Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)

[petrarch]

A high-profile composer with a bullhorn; to characterize this as only giving his opinion is disingenuous.

And yet none of the people that voiced their opinion on this thread seem at risk of taking him too literally. For the others, I suspect they just have to open their ears and judge--if they take Boulez's word as gospel it's their problem, not Boulez's.

(b) Personally, as a composer, I don't take much interest in either Messiaen or Hindemith as teachers.  What matters to me is the music.

Oh such lyrical vacuity. Someone was arguing in favor of Hindemith and citing his influence through teaching and his books. The comparison with Messiaen intended to show that as teaching goes there is indeed a degree of influence beyond Hindemith.

(c) As we've discussed many times in various threads, "braving new worlds of sound and musical narrative" isn't necessarily the most important thing, and certainly is not the only thing.

Who said it was the only one? But "braving new worlds" was the context of Boulez's quote.

[petrarch]

it is not my interest to decide where a work or its creator ranks compared to all others

Interesting that everyone seems to be taking Boulez's quote in absolute terms. To me it's not a question of ranking composers, but rather something that suggests whether I will find Hindemith interesting or not provided I agree with Boulez's opinion, approach or vision of what music should be.

[Franco]

Interesting that everyone seems to be taking Boulez's quote in absolute terms. To me it's not a question of ranking composers, but rather something that suggests whether I will find Hindemith interesting or not provided I agree with Boulez's opinion, approach or vision of what music should be.

You are free to feel about Hindemith or Boulez as you choose, and to read into his statements whatever you wish.  For myself I find his criteria (a composer who changed music history) to be somewhat ludicrous since all but a handful of composers would fall off his radar screen.  I enjoy the music of Hindemith, and I consider his contribution to music of the 20th century significant.  Whether Boulez does or does not agree will not alter anything about how I think of Hindemith, or George Perle, or Charles Wuorinen, or any number of composers whose legacy probably will not include changing the course of music history.

[petrarch]

Whether Boulez does or does not agree will not alter anything about how I think of Hindemith, or George Perle, or Charles Wuorinen, or any number of composers whose legacy probably will not include changing the course of music history.

Exactly. The fact that I happen to like Boulez and not care for Hindemith is a coincidence that makes his words resonate with me, but I also like other composers I know he doesn't care for that much.

In any case people seem to have skipped over his prefacing of his statements with "the composers who always interested me".

It's interesting how it quickly becomes almost a religious contention.

[greg]

Boulez is an intelligent chap; he ought to be able to distinguish between a fact and speculation.[/font]

He's smart, but I just think sometimes he wants to appear tough. 

[DavidRoss]

History has already rendered its verdict when it comes to Boulez's influence. There are plenty of articles from the 1960s and 1970s where composers say "I got certain ideas for this piece from Boulez's piece X".

No.  History is not that short sighted.  If we are unable or unwilling to invest any effort in understanding another's point of view, then learning will be unnecessarily slow and difficult.

Are you aware that the tone of every post you've made on this thread suggests that you are spoiling for a fight rather than inviting dialogue?

[Franco]

Or maybe the criteria some of us use for the music we value has nothing to do with Boulez's perspective.  There are many reasons why I choose to listen to a composer's music (or to use his phrase, I am interested in a composer) but the level of his influence is not one of them.

[karlhenning]

Influence is interesting from a historical angle, in a connect-the-dots way.  Again, the question of that interest does not make it the most important consideration in evaluating music.  Music is not farming.

[DavidRoss]

Or perhaps some of us here have a better & deeper perspective of the last 50 or so years than others ... Boulez has had a persuasive influence on today's musical culture without a doubt ... from avant-garde compositional theory, to IRCAM*.. to the concert repertoire of the world's major symphony orchestras - impossible to ignore. One of the most significiant 'classical' musicians of the past 50 years without a doubt.

Perhaps even the Dittersdorf of his day!  Let's take up the subject again in a hundred years and see whether history judges him a Stravinsky or a Salieri.

[rappy]

I think influence is an overrated criterion. Influence alone is nothing if it doesn't cater for good music. And then the composer who wrote the good music is more interesting than the one he was influenced by. So J. Ch. Bach and Hummel might have had an important influence, but Mozart and Chopin wrote the better music. And thus they are the better composers. If I listen to a Chopin sonata, I'm in nothing less interested than the fact how much influence it had had on later composers. I judge from the music I've heard.
The sonata would not be worse if no composer had taken account of it, would it? The idea seems absurd.

[Sergeant Rock]

Boulez: "I am not saying that we should silence composers like him. But we must understand that they are second-rate. Every generation makes its own discoveries. And if it doesn't, it absorbs the cliches of the past and uses only them; this is what we see among many composers today.

History has already rendered its verdict when it comes to Boulez's influence. There are plenty of articles from the 1960s and 1970s where composers say "I got certain ideas for this piece from Boulez's piece X".

So, those composers who got their ideas from him are, by Boulezian definition, second rate...and won't interest him because they merely absorbed the clichés of the past    And, in fact, Boulez himself was recycling Schoenberg and Webern. Ergo, Boulez is a second rate composer too. Hoisted on his own petard.

