Pierre Boulez, RIP

[Mary Chambers]

Or a return to Music as a subject which is given its rightful importance in schools.

Yes! How likely is it? Not very, I fear.

[Pulcinella]

The claims that many listeners besides ardy have made about Boulez' conducting inhibiting players' emotional response to what they're playing (in Debussy in particular) has never been heard by my own response to his concerts and recordings. When I listen to them, they convince me that this is exactly how the Music should be performed and, that his work is the very finest piece of Music that has ever been written - just as it is with all great performances of all great Music, of course (including Monteux' - although I think he recorded Le Sacre a little too late into his career). Boulez ensures that it is the Music's emotional fibre that is communicated, rather than the performers' or his own - an approach I find utterly convincing and entirely honest.

Sadly, I find his NYPO recording of the Pulcinella Suite not as crisp and finely detailed as I would have liked: I must compare it with his Erato recording of the whole work, with Ensemble Intercontemporain. I wonder if he 'got on' with some orchestras better than with others?

PS: Ferney: did you mean 'this work' rather than 'his work'?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sadly, I find his NYPO recording of the Pulcinella Suite not as crisp and finely detailed as I would have liked: I must compare it with his Erato recording of the whole work, with Ensemble Intercontemporain. I wonder if he 'got on' with some orchestras better than with others?

I don't know the NYPO recording of the Suite (if I'm going to listen to Stravinsky after Firebird, I want the whole work) but I treasure my memory of Boulez' performance in the RFH (over twenty years ago now) of the complete ballet with EnsContemp. Part one involved the Philharmonia, with Schönberg's Film Music and the UK premiere of Birtwistle's Antiphonies. A superb, superb event - AND I was sat in the seat in front of Steve Martland to add icing.

[VodkaDilc]

Yes! How likely is it? Not very, I fear.

The decline seems tragic. There was such progresss during my teaching career, roughly 1970 - 2014, but those in power seem to want to return to the 1950s idea of Music as an optional 'frill'.

[Richard Barrett]

AND I was sat in the seat in front of Steve Martland to add icing.

Steve put icing on you? And I thought he and I were close.

Pulcinella is a problematic work for me and I'm pretty sure it also was for Boulez (it's a shame he didn't perform more of the "neoclassical" and later works - this must reflect his personal preferences), but I think it benefits from a "chamber" approach.

As for Boulez's conducting in general, this is one of the very few things that can cause domestic disagreements round here. For me there are pros (summed up by fg's last post on the subject) and cons (his tempo variations in Mahler are often subtle to the point of not being there at all, for example, and there are one or two glaring mistakes in his Mahler recordings which oughtn't to have been allowed to slip through in a studio situation) but the former generally outweigh the latter for me; and however you look at it, his is one particularly enlightening way to perform the music in his repertoire, and after all is said and done the music is still there to be interpreted in other ways. My other half, however, is of a different opinion.

[Lordgeous]

Did Boulez take composition students?

As has been mentioned elsewhere, i think, Richard Rodney Bennett (my mentor) spent 2 years with Boulez in Paris in the late 1950s. I remember Richard performing Boulez's 1st Piano Sonata at the Oxford Bach Festival in 1965 (I was the very nervous page turner!). This may have been the first UK performance. He also premiered Boulez Structures 1 for 2 pianos (with Cornelius Cardew) and once described Boulez as "a spectacular musician".

Through Richard I met Boulez a few times - he always appeared charming and approachable. I think one occasion was after the memorable RFH "Rite" concert, also mentioned elsewhere here. His WNO "Pelleas" (Cardiff) also sticks in the memory. I wish I'd heard his Mahler 2 - had no idea he ever conducted it - but it was good to hear an excerpt of his Janacek in this week's BBC programme. Sadly I never really came to grips with his own music, undoubtedly a comment on me, not him!

[ahinton]

As has been mentioned elsewhere, i think, Richard Rodney Bennett (my mentor) spent 2 years with Boulez in Paris in the late 1950s. I remember Richard performing Boulez's 1st Piano Sonata at the Oxford Bach Festival in 1965 (I was the very nervous page turner!). This may have been the first UK performance. He also premiered Boulez Structures 1 for 2 pianos (with Cornelius Cardew) and once described Boulez as "a spectacular musician".

Through Richard I met Boulez a few times - he always appeared charming and approachable. I think one occasion was after the memorable RFH "Rite" concert, also mentioned elsewhere here. His WNO "Pelleas" (Cardiff) also sticks in the memory. I wish I'd heard his Mahler 2 - had no idea he ever conducted it - but it was good to hear an excerpt of his Janacek in this week's BBC programme. Sadly I never really came to grips with his own music, undoubtedly a comment on me, not him!

Fascinating! I didn't know that you knew RRB; I would have loved to meet him. How many private (i.e. one to one) students did Boulez ever have? In an interview with Jane Manning (who worked with RRB over many years - I believe that he played for her BBC audition) not so very long ago, Boulez (who had clearly lost contact with RRB) asked after him and said that he was actually his first student. It's curious how RRB, while so very much a part of the Boulez scene way back then, was already working at jazz, film music and other such contrasting disciplines without apparently perceiving much conflict between them.

The image of Boulez as a difficult, authoritarian, distant and uncompromising character would probably be quite foriegn to most musicians who worked with him.

[jayne lee wilson]

I was first aware of Boulez only as a conductor, with the BBCSO in the 1970s. Their broadcasts introduced me to Webern, Schoenberg, Berg... but when he played anything classical with them I always felt it sounded rather grey, thin or flat....

