripts with the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel Switzerland 263 In December 2017 the Bibliotheque nationale de France announced that the Boulez estate had made a substantial donation of Boulez s private papers and possessions not covered by the Sacher contract including 220 metres of books 50 metres of archives and correspondence as well as scores photographs recordings and about 100 other objects 264 Philharmonie de Paris Grande salle Pierre Boulez In October 2016 the large concert hall of the Philharmonie de Paris for which Boulez campaigned for many years was renamed the Grande salle Pierre Boulez 265 In March 2017 a new concert hall the Pierre Boulez Saal designed by Frank Gehry was opened in Berlin under the auspices of the Barenboim Said Academy It is home to a new Boulez Ensemble made up of members of the West Eastern Divan Orchestra the Berlin Staatskapelle and guest musicians from Berlin and around the world 266 Boulez s music continues to be taken up by interpreters of the next generation In September 2016 Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic paired Boulez s Eclat with Mahler s 7th Symphony for an international tour 267 In May and June 2017 many of Boulez s major works including explosante fixe and Repons were performed at the Vienna Konzerthaus 38th International Festival by Klangforum Wien conducted by Baldur Bronnimann 268 In October 2017 the Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Matthias Pinscher gave four performances of Repons over two evenings at the Park Avenue Armory New York in a presentation conceived by Pierre Audi 269 In September 2018 the first edition of the Pierre Boulez Biennial took place in Paris and Berlin a joint initiative by the Philharmonie de Paris and the Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim Performances of Boulez s music were set in the context of works which influenced him 270 The second Biennial was disrupted by the Covid 19 pandemic but a modified version went ahead online in 2020 in person in 2021 with a particular focus on the piano music 271 Honours and awards EditState honours awarded to Boulez included Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire CBE and Knight Commander s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Among his many awards Boulez listed the following in his Who s Who entry Grand Prix de la Musique Paris 1982 Charles Heidsieck Award for Outstanding Contribution to Franco British Music 1989 Polar Music Prize Stockholm 1996 Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal 1999 Wolf Prize Israel 2000 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition University of Louisville 2001 Glenn Gould Prize Glenn Gould Foundation 2002 Kyoto Prize Japan 2009 De Gaulle Adenauer Prize 2011 Giga Hertz Prize 2011 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Venice Biennale 2012 Gloria Artis Gold Medal 2012 Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music 2012 Karol Szymanowski Prize Foundation Karol Szymanowski 2012 Frontiers of Knowledge Award BBVA Foundation 2013 and nine honorary doctorates from universities and conservatoires in Belgium Great Britain Canada the Czech Republic and the United States 272 Notes references and sources EditNotes Edit In the event Messiaen was not appointed professor of composition until 1949 23 a b The Nuptial Countenance a b The Sun of the Waters a b The Hammer without a Master a b Fold upon Fold a b Poetry for Power a b The French word has many meanings including splinter and burst Nos 5 and 9 Lament of the Lovesick Lizard Mode of Duration and Dynamics What do you want from me sonata Cummings is the Poet Explaining the title in a letter to Glock Boulez referred to the fact that the music derived from material in Repons but also that one meaning of derive is the drifting of a boat in the wind or current 174 The title is a reference to plainchant in which the solo singer