For a second-rater, he ain't bad though 

Sarge

[DavidRoss]

I think influence is an overrated criterion. Influence alone is nothing if it doesn't cater for good music. And then the composer who wrote the good music is more interesting than the one he was influenced by. So J. Ch. Bach and Hummel might have had an important influence, but Mozart and Chopin wrote the better music. And thus they are the better composers. If I listen to a Chopin sonata, I'm in nothing less interested than the fact how much influence it had had on later composers. I judge from the music I've heard.
The sonata would not be worse if no composer had taken account of it, would it? The idea seems absurd.

Since this is a Boulez thread, perhaps we should note that the idea of influence promoted by CRCulver and James is theirs and not Boulez's.  In the interview that sparked this recent flurry of interest on a moribund thread, he said:

The composers who always interested me are the ones who, if they hadn't existed, music would have developed in completely different directions. Without Stravinsky, without Schoenberg, music today would be different. In contrast with them, there is the very good and highly respected composer Paul Hindemith. But if he hadn't written a note, would music today sound any different? No.

Complete article here: http://www.haaretz.com/culture/arts-leisure/just-don-t-call-pierre-boulez-avant-garde-1.302036

Boulez is talking about "game changers."  Guys whose contributions profoundly altered the development of music.  Thus, in his opinion, Stravinsky is more interesting than Hindemith, even though the latter is, as he says, "very good and highly respected." 

Note that this is but one excerpt from a presumably lengthier interview that was excerpted for the article, and that contextual remarks might not have been reproduced.  Note also that the comments were made in the context of discussing IRCAM and "the avant garde."  And finally consider that--were "game-changing" Boulez's sole criterion for musical interest, then he'd probably be consumed with Beethoven and Haydn and Mozart and Berlioz, and not guys who--from history's perspective--might still yet prove but a flash in the pan.

[karlhenning]

So, those composers who got their ideas from him are, by Boulezian definition, second rate...and won't interest him because they merely absorbed the clichés of the past    And, in fact, Boulez himself was recycling Schoenberg and Webern. Ergo, Boulez is a second rate composer too. Hoisted on his own petard.

For a second-rater, he ain't bad though 

Sarge

Boulez is a credit to the C-team ; )

[DavidRoss]

David no offence, and I know (hope) you're joking a little but it's comments like this that clearly illustrate that you (& others) here don't really have much of a perspective on what happened with music in the last 50 years or so and how Boulez (& other leading composers of his generation) did change things. He's already in the history books and left his mark on the music world, can't be denied ...

Dear James.  I understand your perspective.  It is not history's.  You are describing present times and interpreting them as if a (minority?) contemporary opinion had already determined the judgment of history.  It's possible that history will concur, but it's much too soon to determine that, let alone to claim that "history has already ruled."  History is replete with illustrations of the principle that posterity's judgment often overturns that of the present.  And, your preferences notwithstanding, your views about Boulez's contemporary significance are hardly shared by all and may not even reflect a majority opinion.  Yes, he's a notable and significant composer...but a game-changer?  I suspect not, but will let history make the call.

You have expressed your views repeatedly.  They boil down to "I think Boulez and the self-proclaimed avant garde are swell, and there others who think they're swell, too, and if anyone doesn't agree then they're just ignorant numbskulls."  You are welcome to feel this way.

I have expressed my view on this subject more often than should have been necessary.  I would hope that you could "get" my point even if you don't agree with it, maybe even acknowledge its validity while still maintaining that, in your judgment, future generations will evolve to share your refined and advanced tastes and agree with you in anointing Boulez as one of the demigods of Western music.  But I've encountered you often enough to know that such reasonableness is too much to expect, and I've no interest in continuing to flog this dead horse...especially when there are so many other dead horses sprawled about the GMG campus inviting repeated flogging! 

[Henk]

EDIT:

I think Boulez is trying to convince himself he's a first-rate composer. But for the same reason like imo Schoenberg he isn't: his musical ideas are more important then his music. Stravinsky is greater imo, because his music is great _and_ with his _music_ he influenced other musicians.

However I think Boulez as a composer is greater then Hindemith, but one can argue in favor of Hindemith, that it for him it was about the music only (and not about progressive, and therefore somewhat artificial, musical ideas). To say it in another way: I think composer who had progressive musical ideas are less authentic then composer for who it was about their own music in the first place. Composers like Boulez and Schoenberg can better be regarded as leading figures of movements in music.

Other composers have to digest those musical ideas and then it becomes clear how fruitful those ideas are. They can make "first-rate" music of it, but in way supposedly that these ideas are altered too. The ideas are usable and can never be a leading principle, as it was for Schoenberg and Boulez, for composing "first-rate" music.

[karlhenning]

Very interesting, Henk.  Not sure I entirely agree, but you make an interesting case.  *(

[Scarpia]

At some point I had enough curiosity to buy a disc of Boulez compositions.  Maybe I should actually listen to it.

[DavidRoss]

At some point I had enough curiosity to buy a disc of Boulez compositions.  Maybe I should actually listen to it.

Imagine wind chimes and bells and driftwood mobiles stirred by gentle breezes.  What disc?

[Scarpia]

Imagine wind chimes and bells and driftwood mobiles stirred by gentle breezes.  What disc?

Actually, I see I have two.




It seemed like it was worth the risk because I found them both used for very cheap.

[karlhenning]

I think Sur incises will incite your bee's knees.