He is one of my favourite composers. I probably listen to his later works from the 1970s onwards more than his earlier stuff. Ok, some of these pieces are more successful than others - in Répons I find too much harmonic stasis... I prefer ...explosante-fixe... where he successfully strikes a balance between a kind of quasi-modal post-tonal pitch centricity and harmonic movement. But I guess some times his music does have a tendency towards a stasis that, if I'm not in the mood for it, can make me restless, for example the second Mallarmé Improvisation from Pli selon Pli. As is the case with other similar kinds of music, the timbre plays a more decisive role in a composition's success for me - I just find Sur Incises too saturated with piano compared with something like the amazing Dérive 2 whose flickering surface strikes exactly the right kind of balance between repetition and stasis and harmonic movement... its often gorgeous lyricism features a clearly-heard pitch centricity so that one can sense on which note a phrase might end with in a quasi-cadential effect, except this is often postponed by busy rhythmic figuration, with instruments often interrupting and echoing each other. Often his music has the effect of an otherworldly psychedelic ritual... I've mentioned it before but I am reminded of some of Miles Davis' music, specifically Bitches Brew. Tragic that we never got more orchestral Notations. I admire works like the second piano sonata but generally find it more of a cerebral pleasure compared with some of his more 'sensuous' stuff...
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Last edited by Joseph K; 06-12-18, 11:17. -
I know very little apart from Le Marteau sans Maitre. However, Boulez will be remembered by most for his (often trenchant) views on music and for being a founder of IRCAM, an institution that still seems to have money in abundance to spend on various projects.
It's good to get a post, JK, that is so enthusiastic and detailed in its overview. I really must listen to Dérive 2 !
Here it is on Youtube:
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Hiya Joseph K,Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
I admire Boulez's music too.
In 2015 I attended a performance by Pierre-Laurent Aimard* (piano), Tamara Stefanovich (piano)** at Kammermusiksaal der Philharmonie, Berlin:
Boulez: Douze Notations für klavier (1945)*; Première Sonate für klavier (1946)*; Deuxième Sonate für klavier (1946/48)**; Troisième Sonate für klavier (1955/57)*; Formant 3: Constallation-Miroir; Formant 2: Trope; Incises für klavier (version 2001)**; Une page d’éphéméride für klavier (2005)*; Structures pour deux pianos, Deuxième Livre (1951/61): Chapitre I; Chapitre II.
In September this year I attended a concert by Boulez Ensemble XIV, Daniel Barenboim (piano & direction) at Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin:
Webern String Quartet Op.28; Schumann Piano Quintet Op.44 and Boulez 'sur Incises' for 3 pianos, 3 harps and 3 percussionists (1996-98, 2006). It was pure theatre watching the performance of 'sur Incises' with Barenboim conducting. The actual score Barenboim was using was the thickest and largest in area I've ever seen.Last edited by Stanfordian; 06-12-18, 12:12.Comment
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Thanks, ardcarp.Originally posted by ardcarp View Post
Currently listening to sur Incises. Obviously, the kinds of instruments used here - none of which is capable of sustaining a note like say, a violin can - precludes many of the textures and musical effects of Derive 2, hence, the music is more rhythmically motoric, toccata-esque, perhaps.
I've never heard any of his music live, Stanfordian - something I must rectify at some point. I imagine the pieces with spatial/electronic aspects sound pretty amazing and I really need to look out for performances of the orchestral Notations, though I'm not sure I could make it to another country to hear them!Comment
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I can't say that Boulez is one of my favourite composers, although there are works of his I listen to quite often and am rather fond of: Le marteau, Structures, Rituel, Eclat/Multiples, Figures-Doubles-Prismes, Pli selon pli, Dérive 2, Domaines and thanks for the reminder about Explosante-fixe, I haven't heard that for years and I have good memories of it. I think he's at his best when writing for orchestra, with the precise and sophisticated ear that will be familiar to those who know his performances of older repertoire.
I've seen a couple of performances of Répons and I can't say the electronic spatialisation did very much for me, Boulez after all was something of a dabbler in electronic music compared to some of his contemporaries like Xenakis, Nono or Stockhausen, whose spatial concepts were much more central to their musical vision and were worked out in more highly developed ways... in Répons Boulez tries to justify the existence of his expensive institute by constructing something awe-inspiring, and I'm sure it had the desired effect since IRCAM has survived to this day, but it's orchestral music with special effects rather than a new way of composing and hearing music. As for Sur Incises, I have the impression that the harps are there mainly for show since their relatively simple material can't be heard most of the time over the much louder swirlings of pianos and percussion.