I can't find the Hans Keller quote now (maybe in "Music 1975") but he said that as a conductor despite his "fantastic ear"... "Boulez cannot phrase" and added that Boulez' own music "remarkable in other respects, doesn't stand in need of phrasing anyway". Which seemed to relate to my experience of his performances, including a Mahler 6 which he took on tour with the BBCSO around that time which disappointed me alongside Horenstein, Abbado, Karajan, Haitink....

But then I heard his CBS/Sony recordings with the BBCSO and LSO, of Webern and Schoenberg, which surprised me with their intensity, a definitional intensity perhaps. They made the LSO/Abbado Mercury set seem too melodramatic...
And after a Radio 3 broadcast, I borrowed his NYPO Bartok Concerto for Orchestra so much it was almost on permanent loan. I came to prefer it to the Solti/LSO. But later, sheer familiarity of repertoire kept me away from the various Cleveland or Vienna albums - and though I enjoyed his Bartok Piano Concertos with 3 different orchestras/soloists, it didn't leave a vivid impression...

I'm late to this long thread, but haven't seen much mention here or on the Listening thread about which Boulez people listen to most, or enjoy best. For me it's those later, ever-evolving streams of rich and glittering sonorities offered by Explosante-Fixe, Derive 1&2, Sur Incises, rather than Marteau, F-D-P, Rituel or Notations etc. Those later pieces, so strikingly individualised in their instrumentations, sound to me like the music of the future as much as the present.... or perhaps just "always contemporary", as Stravinsky said of the Grosse Fuge...

[Pulcinella]

Sadly, I find his NYPO recording of the Pulcinella Suite not as crisp and finely detailed as I would have liked: I must compare it with his Erato recording of the whole work, with Ensemble Intercontemporain. I wonder if he 'got on' with some orchestras better than with others?

PS: Ferney: did you mean 'this work' rather than 'his work'?

Not very impressed by the complete recording either: rather stodgy and not spritely enough for me! Perhaps, as RB suggests above, it was a problematic work for Boulez. Agree about it benefitting from a 'chamber' approach.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

PS: Ferney: did you mean 'this work' rather than 'his work'?

- I missed your PS, Pulci: duly corrected.

Steve put icing on you? And I thought he and I were close.

Oh no - you're right: it was that dream again! (OT, I only met Steve on three occasions, so in no way do I claim to have been "close" - but he and his work is still deeply missed.)

[Richard Barrett]

I'm late to this long thread, but haven't seen much mention here or on the Listening thread about which Boulez people listen to most, or enjoy best. For me it's those later, ever-evolving streams of rich and glittering sonorities offered by Explosante-Fixe, Derive 1&2, Sur Incises, rather than Marteau, F-D-P, Rituel or Notations etc. Those later pieces, so strikingly individualised in their instrumentations, sound to me like the music of the future as much as the present....

There's a strong classicising element to them as well though, don't you think? While Sur Incises is indeed strikingly individualised in its instrumentation (while the two Dérives use a fairly standard ensemble), it's almost getting into the realm of self-parody within the context of Boulez's oeuvre. (And most of the time the harps might as well not be there, for all they contribute to the music!) At a certain point his music begins to sound pretty much like you'd expect a Boulez piece to sound, which one couldn't say about Stockhausen for example, and its harmonic content is so carefully controlled it never really changes. The pieces I listen to most would be Structures, Le marteau and Pli selon pli, and maybe Eclat-Multiples and Dérive 2. I've never been much of an admirer of his music. I would defend it against those who might say it's too dissonant and abstract, but really I don't think it's dissonant or abstract enough!

[Serial_Apologist]

There's a strong classicising element to them as well though, don't you think? While Sur Incises is indeed strikingly individualised in its instrumentation (while the two Dérives use a fairly standard ensemble), it's almost getting into the realm of self-parody within the context of Boulez's oeuvre. (And most of the time the harps might as well not be there, for all they contribute to the music!) At a certain point his music begins to sound pretty much like you'd expect a Boulez piece to sound, which one couldn't say about Stockhausen for example, and its harmonic content is so carefully controlled it never really changes. The pieces I listen to most would be Structures, Le marteau and Pli selon pli, and maybe Eclat-Multiples and Dérive 2. I've never been much of an admirer of his music. I would defend it against those who might say it's too dissonant and abstract, but really I don't think it's dissonant or abstract enough!

For all its structuralism, "Structures" is really no more difficult to "take in" than Messiaen's "4 Studies in Rhythm" (not just the "Mode de valeurs et d'intensites", which looks forward more to Barraque's Sonata to my ears), which likewise in turn "fit into" the more abstract pole of Messiaen's soundworld of the "Vingt Regards". I guess that says something about the sheer musicianship of the man in articulating complexity in assimilable ways, assuming attentive and if necessary repeated listening. My favourite Boulez work is "Figures-doubles-prismes" before the over-formulative processes had their grip- which I guess places me roughtly midway between yourself and jayne - summing me up more generally in relation to music!

[Richard Barrett]

which I guess places me roughtly midway between yourself and jayne - summing me up more generally in relation to music!

Very good.

[Barbirollians]

Really? I know he famously said he could not tell Bruckner's 5th from the 8th, but his recording of the latter I find magnificent, his use of the Haas edition, with its bits of re-composition by its editor, notwithstanding. His K537 with Curzon was also quite magical, to my ears.

Indeed it is-Curzon playing with extraordinary freedom as he does also the Emperor with which this was coupled on BBC Legends - quite a few fluffs in that by Curzon but Boulez conducts it with heroic sweep as one review said and it is a thrilling performance.