alternates with a choir It reflects the interplay between the soloists and the ensemble or as Samuel puts it the individual and the community 178 Dialogue of the Double Shadow The title refers to a scene in Paul Claudel s play Le Soulier de satin The Satin Slipper Boulez acknowledged that the work had a theatrical aspect 171 The title of the work is a quotation from Andre Breton s L Amour fou convulsive beauty will be erotic veiled exploding fixed magic circumstantial or it will not be 171 The title refers to the fact that the piece elaborates on the piano piece Incises References Edit a b c d e f g h i Nichols Roger 6 January 2016 Pierre Boulez obituary The Guardian Archived from the original on 6 January 2016 Retrieved 6 January 2016 Decalf Guillaume 9 August 2018 Mort de Jeanne Boulez Chevalier soeur de Pierre Boulez France Musique Retrieved 10 August 2018 Peyser 1976 21 22 Heyworth 1986 3 Jameux 3 Peyser 1976 23 25 Boulez 2017 21 Boulez 1976 10 11 Merlin 23 Peyser 1976 23 24 a b Coleman Terry 13 January 1989 Pierre de Resistance The Guardian Archived from the original on 4 January 2017 Retrieved 3 January 2017 Boulez 2003 17 Peyser 1976 24 25 Jameux 6 7 Heyworth 1986 4 Peyser 1976 24 Heyworth 1986 4 Hill and Simeone 139 O Hagan 9 O Hagan 13 Heyworth 1986 5 Archimbaud 24 Heyworth 1986 9 Merlin 28 Barbedette 212 Peyser 30 Peyser 1976 32 33 Jameux 15 16 Samuel 2002 24 Peyser 1976 39 Barbedette 212 213 O Hagan 14 O Hagan 37 Peyser 1976 31 32 Peyser 1976 32 Barbedette 212 Boulez 2017 96 a b Culshaw Peter 10 December 2008 Pierre Boulez I was a bully I m not ashamed The Telegraph Archived from the original on 22 April 2016 Retrieved 9 April 2016 Merlin 36 a b c Pierre Boulez obituary The Telegraph 6 January 2016 Archived from the original on 20 April 2016 Retrieved 13 April 2016 Boulez 2017 165 Archimbaud 39 Barrault 161 Barbedette 213 215 Peyser 1976 52 53 Merlin 37 Pierre Boulez 1925 2016 Edinburgh International Festival 7 January 2016 Archived from the original on 29 July 2016 Retrieved 1 February 2017 Campbell and O Hagan 303 305 Campbell and O Hagan 4 5 Boulez 2017 68 Samuel 2002 421 22 Peyser 1976 66 Peyser 1976 60 61 Boulez and Cage 41 48 a b Barbedette 214 Peyser 1976 76 Peyser 1976 82 85 Di Pietro 27 34 Boulez and Cage 29 33 Ross 360 Jameux 61 62 71 72 Heyworth 1986 21 Jameux 62 64 Campbell and O Hagan 9 Aguila 55 Jameux 65 67 Peyser 1976 111 112 Steinegger 64 66 Hill and Simeone 211 and 253 Jameux 79 80 Glock 132 Walsh 359 Heyworth 1986 15 and 22 Walsh 385 387 Glock 74 Barbedette 216 218 Peyser 1976 131 137 Kenyon 359 Barbedette 46 48 Peyser 1976 145 Jameux 114 Boulez and Cage 224 Vermeil 142 Vermeil 180 82 Boulez 2003 4 5 Vermeil 182 86 Steinegger 2012 260 68 Peyser 1976 170 Weber Hildegard September 1966 The First Boulez Wagner Production Opera Magazine Archived from the original on 25 April 2016 Retrieved 25 April 2016 Vermeil 192 98 a b c d e Boulez and the blight of the opera The Telegraph 7 September 1996 Archived from the original on 10 April 2016 Retrieved 27 March 2016 Higgins John 12 December 1969 Boulez in the Wardrobe The Spectator Archived from the original on 28 March 2016 Retrieved 27 March 2016 Campbell and O Hagan 327 and 332 Vermeil 144 145 note 27 Rosenberg 378 Boulez 2017 58 and 194 Vermeil 144 note 18 Rosenberg 402 Vermeil 188 95 Samuel 2002 425 Griffiths 1978 52 Samuel 2002 426 27 Kenyon 317 Vermeil 189 Glock 106 Glock 107 and 109 Vermeil 191 a b Glock 139 Concert program 17 Jun 1973 Program ID 4206 New York Philharmonic Shelby White amp Leon Levy Digital Archives https archives nyphil org index php artifact 89470457 2c68 47d5 8102 f2913401bc7e 0 1 Schonberg Harold C 14 March 1969 Music A First for Boulez PDF The New York Times Retrieved 8 February 2016 Glock 139 40 Vermeil 54 Vermeil 202 203 a b Heyworth 1986 36 Vermeil 228 and 239 Vermeil 205 and 209 Vermeil 205 209 211 and 216 Glock 135 Kenyon 391 95 Clements Andrew 18 August 2008 