Pierre Boulez, RIP

[gurnemanz]

RIP, Maestro.

The Le Monde link above points to the end of an era: La mort de Pierre Boulez ... met un point véritablement final au XXe siècle musical avant-gardiste.

I saw him a couple of times at the Proms when he was with the BBC Symphony in the early 70s. Most memorable was standing in the Arena over two nights for my first live Parsifal.

[sidneyfox]

Sad news. A fine composer

[Roslynmuse]

Very sad to read this. The end of an era. A broadcast of Boulez conducting La Mer with the NYO at the 1971 Proms was the 'interval music' in the NYO concert broadcast on 4th Jan - forumites may have missed that.

I only saw him live once - BBC SO at Huddersfield CMF in 1989 - Boulez (Messagesquisse), Stravinsky (Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Chant du rossignol) and Messiaen (first UK perf of La ville d'en haut and - I think - Et exspecto...) - Messiaen was there, Yvonne Loriod was playing.

I have had the DG Boulez box for a while but haven't yet opened it - I shall do so later today and listen to Rituel - my introduction to Boulez's music some thirty years ago.

[Bryn]

A major loss indeed. I attended many performances conducted by him in my youth, and on one occasion in the Green Room of the RFH, had the youthful temerity to question his precipitous introduction of a rit. in the Rite of Spring. I got a 'Ghost Busters' response, "It's a technical matter". I still think Stravinsky was right, and Boulez wrong regarding the rit. That notwithstanding, Pierre Boulez did more to develop my interest in music than any other musician I can think of. The first score I ever bought with money I worked for was Le marteau sans maitre.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sad news

Remember him doing Gurrelieder at the Proms with the NYO. He achieved miraculous ensemble of an enormous ensemble with no baton. The NYO also had the Boulez "sound"!

In the mid-late '80s? I was there, too - wonderful performance (I had it on cassette for years - the performance didn't pale on multiple reptitions.)

[Colonel Danby]

Immense sense of loss with the passing of Pierre Boulez, one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century. Fortunately, I did see him many times at the Proms and indeed at Symphony Hall in Birmingham where he was in residence at the CBSO for a couple of weeks, conducting his own music and Bartok's first piano concerto with Krystian Zimerman, even doing stuff in the Adrian Boult Hall. Then there was his 'Pelleas' in the Brum Hippodrome... I could go on ad nauseum for ever, but I shall not.

Only to say that his music was ground breaking and I shall miss him.

RIP Pierre

[ardcarp]

This really does feel like the end of an era! Terrific musician...terrific ear and a stickler for clarity. RIP

[Beef Oven!]

Oh no, I'd been dreading this news.

He'd been poorly for a little while and little had been seen or heard of him.

I had the luck to see him conduct a number of times - Varese, Elliott Carter, Debussy, Ravel and a few others. I also met him and shook his hand, on two occasions.

For me, the most significant composer since Mahler.

Truly the end of an era.

RIP, Pierre and thank you for composing the sort of music I like listening to.

[Beef Oven!]

I performed with him on two occasions, Daphnis & Chloe and Glagolitic Mass. Awesome.

[ahinton]

Oh no, I'd been dreading this news.

He'd been poorly for a little while and little had been seen or heard of him.

You and I both; he'd looked very frail for quite some time and then, as you say, he kept himself to himself even more than usual; I can only hope that he was well cared for during this time..

For me, the most significant composer since Mahler.

I wouldn't go that far! - I've simply never gotten into the three piano sonatas, for all that I was raised on them in my early days in music and despite their having been written by someone who was a considerable pianist in his early days - but Le Marteau is remarkable and most things that he wrote since the astonishing Pli selon pli seem to me to be on a considerably higher level than much of his earlier work - and more approachable, too. As far as I know, he wrote nothing in his last decade, the revision and exapnsion of Dérive II being his last known work (and WHAT a work!), though why this was I know not. Messiaen once uttered the (for me) surprising notion that there was no such thing as "French" music; spomehow, I do not think that his pupil would have agreed with him - certainly not on the evidence of much of his post-Pli work.

I don't believe that he was as consistently fine a composer as his elder compatriot whose centenary occurs in 10 days' time (and to whom he was very rude and dismissive in days gone by but with whom a rapprochement was more recently effected and a cordialement relationship established), but he was undoubtedly a towering figure in French musical life (perhaps somewtimes rather too towering, as Dutilleux once ruefully observed!)...

Truly the end of an era.

Indeed so!

His work as a conductor is legendary; a pity that his achievements as a pianist, on the other hand, have rather been overlooked and that he himself chose rarely to pursue them further from the 1960s onwards.

[Dave2002]

Very sad to read about this. I'm not sure though, that I ever heard him conduct live - possible, but really not sure. I heard Gurrelieder sever times, but really not sure that one was by him. I do remember some of his broadcast concerts though, and he was undoubtedly a very talented musician and intellect.

Pierre RIP

[Quarky]

RIP Pierre Boulez.

[Nick Armstrong]

The Le Monde link above points to the end of an era: La mort de Pierre Boulez ... met un point véritablement final au XXe siècle musical avant-gardiste.

Quite so - a living legend from the earliest days of my being interested in music, somehow embodying all the virtues, from notoriety and iconoclasm to the unquestionably sublime. Personally I suppose I am most grateful for (and intrigued by) his devotion latterly to Mahler performance. I only heard him conduct once live: Sacre du Printemps. Those I was with found it bloodless; I found it cumulatively completely convincing and overwhelming. Met him afterwards and have his autograph, tiny and precise with three lines boxing it in on three sides...

[ahinton]

Very sad to read about this. I'm not sure though, that I ever heard him conduct live - possible, but really not sure. I heard Gurrelieder sever times, but really not sure that one was by him. I do remember some of his broadcast concerts though, and he was undoubtedly a very talented musician and intellect.

He was indeed. The last time I heard him live must have been some 20 years ago in the Barbican (sadly!) with LSO in a programme that included Stravinsky's tiresome (to me) Windy Symphonies (sorry!) and some Webern orchestral pieces that I've never heard despatched in so electrifying yet subtle a manner and a truly devastating (in every respect) account of Erwartung with Jessye Norman in which the astonishing proliferation of orchestral detail was revealed more clearly and beautifully balanced than I've ever encountered. Quite extraordinary!

[Nick Armstrong]