Topic: Recordings by Pierre Boulez (the more obscure the better)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Pierre Boulez was an incredible conductor known best for late romantic to contemporary compositions, but I always think it is interesting to find recordings he has made, or recorded broadcasts of music which have not been released on DG, Sony, Erato and are otherwise difficult to come across..............

A few of these, such as Beethoven's fourth and seventh symphonies with the New York Philharmonic (the finale of the 4th is terrific in Boulez's performance I think) are probably more curiosities from his time as principal conductor of the orchestra playing some standard warhorse repertoire...........

But there are also some interesting things from his time with NYP and BBC SO where he did conduct some contemporary works which haven't been released by any of the big labels, to my knowledge. Here is one I like very much:

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/6ye4z4U0izc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/6ye4z4U0izc</a>


I am curious to know how much of this other repertoire is possible to find on disc and if anyone has heard any of it?

There are a few releases from Japan on Altus record label which I can only find available on amazon Japan which certainly look somewhat interesting.................

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I might also add there are three Kairos releases featuring Boulez as a conductor. I have only heard the Neuwirth disc and it's pretty great.

https://www.kairos-music.com/artists/pierre-boulez

And on Donaueschinger Musiktage 2008 vol. 1 he conducts Isabel Mundry's Ich und du.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/UwKQ9zPy81M" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/UwKQ9zPy81M</a>

[ritter]

I suppose I'll be able to contribute to this topic  . I can confidently claim I own almost everything conducted by Boulez that has been (oficially or semi-officially) transferred to CD. 

Well, of the Kairos discs you mention, jessop, only two (the Cerha and the Neuwirth) feature Boulez as conductor. The third one (Marino Formenti's album entitled "Kúrtag's Ghosts") includes some of the piano Notations in the album's curious but imaginative and fascinating program.

Some of Boulez's early recordings are quite difficult to get on CD. For instance, he recorded Mozart's first four piano concertos (or pastiches, rather) with Yvonne Loriod for the Véga label. This has been transferred to CD by the CLASSICA magazine in France, and is available from their website:



More (live, in this instance) Mozart piano concertos were issued by Altus in Japan, in that series you've already pointed out:



I undertsand these Mozart recordings emanate from Loriod's perfoming all the concertos in Paris within just one week in the early 60s (with Boulez and other conductors).

Also, there's C.P.E Bach concertos for flute (with Jean-Pierre Rampal) and cello (with Robert Bax), recorded for Harmonia Mundi, and reissued fleetingly by them on CD in the 90s IIRC:



Then there's Handel's Water Music. The NYPO recording has had some circulation, and is included in the big Sony box, of course, but there was an earlier recording from The Hague, available on LP on Nonesuch in the US, and reissued on CD in Japan by Denon:



One thing that was never transferred to CD and may have been Boulez's first commercial recording ever (for Decca) is Darius Milhaud's incidental music to Paul Claudel's play Le livre de Christophe Colomb (not to be confused with Milhaud's opera). This was done in the early 50s when Boulez was music director fo the Renaud-Barrault theatre company, and includes a lot of the spoken text. It's so obscure, I've not been able to locate an image of the original cover. It is available for download from several sources, though.

More to come...

[ritter]

There's a book published in 2009 (in German only) about Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy. It includes two CDs, with Boulez conducting Luciano's Berio posthumously compiled suite Quatre dédicaces (made up of four occasional orchestral pieces, Fanfara, Entrata, Festum and Encore), Johannes Boris Borowski's Change, Elliott Carter's Allegro scorrevole (from Symphonia--the movements of that work are stand-alone pieces as well), Ondřej Adámek's  Endless Steps, and Boulez's nth recording of Le Sacre du printemps...

Speaking about Le Sacre, Boulez recorded the piece with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, a performance never transferred to CD:



The accompanying La Mer is available on this OOP CD:



And sticking to Le Sacre, his first recording from 1963 IIRC (famously thrashed by Stravinsky in one of his books of conversations with Robert Craft) was only briefly available on CD on the Adès label:



The live performance that preceded the studio recording was released many years ago on one of those lavish Théâtre des Champs-Elysées sets on Montaigne (long OOP), along with other very interesting stuff:

 

[ritter]

If you want to hear Boulez in repertoire you would never have expceted him to conduct, there's this recording of Saint-Saëns's Violin Concerto No. 3 with Zino Francescatti (live from NY):

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Well, of the Kairos discs you mention, jessop, only two (the Cerha and the Neuwirh) feature Boulez as conductor. The third one (Marino Formenti's album entitled Kúrtag's Ghosts) includes some of the piano Notations in the album's curious but imaginative and fascinating program.

Aaaahhh silly me; I should have looked further. I was only aware of two anyway

[ritter]

Really hard to find (the CD transfers are from the early 2000s AFAIK)...

