Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)

[karlhenning]

I like the music, so today I'll listen to it some more.

[Sylph]

It seems that a lot of people have puny brains and no ears, going by the fact that there isn't much of a demand in the classical music listening world (as judged by what orchestras and radio stations program) for the music of Boulez, and by when (if ever) orchestras do program him the audience has to be lured in with something else...

Even if that were true, and it really isn't — going from there to proclaiming him as irrelevant, sound designer etc. is really one big, fat non sequitur.

[bhodges]

The rest is here.

Thanks for posting this link, which I hadn't seen.  I saw the two Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts which the article mentions, and they were two of the finest evenings of the entire season (and sold out, by the way).  Not sure why the chemistry is so strong, but there you go.

--Bruce

[Chaszz]

There is no musicmaking, there's only organization of sound. The distinction today appears to be no longer understood, and that is why you have people confusing genius:

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_aOhmEki8EPo/SPocDi-bp_I/AAAAAAAAc68/F-3vqs68yjg/The+prophet+Jeremiah+by+Michelangelo.jpg

with trash:

http://echostains.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/picasso-weeping-woman-1937.jpg

Dostoevsky tried to warn us about the dangers of revolutionary individuals and their eternal quest for "progress", which at the end of the day its just a way of substituting truth with desire. Alas, we have failed to heed his warning, and so here we are.

I don't know Boulez' work, but that's a great painting by Picasso you're denigrating.

And Dostoyevsky's final prescription for humanity was more Chrisitianity, which hasn't worked out too well...

[karlhenning]

And Dostoyevsky's final prescription for humanity was more Chrisitianity, which hasn't worked out too well...

Poor practitioners do not invalidate the practice, of course.

[Josquin des Prez]

I don't know Boulez' work, but that's a great painting by Picasso you're denigrating.

I know, i picked it on purpose. It is a characteristic piece of anti-art, but it is a thing of small value compared to the Michelangelo.

And Dostoyevsky's final prescription for humanity was more Chrisitianity, which hasn't worked out too well...

We didn't have any more Christianity after Dostoevsky. He was the last great philosopher of Christian morality. It is of course curious how the European religious soul often express itself best through art. It was the same thing for the Greeks. Indeed, i always considered Greek religious believes to be nothing more then a collection of pagan superstitions, until i was exposed to the real messiah of the Greek religion, Homer, and his two prophets, Sophocles and Euripides.

[Chaszz]

Poor practitioners do not invalidate the practice, of course.

I know, I know, it hasn't been tried it the right way yet. Same thing with communism, too bad the wrong people practiced it. Let's face it, the wrong people are apt to take over anything that becomes a system. Before it's a system, it might work; afterwards, when the crowds and connivers come, no...

[karlhenning]

I know, I know, it hasn't been tried it the right way yet. Same thing with communism, too bad the wrong people practiced it. Let's face it, the wrong people are apt to take over anything that becomes a system. Before it's a system, it might work; afterwards, when the crowds and connivers come, no...

Clearly, you are more interested in trashing Christianity than you are in the truth of the matter, so it is hardly worth pointing out that your "parallel" with Communism is tendentious, prejudicial & poorly considered.

Curiously, only the day before yesterday my eye fell again upon this rich paragraph:

Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it.  But the next best thing is to be far enough away not to hate it.  It is the contention of these pages that while the best judge of Christianity is a Christian, the next best judge would be something like a Confucian.  The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgments: the ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and already weary of hearing what he has never heard.  He does not judge Christianity calmly as a Confucian would;  he does not judge it as he would Confucianism . . . .

[DavidW]

We're painfully off topic, so let me get this back to Boulez   Here is the link to the official Boulez is 85 celebrate!

http://www2.deutschegrammophon.com/webseries/?ID=boulez2010

I think I like his Mahler the best, modernist takes on Mahler to me are more satisfying than the romantic takes, though both have their place on my listening and Boulez offers some of the best recordings of recent history.  But yes Dave, I'll try MTT again!

[karlhenning]

Thanks to you on both scores, Davey!

[snyprrr]

I can tell you that Pli was the ear-opener for me, even more so than Marteau. For some early pieces, there is a 4-CD set on Erato that is very good. Éclat is a jewel (on Sony, can be found very cheap). And there's also Polyphonie X, which is definitely worth a try (on Col Legno).

I got the Erato Pli Selon Pli the other day. WOW!! Why didn't anyone say that this sounds like Varese-meets-experimental Chavez??? I've never heard such a humid, equatorial, fetid, jungle-ruins type of sound, like watching vast Mayan ruins. Truly, I can feel the vines growing around great fallen pillars. And hey, there isn't even that much singing!

Bryn-Julson is a singer I trust, and she sounds just fine here.

This has now become one of my fav Modern works. Boulez really has a 'ritualism' streak, no? This really does sound like some ancient death rite, or something. Great stuff!

I now have so many Boulez discs that I probably would make my former self gag! Viva la B!

[karlhenning]

I now have so many Boulez discs that I probably would make my former self gag! Viva la B!

Good for you!

[CRCulver]

New Boulez film being released at the end of April, 57 minute documentary + 71 minute concert ..

Hopefully the recording of Répons will be in surround sound with the spatialization authentically realized. The stereo recording on DG always seemed like a stopgap measure. We need more Boulez in surround, and I was really disappointed when I found that the recording of sur Incises on the Juxtaposition DVD was merely stereo.

[bhodges]

Wow, somehow I missed the earlier post mentioning this DVD, which looks great.  I can't believe that Répons is on it!  Thanks, and will look forward to comments--although I will certainly get this soon.

--Bruce

[petrarch]

Charles Amirkhanian interviews Pierre Boulez and Andrew Gerzso as part of the Speaking of Music series. Boulez discusses the pros and cons of microtonal music, spatial music, as well as delving into the technical details of his latest work, "Répons".

Just noticed that statement is inaccurate. For example, Anthèmes and Sur Incises are both more recent than Répons.

[petrarch]

Just noticed you can't read posts carefully?
The interview/historic-document is from 1986 when it was his latest thing...
hit the link, I just copied and pasted the info from there.

Whatever, it wasn't targeted at you, the statement was clearly excerpted. Touchy, are we not? For some reason the link timed out for me. And as we're splitting hairs, Dialogue de l'ombre double is from 1985, later than Répons (but perhaps not than one of the latter's endless revisions).

[karlhenning]

Whatever, it wasn't targeted at you, the statement was clearly excerpted. Touchy, are we not?

Ah, I see you've met James . . . .

[not edward]

And possibly we have a Waiting for Godot opera as the next Boulez project?

http://www.instantencore.com/buzz/item.aspx?FeedEntryId=96876

[karlhenning]

Here's hoping he finishes it!

[Joaquimhock]

I would be very surprised if it turns to be true. I've read the article in the original French and Machart says "according to what I've heard". It's therefore just a rumor and then Renaud Machart is famous in France for his scathing humour and his love for Broadway musicals and John Adams' operas. His not a conservative ctriic, but he's not always... Afficher davantage very kind with IRCAM-like european avant-garde and wrote a very mean article about Boulez's 85th birthday in Paris in March.
So I guess this could be a private joke or something.


In a recent interview he just said he wanted to finish his Notations and the violin conerto for Anne-Sophie Mutter Anthème II. Next year he will not conduct to compose more he said.