Prom 40 BBCSO Boulez The Guardian Archived from the original on 30 March 2017 Retrieved 29 March 2017 Peyser 245 46 Vermeil 150 Glock 141 Wagner 1994 165 a b Millington Barry 8 October 2013 Patrice Chereau and the bringing of dramatic conviction to the opera house The Guardian Retrieved 6 May 2018 a b Kozinn Allan 7 October 2013 Patrice Chereau Opera Stage and Film Director Dies at 68 The New York Times Archived from the original on 28 September 2015 Retrieved 27 March 2016 Simon 2002 427 Jameux 187 Jameux 175 Barbedette 219 21 a b Barbedette 221 Vermeil 228 231 234 and 236 Vermeil 226 230 233 a b Samuel 2002 421 422 Jameux 200 01 a b Samuel 2002 419 20 Pierre Boulez College de France Archived from the original on 13 February 2016 Retrieved 7 February 2016 a b Staff 8 January 2016 Pierre Boulez biographie complete France Musique Radio France Archived from the original on 26 December 2017 Retrieved 26 December 2017 a b Boulez 2017 117 note a b Barbedette 223 von Rhein John 7 January 2016 CSO conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez dies at 90 The Chicago Tribune Archived from the original on 3 June 2016 Retrieved 2 May 2016 Vermeil 242 43 Rockwell John 24 February 1992 Boulez and Stein Stage Pelleas With Modern Nuances in Wales The New York Times Archived from the original on 13 February 2016 Retrieved 7 February 2016 Glass Herbert 10 November 1996 Schoenberg Masterpiece by Ear Only Los Angeles Times Archived from the original on 7 February 2016 Retrieved 7 February 2016 Ross Alex 9 August 2004 Nausea The New Yorker Archived from the original on 11 March 2016 Retrieved 7 February 2016 Samuel 2002 429 2001 Pierre Boulez The Grawemeyer Awards Archived from the original on 19 February 2016 Retrieved 7 February 2016 Whitney Craig 13 May 1996 Unruly Paris Music Scene Relishes the Eclat Of a Boulez Coup The New York Times Archived from the original on 4 June 2016 Retrieved 10 May 2016 Service Tom 26 August 2015 A day for Boulez moving tributes and newly composed homages at the Lucerne festival The Guardian Archived from the original on 8 February 2016 Retrieved 7 February 2016 Barbedette 224 O Hagan 316 Tim Ashley 4 June 2007 From the House of the Dead The Guardian Archived from the original on 5 January 2008 Retrieved 7 September 2007 Oestreich James 7 May 2009 Wagner Masters Offer Mahler Cycle The New York Times Archived from the original on 26 December 2017 Retrieved 7 May 2016 Machart Renaud 29 November 2011 L oeil vif et le geste precis de Pierre Boulez Le Monde Paris Retrieved 1 August 2016 WQXR Staff Pierre Boulez Breaks His Shoulder Cancels in Lucerne Archived 11 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine 6 August 2013 Retrieved 6 January 2016 Hewett Ivan 4 October 2011 Exquisite Labyrinth the music of Pierre Boulez Southbank Centre review The Telegraph Archived from the original on 10 April 2016 Retrieved 27 March 2016 Pierre Boulez Pli selon pli Barbara Hannigan Archived from the original on 6 April 2016 Retrieved 26 March 2016 Salzburg Mozartwoche Programme 2012 PDF Salzburger Festspiele Archived from the original PDF on 22 August 2012 Retrieved 25 March 2016 Clements Andrew 11 May 2016 Boulez Livre pour Quatuor Revise CD review rapturous beauty from the Diotimas The Guardian Archived from the original on 12 May 2016 Retrieved 12 May 2016 Mark Brown 6 January 2016 Pierre Boulez classical music s maverick dies aged 90 The Guardian Archived from the original on 7 January 2016 Retrieved 7 January 2016 Barbedette 12 13 Machart Renaud 6 January 2016 Mort du compositeur et chef d orchestre Pierre Boulez Le Monde in French Retrieved 6 January 2016 Roux Marie Aude 15 January 2016 Pierre Boulez inhume a Baden Baden celebre a Saint Sulpice Le Monde in French Retrieved 15 January 2016 Roux Marie Aude 26 October 2016 La Philharmonie de Paris a inaugure la grande salle Pierre Boulez Le Monde in French Retrieved 10 May 2018 Meimoun 15 note Bennett 