Otherwise: https://richardbarrettmusic.com/boulez.htmlComment
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"For show", nonsense, I could hear the harps.Originally posted by Richard Barrett View PostLast edited by Stanfordian; 06-12-18, 13:40.Comment
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Boulez does get an airing from time to time in this country - Notations was recently performed at the Proms:Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
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You're lucky then! - in the performance I saw in Vienna a year or two ago the harpists might as well not have turned up, and they're very much a background presence in the CD recording as well. In the score their parts are markedly less elaborate than those of the pianos, and also somewhat less so than those of the percussionists, but they're marked with the same range of dynamics as the pianos, which I would say is indeed nonsense...Originally posted by Stanfordian View PostComment
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And let's face it. Richard's ear is particularly well attuned to the harp.Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
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Oooh noooooooooo, ardy: he'll be remembered for his fantastic, exhilarating Music. IRCAM and the opinions (and the recordings) will be chapters in the biography, but the Music will be what keeps his name and reputation alive.Originally posted by ardcarp View Post
Too many "favourites" for me to mention - I even like the kaleidoscopic moment that is Repons, and have very, very fond memories of performances of Le Marteau, Pli Selon Pli, the Second Piano Sonata, Messagesquisse, Derive, Livre pour Cords, Notations ... and Sur Incises (the harps in which were perfectly audible from the cheap seats at the very top and back of Huddersfield Town Hall).
(Very grateful, too, for the concerts he conducted - as well as his own work, Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, Schönberg, Berg, Webern, Birtwistle, Berio; all life-enhancing events. The only time I've heard the VPO, he was conducting.)[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
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Currently listening to Repons.
Ok, it has to be said, it is seriously trippy.
Those glittering, iridescent echo effects remind me of the echo on Miles' trumpet in Bitches Brew.Comment
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For a long time, I just didn't "get" Boulez' music at all. Then, at no small expense to myself, being on a miniscule wage at the time, I took a bedsit not five minutes' walk from the Albert Hall in 1966/7, and went to as many of the Glock-organised Proms, there to experience Boulez introducing us, not so much to his own works, but to some of the great foundation stones of early Modernism - Debussy's Jeux; the Schoenberg Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16; Webern's Op.6 and the Orchestral Variations Op.40; Varèse's Amériques; Stravinsky's Le Chant du Rossignol and the Symphonies of Wind Instruments; Berg's Wozzeck suite and Chamber Concerto; Bartok's Music for Strings, Harp, Celesta & Percussion; and all the rest of it started to slip into place. My Boulez breakthrough moment came in either May or June of 1968 in Geneva, when I saw him conduct a concert which included Beethoven's 4th symphony, the abovementioned Bartok, and his own Eclat. Geneva was literally seething with students, intellectuals, poets and would-be revolutionaries, most of them French though there were a few English students, who had effectively walked their way down through eastern France, which was on general strike at the time making it difficult to hitch a ride, and at the point in proceedings when Boulez announced in his introduction to Eclat that he wished to dedicate the work's performance to the students occupying The Sorbonne, those present in the Victoria Hall gave an immediate standing ovation, erupting in tumultuous joy. A work composed at leat five years earlier had acquired an aura not originally intended by its composer, whose title carried no associations with explosions of the political kind. An elderly couple in front of me remained firmly seated, the man turning to the woman and dismissively saying, "Ach - les jeunes!" Having read up a certain amount on the évenments of May and June '68 I've been given to understand that Boulez - unlike his Italian contemporaries Berio and Nono - took a relatively detached stance towards them, and I can only conclude that he was advantaging himself of the conjuncture for a bit of self-promotion.
After the concert was over one did not want the day to end, and I toddled along with a bunch of students until we ended in one of those corner brasseries that make Geneva so much resemble Paris - a smaller-scale, altogether tidier and more bourgeois Paris - where we drank as much beer as we could until the patron called time - whereupon revolutionary songs were boisteriously sung and tables and chairs piled up, blocking all the entrances in symbolic solidarity with Paris and revolutionary masses opposing capitalism worldwide, while the staff calmly went about clearing the glasses and ashtrays and sweeping up.
By the time I managed to locate my hotel, day was breaking. Notwithstanding any alchoholic excess one never forgets something like that - at the time I myself was not yet committed in any terms, political or social, though I had sort of drifted as one did back then into a day's session at the Dialectics of Liberation Congress, organised a year before at The Roundhouse by R.D.Laing and David Cooper, and had seen Herbert Marcuse and Stokeley Carmichael speak. All part of the historic narrative that would lead ineluctably to... Trump, and Brexit.Comment
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That's pretty much on the money, although I do think that history has ascribed to some of his early polemical expressions (and some of those that never truly waned) an importance that is arguably disproportionate to his achievements in toto; I can't, however, say that I'm especially surprised at that, really. Here's a collection of some of the juicier ones - https://www.theguardian.com/music/mu...-his-own-words .Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View PostComment
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