Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)

[ibanezmonster]

Yesterday, I was playing a DVD of Boulez (Eclat). Three year old Kimi came and sat beside me and listened attentively. Five minutes later, Vanessa came and said "Hey, Kimi won't like that!", and changed the DVD to Mozart. Kimi got upset:"Mommy! I was enjoying the last one! Put it back! That was good stuff!!!"

Vanessa was speechless.

Kimi is the coolest little girl in the world... 

[karlhenning]

Pow!

[springrite]

Pow!

The Hennings MouseTrap is up next for Kimi!

[Coco]

Goes to show how programmed our idea of "convention" can be. Kids are often more intelligent than adults.

[karlhenning]

Certainly they tend to hear with fresher ears. (So here's hoping The Mousetrap passes muster!)

[Coco]

Reminds me of the time I was listening to Pulcinella on headphones in my parents' backyard and my little sister (4 at the time) wanted to listen. I said, "you won't like it" but handed the phones over — she started blissfully swaying from side to side with her eyes closed.

[Coco]

The bump reminds me: I was able to find a few radio recordings of some rare pieces, including the 2006 version of Dérive II (45 minutes), as well as a few withdrawn pieces. The sound quality is variable. I don't think any of these are available commercially, so if anyone's interested, send me a PM and I'll be happy to send them.

[Sylph]

If there's a living deity – or ruling tyrant – in classical music, it's got to be Pierre Boulez.

Nobody else comes close, in the adulation they attract, or the venom, or the fear – even among established composers – of their disapproval. This is the man who said that opera houses should be burned down, and libraries turned into cowsheds, and whose Year-Zero creation of a new musical language rivalled Pol Pot in its enthusiastic abolition of the past. This is the dictator who has stigmatised all musicians who don't embrace his ideology as "useless"; whose Institut de Recherche et de Co-ordination Acoustique-Musique – universally known as Ircam – is held to have alienated the broad mass of music lovers, and pushed new music into a narcissistic ghetto.

And this is the man whose music the Southbank Centre is preparing to celebrate, with a series of events prefaced by a concert next week in which he will conduct Liszt's piano concertos, with his friend Daniel Barenboim as the soloist. But it is indeed time that Boulez's music, with its richly decorative surface and Oriental sensuality of sound, was released from the specialist niche to which its intellectual rigour has condemned it. "We want to focus on its beauty," says Gillian Moore, the Southbank's head of contemporary culture. "He's the late 20th-century's successor to Debussy and Ravel."

The Independent

[petrarch]

Ray of light, most definitely. Boulez is one of my favorite composers.

[snyprrr]

Lots of clapping from snyprrr!!

[Coco]

Boulez on the money as usual.

[Mirror Image]

Boulez on the money as usual.

I don't think Boulez is ever "on the money." In fact, he has some quite nasty opinions of composers who I admire, but thankfully, these are just opinions and not factual in any way. I'm also glad to see Boulez has mellowed out through the years. I admire his musicianship, but that is all.

[Coco]

I don't think Boulez is ever "on the money." In fact, he has some quite nasty opinions of composers who I admire, but thankfully, these are just opinions and not factual in any way. I'm also glad to see Boulez has mellowed out through the years. I admire his musicianship, but that is all.

Sibelius is a notable blindspot for him, and I'm surprised a great musician like him would not appreciate the architectonics of Sibelius's later music, despite the superficial traditionalism of his harmonic language — but I find myself agreeing with him nearly always when it comes to contemporary music, even if his own music isn't as good as his early and middle-period masterpieces.

[Mirror Image]

Sibelius is a notable blindspot for him, and I'm surprised a great musician like him would not appreciate the architectonics of Sibelius's later music, despite the superficial traditionalism of his harmonic language — but I find myself agreeing with him nearly always when it comes to contemporary music, even if his own music isn't as good as his early and middle-period masterpieces.

Boulez has many "blindspots" in my opinion. I would say that much of Scandinavia is a blindspot for him in terms of conducting. Could you imagine Boulez conducting Nielsen?

[petrarch]

Yea gotta agree with him too here ... Cage,Reich,Glass,Adams ... meaningless,vapid & trite stuff.

Just like what he said of post-1970 Stockhausen?

[karlhenning]

(* chortle *)

[karlhenning]

Agreed, Leon, that the whole tack of "such-&-so composers are worthless" is profoundly wrong-headed (which, of course, does not mean anything one way or another about the merits of Boulez's music).

I find it a disappointment in his character, and thus a reminder that while one wishes that the artists whose work one admires might be noble personalities, it doesn't always happen that way; and a disappointment in The Environment, that such a person could be thrust into fame and success, essentially by being such a gawdelpus gadfly.

[Scarpia]

I find it a disappointment in his character, and thus a reminder that while one wishes that the artists whose work one admires might be noble personalities, it doesn't always happen that way; and a disappointment in The Environment, that such a person could be thrust into fame and success, essentially by being such a gawdelpus gadfly.

I'd say it hardly ever happens that way. 

[Amfortas]

I find it a disappointment in his character, and thus a reminder that while one wishes that the artists whose work one admires might be noble personalities, it doesn't always happen that way .

I think this is often a symptom of the 'grand old man' blowing off steam in his latter years. A few years before his death, film director Ingmar Bergman did the same thing, trashing Antonioni and other revered directors. And I have run across this kind of thing pretty often in many areas

[petrarch]

He never said that in that article, (sure he objects to KS's preference to hand pick ensembles & players to play his music, big deal - its no different than any great band leader who does the same) - and if he's said it elsewhere he'd be wrong of course. Tho I've heard Boulez say he felt Stockhausen was the most fascinating composer he's ever known. But then again, as a composer - Boulez can't hold a candle to Stockhausen's galaxy.

So, in your opinion, he's right about some things and wrong about some others. Good enough for me.