41 Meimoun 22 Bennett 46 49 Jameux 13 Campbell and O Hagan 29 O Hagan 31 Bennett 54 O Hagan 38 47 O Hagan 44 Samuel 2002 428 Griffiths 1978 49 Campbell and O Hagan 93 and 96 Jameux 228 Bennett 57 Jameux 239 Samuel 2002 422 Jameux 23 40 257 Griffiths 1978 18 19 Goldman 7 Boulez 1975 41 42 Griffiths 1978 16 Ross 378 a b c d e f Hopkins and Griffiths Ross 363 364 a b c Toronyi Lalic Igor 20 July 2012 theartsdesk Q amp A Composer Pierre Boulez theartsdesk Archived from the original on 19 March 2017 Retrieved 14 March 2017 Boulez 1991 162 Campbell 13 Boulez 1976 67 Boulez 1976 93 Guldbrandsen Bradshaw 186 Boulez 1976 94 Samuel 2002 424 25 Boulez 1991 26 38 Boulez 1986 143 Peyser 1976 126 129 Barbedette 143 Borchardt Hume 70 71 Gardner and O Hagan 179 Piencikowski Boulez 2003 101 Goldman xv xvi Ford 23 a b c d e Samuel 2013 Griffiths 1978 58 59 Porter 88 Glock 174 Hewett Ivan 26 September 2013 Ivan Hewett s Classic 50 No 39 Pierre Boulez Derive 1 The Telegraph Archived from the original on 2 January 2017 Retrieved 1 January 2017 Peyser 1976 67 Rocco 67 An Interview with Dominique Jameux in Boulez 1981 201 02 Jameux 114 16 Samuel 2013 Heyworth 1982 Vermeil 207 209 and 210 Jameux 176 77 Campbell and O Hagan 297 Rocco 68 Griffiths 1995b Goldman 169 172 Griffiths 2005 105 Boulez 2017 249 Griffiths 2005 102 Edwards 4 Wolfgang Schaufler December 2010 Pierre Boulez About the Music Universal Edition website Archived from the original on 4 June 2016 Retrieved 4 May 2016 Delacoma Wynne 29 March 2006 CSO erases Boulez s latest Notations Chicago Sun Times Archived from the original on 11 June 2016 Retrieved 18 May 2016 Shave Nick October 2005 Anne Sophie Mutter interview by Nick Shave Archived 2 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine Gramophone Retrieved 1 April 2018 a b Ross Alex 25 January 2016 The Magus Archived 23 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine The New Yorker Retrieved 26 March 2016 Barrault 205 Samuel 1976 111 Benjamin George 20 March 2015 George Benjamin on Pierre Boulez He was simply a poet The Guardian Archived from the original on 8 April 2016 Retrieved 9 April 2016 Ross Alex 10 April 2000 The Godfather The New Yorker Archived from the original on 6 August 2017 Retrieved 5 August 2017 Boulez 1991 113 Barbedette 15 Peyser 1976 116 Vermeil 18 McBurney Gerard 12 January 2016 Pierre Boulez He was one of the naughtiest of great artists The Guardian Archived from the original on 25 April 2016 Retrieved 25 May 2016 Archimbaud 152 153 Barbedette 149 151 34 35 117 153 222 Barbedette 54 55 Peyser 1976 171 a b Griffiths Paul 6 January 2016 Pierre Boulez French Composer Dies at 90 The New York Times Archived from the original on 6 January 2016 Retrieved 6 January 2016 Peyser 1976 33 34 and 113 Merlin 42 44 Lebrecht 183 Boulez 2003 137 Boulez 2017 37 Rosenberg 383 84 398 Boulez 2003 4 Glock 133 Peyser 1976 147 Heyworth 1973 120 Keller Hans 1975 1984 minus 9 quoted in Kenyon p 394 Peyser 1976 210 Vermeil 179 244 Heyworth 1986 25 26 Glock 137 a b Clements Andrew and Tom Service compilers 24 March 2005 A master who worked with a very small hammer The Guardian London Archived from the original on 6 March 2014 Retrieved 7 May 2016 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a CS1 maint unfit URL link Kenyon p 393 Boulez 2003 8 Boulez 2017 41 Sprengt die Opernhauser in die Luft Der Spiegel 25 September 1967 Archived from the original on 5 March 2016 Retrieved 29 March 2016 Heyworth 1986 31 32 Rockwell John 10 June 1992 Suddenly Opera Is Everywhere in Paris The New York Times Archived from the original on 1 June 2016 Retrieved 30 April 2016 Jampol 10 Boulez Chereau Peduzzi and Schmidt 15 16 Boulez Chereau Peduzzi and Schmidt 22 23 Wagner 167 Barbedette 183 Heyworth 1986 30 Rockwell John 24 February 1992 Boulez and Stein Stage Pelleas With Modern Nuances in Wales The New York Times Archived from the original on 7 March 2016 Retrieved 30 April 