Pierre Boulez

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Image:Boulez.jpg Pierre Boulez (IPA: /pjɛʁ.buˈlɛz/) (born March 26, 1925) is a conductor and composer of classical music.

1 Life and music
2 Boulez as a conductor
3 Boulez as a writer
4 List of selected compositions
5 References
6 External links

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Life and music

Boulez was born in Montbrison, France. He initially studied mathematics at Lyon before pursuing music at the Paris Conservatoire under Olivier Messiaen and Andrée Vaurabourg (Arthur Honegger's wife). He studied twelve-tone technique with René Leibowitz and went on to write atonal music in a post-Webernian serial style. The first fruits of this were his cantatas Le visage nuptial and Le soleil des eaux for female voices and orchestra (both composed in the late forties and revised several times since), as well as the Second Piano Sonata of 1948, a well-received 32-minute work that Boulez composed at the age of 23. Thereafter, Boulez was influenced by Messiaen's research to extend twelve-tone technique beyond the realm of pitch organization, serialising durations, dynamics, accents, and so on. This technique became known as integral serialism. Boulez quickly became one of the philosophical leaders of the post-war movement in the arts towards greater abstraction and experimentation. Many composers of Boulez's generation taught at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany. The so-called Darmstadt composers were instrumental in creating a style that, for a time, existed as an antidote to music of nationalist fervor; an international, even cosmopolitan style, a style that could not be 'co-opted' as propaganda in the way that the Nazis used, for example, the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. Boulez was in contact with many young composers that would become influential, including John Cage.

Boulez's totally serialized works included "Polyphonie X" (1951) for 18 instruments, and "Structures I" for two pianos. The latter work was quite successful, and seems to sum up the feelings of zero hour in Europe during the early 50s. "Structures I" was also a turning point for Boulez. As one of the most visible totally serialized works, it became a lightning rod for various kinds of criticism. György Ligeti, for example, published an article in die Reihe that examined the patterns of durations, dynamics, and pitch in "Structures I", and found that a single pitch did not fit the pattern. Ligeti proceeded to question the choice of this pitch in excruciating detail. These criticisms, combined with what Boulez felt was a lack of expressive flexibility in the language, as he outlined in his essay "To the farthest reach of the fertile country", led Boulez to refine his compositional language. He distilled the feel of total serialization into a more supple and strongly gestural music, and he kept his methods for composing secret, to prevent people like Ligeti from discussing the technique, rather than the content of his music. Boulez's strongest achievement in this method is his masterpiece Le marteau sans maître for ensemble and voice, from 1953-1957, one of the few works of advanced music from the fifties to remain in the repertoire. "Le marteau sans maître" was a surprising and revolutionary synthesis of many different streams in modern music, as well as seeming to encompass the sound worlds of modern jazz, the Balinese Gamelan, traditional African musics, and traditional Japanese musics. It seemed to be powerfully relevant and earth-shatteringly cosmopolitan, and it was hailed by diverse musicians, including Igor Stravinsky. At that time, Boulez seemed to control the modern musical discourse. Ironically, the drive to lay bare compositional technique was so powerful that music theorist Lev Koblyakov cracked the code of these new techniques in his 1975-7 doctoral thesis (now published under the title "Pierre Boulez: A World of Harmony"), a feat one could liken to reverse engineering a complex machine. However, Koblyakov accomplished this well after specific flavors of serial technique were controversial among composers; Boulez had already moved on to other things.

After "Le marteau sans maître", Boulez began to strengthen the position of the music post-WWI modern composers through conducting and advocacy. He also begins to consider new avenues in his own work. With Pli selon pli for orchestra with solo soprano, he began to work with an idea of improvisation and open-endedness. He considered how the conductor might be able to 'improvise' on vague notations, such as the fermata, and how the players might 'improvise' on irrational durations, such as grace notes. In addition, he worked with the idea of leaving the specific ordering of movements or sections of music open to be chosen for a particular night of a performance, an idea related to the mobile form of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Interestingly, though the two works sound similar today, and certainly represent the same impeccable craft, "Pli selon pli" was not received as well as "Le marteau sans maître". Stravinsky, who loved "Le marteau sans maître", hated "Pli selon pli". This is perhaps more of a cultural barometer than a reflection on the work itself. During the time that Boulez was testing these new ideas, those colleagues who had never been entirely comfortable with the prominence of a rigorous musical language, such as György Ligeti, had brought a convincing musical counter argument to Boulez's musical ideals. In a poetic twist, Boulez had moved from peerless respect in "Le marteau sans maître", the 'hammer without master', to a seeming defeat in "Pli selon pli", which sets a Stéphane Mallarmé poem about the tripping impotence of a swan, unable to take flight from a frozen lake.

From the 1950s, beginning with the Third Piano Sonata (1955- ), Boulez experimented with what he called "controlled chance" and he developed his views on aleatoric music in the articles Aléa and Sonate, que me veux-tu?. His use of chance, which he would later employ in compositions like Eclat, Domaines and Rituel, is very different from that in the works of for example John Cage. While in Cage's music the performers are often given the freedom to improvise and create completely new sounds, in works by Boulez they only get to choose between possibilities that have been written out in detail by the composer - a method that is often described as mobile form.