 
(I wonder why poor Mr. Bonnet, as opposed to Messrs. Manoury and Dalbavie, does not get a portrait on the CD cover  ).

...and never trasferred to CD:



Then there's this interesting compilation, also OOP:

 

...and this rare document of Boulez conducting Dallapiccola:

[Mandryka]

I have him playing Haydn 104, Bruckner 9, Brahms Requiem, Beethoven 5, a Schubert symphony, Schumann's Pilgrimage of the Rose, and there are well known recordings of very early Mozart concertos.

[ritter]

I have him playing Haydn 104, Bruckner 9, Brahms Requiem, Beethoven 5, a Schubert symphony, Schumann's Pilgrimage of the Rose, and there are well known recordings of very early Mozart concertos.

Yep, the Haydn was included in the VPO's box of assorted symphonies.:

The Beethoven Fifth I presume is the controversial Columbia recording (now in the big Sony box), the Brahms Requiem was available on a bootleg Italian label (now that would be interesting, as one wouldn't expect much affinity with the piece from Boulez). The other's are all live recordings, I suppose (have they been issued on CD?).

THREAD DUTY:

This is a great (and outragegeously exensive) set:


Boulez appears conducting Elliott Carter's Concerto for Orcestra, Jacob Druckman's Lamia, and the world premiere of George Crumb's Star Child (the latter being the highlight of the set for me).

[ritter]

There's also the stuff released on the BBC Legends label (IIRC, from Proms concerts or studio recordings at the BBC when Boulez led that broadcaster's symphony orchestra):


Bartók's PC2 and Mozart's PC 16 & 17, with Géza Anda.


Beethoven's Emperor Concerto and Mozart's Coronation Concerto, with Clifford Curzon.

Come to think of it, we have a whole lot of recordings of Mozart's piano concertos (Nos. 1 through 4, 16, 17, 21, 25 and--twice--26, plus No. 20 with Pires and the Berlin Philharmonic on DVD, from Lisbon) conducted by Boulez (and he said he wasn't really attuned to Mozart's music  ).


Ravel's Schéhérazade with Elisabeth Söderström (no, the other music on the CD is not conducted by Boulez).

Cheers,

[Mahlerian]

Not a recording I have or have heard, but one I hope exists: Schoenberg's Von heute auf morgen, which I have heard Boulez did conduct one single time.  Does any kind of recording survive?  I'd love to hear it.

[ritter]

Another rarity- Pianist Theo Bruins performs all 3 Bartók piano concertos live in the CD. Boulez conducts the Piano Concerto No. 2 (with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra):



I've just ordered a used copy. 

[ritter]

Has anyone ever dealt with  St. Laurent Studio from Canada? They list several made-to-order CDs ( CD-ROMs, I presume) with live performances  by Boulez, mainly from Cleveland. It's 11 volumes, many with off-the-beaten track--as far as Boulez is concerned--, including lots of Schubert, Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart. There's also a Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 with Robert Casadesus, no less (listed under the pianist's name, not the conductor's)-

http://www.78experience.com/welcome.php?mod=disques&collection=83#

Some examples:

     

As you can see, there are some editing issues (e.g., the Cleveland Orchestra is billed the "Cleveland Symphony Orchestra", plus other odd typos), but the contents is interesting.

They also have a whole lot of concerts of Bruno Maderna (including, very interestingly, him conducting Berio's Sinfonia in 1969).

[Mandryka]

Has anyone ever dealt with  St. Laurent Studio from Canada? They list several made-to-order CDs ( CD-ROMs, I presume) with live performances  by Boulez, mainly from Cleveland. It's 11 volumes, many with off-the-beaten track--as far as Boulez is concerned--, including lots of Schubert, Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart. There's also a Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 with Robert Casadesus, no less (listed under the pianist's name, not the conductor's)-

http://www.78experience.com/welcome.php?mod=disques&collection=83#

Some examples:

     

As you can see, there are some editing issues (e.g., the Cleveland Orchestra is billed the "Cleveland Symphony Orchestra", plus other odd typos), but the contents is interesting.

They also have a whole lot of concerts of Bruno Maderna (including, very interestingly, him conducting Berio's Sinfonia in 1969).

I have him playing the Berio Synphonia in Amsterdam, Concertgebouw 01.07.1972 Holland Festival 1972,  I can always let you have it. He's wonderful in it, he won't let the Mahler ever become kitschy.  It turns out it was in France with the RTF and the Swingle Singers in 1969, the premier in France in fact. I think that's the same as on the CD. If the sound is better on the commercial release it'll be worth having, but there's no way to tell.

[ritter]

Yet another relatively obscure release (but readily available at online sellers):

Boulez conducts (live at La Scala in Milan in 1994) Ivan Fedele's stunning Duo en résonance for two horns and ensemble.