2016 Stevens David 11 October 1995 Schoenberg s Gift of Eloquence Thrilling Staging of Moses The New York Times Archived from the original on 1 June 2016 Retrieved 30 April 2016 Heyworth 1986 29 a b Clements Andrew March 2016 Pierre Boulez 1925 2016 Opera Magazine London Barulich 52 Boulez 1981 26 CD set Pierre Boulez Le Domaine Musical 1956 1967 2015 Universal Music Group 4811510 a b c Clements Andrew 26 March 2015 Pierre Boulez 60 Years on Record The Guardian Archived from the original on 13 February 2016 Retrieved 7 February 2016 The Ring Philips 6527 115 released 1981 Parsifal DG 2720 034 released 1971 Lulu DG 2711 024 released 1979 Rockwell John 30 September 1984 Meeting of Musical Extremes The New York Times Retrieved 9 April 2019 Pierre Boulez Biography Deutsche Grammophon Archived from the original on 12 April 2016 Retrieved 29 March 2016 Bridle Marc Bruckner Symphony No 8 in C minor MusicWeb International Archived from the original on 29 September 2007 Retrieved 15 July 2007 CD set Boulez Conducts Mahler 2013 Deutsche Grammophon 0289 477 9528 5 CD set Boulez the Conductor 2022 Deutsche Grammophon 0289 486 0915 Pierre Boulez at 90 part 2 for the record Chicago Symphony Orchestra 11 November 2014 Archived from the original on 2 August 2016 Retrieved 21 May 2016 Stravinsky amp Mussorgsky Melodies chantees en francais DECCA FAT173601 Re released online in 2017 through the BNF restoration project Vermeil 180 81 Darmstadt Aural Documents Box 4 Pianists Neos 11360 CD2 Campbell and O Hagan 332 Vermeil 190 and 204 Staff 1992 Boulez plays Boulez Universal Edition Archived from the original on 15 October 2015 Retrieved 1 October 2016 Boulez 1981 12 13 Boulez 1991 209 14 Glock 1991 89 90 Goldman 4 Boulez 1981 14 Golea Boulez 1976 Vermeil Boulez Pierre and John Cage Boulez Pierre and Andre Schaeffner Boulez 1971 Peyser 1976 134 Merlin 13 Staff 26 December 2017 Le fonds Pierre Boulez de la BnF s enrichit grace a un don et une acquisition exceptionnels PDF Bibliotheque nationale de France Archived PDF from the original on 7 January 2018 Retrieved 7 January 2018 The Spaces Philharmonie de Paris Archived from the original on 27 October 2016 Retrieved 27 October 2016 Pierre Boulez Saal Barenboim Said Akademie Archived from the original on 26 March 2017 Retrieved 25 March 2017 Clements Andrew 4 September 2016 Berlin PO Rattle BBC Singers EIC review a powerful Proms tribute to Boulez The Guardian Retrieved 11 May 2018 Pierre Boulez Portrait at Wiener Konzerthaus 38th International Musikfest Schott EAM Retrieved 10 May 2018 Repons Park Avenue Armory Retrieved 10 May 2018 1st Pierre Boulez Biennial Philharmonie de Paris Archived from the original on 6 August 2020 Retrieved 8 May 2018 Pierre Boulez Biennial Philharmonie de Paris Retrieved 10 October 2021 Boulez Pierre 26 March 1925 5 Jan 2016 Who s Who amp Who Was Who Oxford University Press 1 December 2016 doi 10 1093 ww 9780199540884 013 U8205 ISBN 978 0 19 954089 1 Sources Edit Aguila Jesus 1992 Le Domaine Musical Pierre Boulez et vingt ans de creation contemporaine in French Paris Librairie Artheme Fayard ISBN 978 2 213 02952 8 Akoka Gerard Entretiens de Pierre Boulez avec Gerard Akoka in French Paris Editions Minerve ISBN 978 2 86931 138 1 Archimbaud Michel 2016 Pierre Boulez Entretiens avec Michel Archimbaud in French Paris Editions Gallimard ISBN 978 2 07 041828 2 Barbedette Sarah ed 2015 Pierre Boulez Catalogue of the exhibition at the Musee de la musique in Paris 17 March to 28 June 2015 in French Paris Actes Sud ISBN 978 2 330 04796 2 Barrault Jean Louis 1974 Memories for Tomorrow translated by Jonathan Griffin London Thames and Hudson ISBN 978 0 500 01086 0 Barulich Frances 1988 Review of recently published books by and about Boulez including Boulez 1981 Glock 1986 etc Notes 2nd series 45 no 1 September 48 52 Bennett Gerald 1986 The Early Works In Pierre Boulez A Symposium edited by William Glock 41 84 London Eulenburg