Boulez tried out many of the musical fads in the 1970s, for example, critics have seen the influence of American minimalism in Rituel: In Memoriam Bruno Maderna for orchestra divided into eight groups. None of these fads seemed to fit Boulez well, and gradually, Boulez closes the book on this sort of experimentation. For example, Boulez eventually decided on a fixed ordering for "Pli selon pli". Boulez stated that after working with the piece for awhile, it seemed that there was a best ordering; the one he chose. However, out of this period of experimentation emerges a strong tendency to view his pieces as works in progress. One consequence of this new, more uncertain way of working was a considerable slowing of Boulez's output: works tended to be contemplated over many years, and some, such as the Third Piano Sonata remain unfinished, with only two of the projected five movements being performed. ...explosante-fixe..., effectively a flute concerto with electronics, was first written in the 1970s and completely revised in the 1990s. Boulez also made considerable revisions to his works. His early work "Notations" for piano (1945), which consisted of short miniatures, is in the process today of being fleshed out as a piece for orchestra, with each tiny piano movement metamorphosed into a monolithic orchestral one.

He also began to work more with electronics in his music in the 1970s. Following the lead of figures such as Pierre Schaeffer and Edgard Varèse, he and his colleagues (even Olivier Messiaen) had experimented with electronics in the 1950's, but had given it up after an unsatisfying attempt (though Karlheinz Stockhausen was fantastically successful with this medium, and had gone on to make many important advances between the 50s and the 70s). In 1970 president Georges Pompidou asked Boulez to create and direct an institution for the exploration and development of modern music. This became IRCAM. There, Boulez made pioneering advances in classical electronic music and computer music, and promoted the idea that composers should work with technological assistants, who would attempt to realize the musical intentions of the composer. An example of this sort of relationship can be found in his major electronic work, Répons, for orchestra and electronics. Boulez worked with Andrew Gerzso to create a work where the resonance and spatialization of sounds created by the ensemble, were processed in real time (electronic music had traditionally been laboriously created in controlled situations, and then recorded to tape, so that it was 'fixed' in place for a performance). Boulez remained director of the IRCAM until 1992. As of 2004 he still has an office in the IRCAM. The IRCAM has become one of the most successful and notorious centers of musical modernism.

Today, Boulez was and is one of the leaders of the post-World War II musical modernism. His compositions have enriched musical culture, and his advocacy of modern and postmodern music has been decisive for many. Boulez continues to conduct and compose as of 2006. From 1976-1995, Boulez held the Chair in "Invention, technique et langage en musique" at the prestigious Collège de France. In 2002 he was awarded the prestigious Glenn Gould Prize for his contributions.

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Boulez as a conductor

Boulez is also world-famous conductor, having directed most of the world's leading symphony orchestras and ensembles since the late fifties. He served both as Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1971-1975, and Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from 1971-1977. He is currently the Principal Guest Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Boulez is particularly famed for his polished interpretations of twentieth century classics - Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Anton Webern and Edgard Varèse - as well as for numerous performances of contemporary music. Clarity, precision, rhythmic agility and a respect for the composers' intentions as notated in the musical score are the hallmarks of his conducting style. He never uses a baton, conducting with his hands alone. His nineteenth century repertoire focuses upon Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann and especially Richard Wagner.

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Boulez as a writer

Boulez is also an articulate, perceptive and sweeping writer on music. Some articles - notably the notorious "Schoenberg is Dead," (1951) were deliberately provocative and veered towards polemic. Others dealt with questions of technique and aesthetics in a deeply reflective if sometimes elliptical manner. These writings have mostly been republished under the titles "Notes of an Apprenticeship", "Orientations: Collected Writings", and "Boulez on Music Today", as well as within reprints of the journal of the Darmstadt composers of the time, "Die Reihe."

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List of selected compositions

Piano Sonata No. 1 (1946)
Piano Sonata No. 2 (1947-48)
Polyphonie X (1951)
Structures, Livres I et II (2 pianos, 1952 and 1961, respectively)
Le marteau sans maître (alto, alto flute, guitar, vibraphone, xylorimba, percussion and viola, 1953-55)
Piano Sonata No. 3 (1955-...) (Unfinished: only two of the five movements have been published.)
Pli selon pli (soprano and orchestra, 1957-62)
Domaines (clarinet solo, 1968-69)
Domaines (clarinet and ensemble, 1968-69)
cummings ist der Dichter (for chorus and ensemble, 1970)
Rituel: In Memoriam Bruno Maderna (orchestra, 1974-75)
Messagesquisse (seven cellos, 1976-77)
Notations (piano version 1945, orchestral version 1978-...)
Répons (two pianos, harp, vibraphone, glockenspiel, cimbalom, orchestra and electronics, 1980-84)
"Dérive 1" (for six instruments, 1984)
Le visage nuptial (soprano, alto, female chorus and orchestra, 1951-89)
"Dérive 2" (for eleven instruments, 1990)
...explosante-fixe... (ensemble and electronics, first version 1972-74, second version 1991-93)
Sur Incises (3 pianos, 3 harps and 3 mallet instruments, 1996-98)
"Anthèmes 2" (violin and electronics, 1998)

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References

Pierre Boulez. "Boulez on Music Today." Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1971.
________. "Orientations: Collected Writings." Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,1981. ISBN 0674643763
Paul Griffiths. "Modern Music and After: Directions Since 1945." London: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN 0198165110.
Dominque Jameux. "Pierre Boulez." Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,1991. ISBN 0674667409
Lev Koblyakov. "Pierre Boulez: A World of Harmony." Chur: Harwood, 1990.
Joan Peyser. "Boulez: Composer, Conductor, Enigma." New York: Schirmer Books, 1976.
Unitel Highlight - The Boulez/Chéreau Ring

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