Books ISBN 978 0 903873 12 3 Boulez Pierre 1971 Boulez on Music Today translated by Susan Bradshaw and Richard Rodney Bennett Cambridge MA Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 08006 5 Boulez Pierre 1976 Conversations with Celestin Deliege London Ernst Eulenburg Ltd ISBN 978 0 903873 22 2 Boulez Pierre and Patrice Chereau Richard Peduzzi Jacques Schmidt 1980 Histoire d un Ring with additional texts by Sylvie de Nussac and Francois Regnault in French Paris Editions Robert Laffont ISBN 978 2 253 02853 6 Boulez Pierre 1986 Orientations Collected Writings collected and edited by Jean Jacques Nattiez translated by Martin Cooper London Faber amp Faber 1986 ISBN 978 0 571 13835 7 Boulez Pierre and John Cage 1990 Correspondence et documents edited by Jean Jacques Nattiez with Francoise Davoine Hans Oesch and Robert Piencikowski in French Basel Amadeus Verlag ISBN 978 3 905049 37 4 Boulez Pierre 1991 Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship collected and presented by Paule Thevenin translated by Stephen Walsh 209 14 New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 311210 0 Boulez Pierre 1995 Points de repere I Imaginer edited by Jean Jacques Nattiez and Sophie Galaise with the collaboration of Robert Piecikowski in French Musique passe present Paris Christian Bourgois ISBN 978 2 267 01286 6 Boulez Pierre and Andre Schaeffner 1998 Correspondence 1954 1970 edited by Rosangela Pereira de Tugny in French Paris Fayard ISBN 978 2 213 60093 2 Boulez Pierre 2003 Boulez on Conducting Conversations with Cecile Gilly translated by Richard Stokes London Faber amp Faber ISBN 978 0 571 21967 4 Boulez Pierre 2005a Points de repere II Regards sur autrui edited by Jean Jacques Nattiez and Sophie Galaise in French Musique passe present Paris Christian Bourgois ISBN 978 2 267 01750 2 Boulez Pierre 2005b Points de repere III Lecons de musique Deux decennies d enseignement au College de France 1976 1995 edited by Jean Jacques Nattiez in French Musique passe present Paris Christian Bourgois ISBN 978 2 267 01757 1 Boulez Pierre 2017 Entretiens de Pierre Boulez 1983 2013 recueillis par Bruno Serrou in French Chateau Gontier Editions Aedam Musicae ISBN 978 2 919046 34 8 Borchardt Hume Achim 2015 Alexander Calder Performing Sculpture London Tate Publishing ISBN 978 1 84976 344 8 Bradshaw Susan 1986 The Instrumental and Vocal Music In Pierre Boulez A Symposium edited by William Glock 127 229 London Eulenburg Books ISBN 978 0 903873 12 3 Campbell Edward and Peter O Hagan 2016 Pierre Boulez Studies Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 06265 8 Di Pietro Rocco 2001 Dialogues with Boulez Lanham MD The Scarecrow Press Inc ISBN 978 0 8108 3932 8 Edwards Allen 1989 Unpublished Bouleziana at the Paul Sacher Foundation Tempo New Series no 169 June 4 15 Ford Andrew 1993 Composer to Composer Conversations about Contemporary Music London Quartet Books Limited ISBN 978 0 7043 7061 6 Glock William 1991 Notes in Advance Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 816192 9 Goldman Jonathan 2011 The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 67320 5 Golea Antoine 1982 Rencontres avec Pierre Boulez in French Paris Editions Slatkine ISBN 978 2 05 000205 0 Griffiths Paul 1978 Boulez Oxford Studies of Composers London Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 315442 1 Griffiths Paul 1995a Modern Music and After Directions Since 1945 London Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 816511 8 Griffiths Paul 1995b Notes to CD Boulez Exploding Fixed Hamburg Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft GmBH OCLC 496241633 Griffiths Paul 2005 The Substance of Things Heard Writings about Music Rochester NY University of Rochester Press ISBN 978 1 58046 206 8 Guldbrandsen Erling E 2015 Playing with transformations Boulez s Improvisation III sur Mallarme In Transformations of Musical Modernism edited by Erling E Guldbrandsen and Julian Johnson Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 12721 0 Heyworth Peter 1982 Boulez Wagner and the Road to Repons BBC Promenade Concerts 1982 Season Brochure London BBC OCLC 43739920 Heyworth Peter 1986 The First Fifty Years In Pierre Boulez A Symposium edited by William Glock 3 40 London Eulenburg Books ISBN 978 0 903873 12 3 Heyworth Peter ed 1973 Conversations with Klemperer London Faber amp Faber ISBN 978 0 571 13561 5 Hill Peter and Nigel Simeone 2005 Messiaen New Haven and London Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 10907 8 Hopkins G W and Paul Griffiths 2011 Boulez Pierre Grove Music Online Oxford Music Online Oxford University Press retrieved 6 January 2016 Subscription access Iddon Martin 2013 New Music at Darmstadt Nono Stockhausen Cage and Boulez Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 03329 0 Jameux Dominique 1991 Pierre Boulez translated by Susan Bradshaw London Faber amp Faber ISBN 978 0 571 13744 2 Jampol Joshua 2010 Living Opera Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 538138 2 Kenyon Nicholas 1981 The BBC Symphony Orchestra 1930 1980 London BBC ISBN 978 0 563 17617 6 Lebrecht Norman 2001 The Maestro Myth New York Citadel Press ISBN 978 0 8065 2088 9 Meimoun Francois 2010 Entretien avec Pierre Boulez la naissance d un compositeur in French Chateau Gontier France Aedem Musicae ISBN 978 2 919046 00 3 Merlin Christian 2019 Pierre Boulez in French Paris Les editions Fayard ISBN 978 2 213 70492 0 O Hagan Peter 2017 Pierre Boulez and the Piano A study in style and technique London and New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 7546 5319 6 Olivier Philippe 2005 Pierre Boulez Le Maitre et son marteau in French Collection points d orgue Paris Hermann editeurs des sciences et des arts ISBN 978 2 7056 6531 9 Peyser Joan 1976 Boulez Composer Conductor Enigma London Cassell ISBN 978 0 304 29901 0 Peyser Joan 1999 To Boulez and Beyond Music in Europe Since the Rite of Spring Lanham MD Scarecrow Press 2008 ISBN 978 0 8108 5877 0 Piencikowski Robert 1990 Notes to CD Boulez Le Visage nuptial Le Soleil des eaux Figures Doubles Prismes Hamburg Erato Disques S A OCLC 705143755 Ponsonby Robert 2009 Musical Heroes A Personal View of Music and the Musical World Over Sixty Years London Giles de la Mare Publishers Limited ISBN 978 1 900357 29 6 Porter Andrew 1988 Musical Events London Grafton Books ISBN 978 0 246 13311 3 Rosenberg Donald 2000 The Cleveland Orchestra Story Second to None Cleveland OH Gray and Company Publishers ISBN 978 1 886228 24 5 Ross Alex 2007 The Rest is Noise New York Farrar Straus and Giroux ISBN 978 0 374 24939 7 Samuel Claude 1976 Conversations with Olivier Messiaen translated by Felix Aprahamian London Stainer and Bell ISBN 978 0 85249 308 3 Samuel Claude ed 1986 Eclats Boulez in French Paris Editions du Centre Pompidou ISBN 978 2 85850 342 1 Samuel Claude ed 2002 Eclats 2002 in French Paris Memoire du Livre ISBN 978 2 913867 14 7 Samuel Claude 2013 Notes to CD set Boulez Complete Works France Deutsche Grammophon OCLC 985147586 Steinegger Catherine 2012 Pierre Boulez et le theatre in French Wavre Belgium Editions Mardaga ISBN 978 2 8047 0090 4 Vermeil Jean 1996 Conversations with Boulez Thoughts on Conducting Translated by Camille Nash with a selection of programs conducted by Boulez and a discography by Paul Griffiths Portland OR Amadeus Press ISBN 978 1 57467 007 3 Wagner Wolfgang 1994 Acts The Autobiography of Wolfgang Wagner Translated by John Brownjohn London Weidenfeld amp Nicolson ISBN 978 0 297 81349 1 Walsh Stephen 2006 Stravinsky the Second Exile France and America 1934 1971 London Jonathan Cape ISBN 978 0 224 06078 3 Portals Classical music Biography Books France Music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Pierre Boulez amp oldid 1134603953, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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