Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)

[snyprrr]

thought it coulda been today

[Mandryka]

What is a formant?  (as in the 3rd piano sonata.)

[North Star]

What is a formant?  (as in the 3rd piano sonata.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_sonatas_(Boulez)

Of the unpublished movements (or "formants", as Boulez calls them)

[Mandryka]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_sonatas_(Boulez)

Yes, I know he called the sections formants, but what is a formant -- did he invent the word? That sounds like a strange thing to do.

I recently heard it in a discussion of Messiaen too.

[North Star]

Yes, I know he called the sections formants, but what is a formant -- did he invent the word? That sounds like a strange thing to do.

I recently heard it in a discussion of Messiaen too.

Here's what Wikipedia says...

Formants are the distinguishing or meaningful frequency components of human articulation and of singing.

Formants are defined by Gunnar Fant[1] as "the spectral peaks of the sound spectrum of the voice". In speech science and phonetics, formant is also used to mean an acoustic resonance[2] of the human vocal tract. It is often measured as an amplitude peak in the frequency spectrum of the sound, using a spectrogram (in the figure) or a spectrum analyzer, though in vowels spoken with a high fundamental frequency, as in a female or child voice, the frequency of the resonance may lie between the widely-spread harmonics and hence no peak is visible.

In acoustics, it refers to a peak in the sound envelope and/or to a resonance in sound sources, notably musical instruments, as well as that of sound chambers. Any room can be said to have a formant unique to that particular room, due to the way sound may bounce differently across its walls and objects. Room formants of this nature reinforce themselves by emphasizing specific frequencies and absorbing others, as exploited, for example, by Alvin Lucier in his piece I Am Sitting in a Room.

[Mandryka]

Here's what Wikipedia says...

Thanks. Much appreciated.

But now the problem is to explain how all that techie stuff makes sense in the context of the sonata.

[CRCulver]

Boulez's proposed the term "formant" to replace the traditional term "movement" in this aleatoric work. Since the sections of the third piano sonata can be placed in the order of the performer's choosing, they do not move the piece forward to a defined end, so the term "movement" was deemed inappropriate. It has nothing to do with acoustics, as North Star misunderstands.

[North Star]

Boulez's proposed the term "formant" to replace the traditional term "movement" in this aleatoric work. Since the sections of the third piano sonata can be placed in the order of the performer's choosing, they do not move the piece forward to a defined end, so the term "movement" was deemed inappropriate. It has nothing to do with acoustics, as North Star misunderstands.

I did not think that Boulez's usage of the term had necessarily anything to do with that meaning, but Boulez didn't invent the word, just seems to have made up a new meaning for it.

[ritter]

Formant is French for to shape, form, fix, develop, mold, make etc.

Well, actually, formant as a noun, in all dictionaries I've read, only refers to the concept used in phonetics (mentioned by North Star). As far as I understand it, Boulez uses the word as the participle of the verb former, with the sense(s) that James has mentioned. So, to a certain extent, it is a neologism of sorts...

[ritter]

OK, whatever...but the noun formant does (did) not exist in French with the meaning that Boulez clearly uses for it (or in Spanish or Italian, for that matter)...

[ritter]

On a different note, the soon-to-be-opened Philharmonie in Paris will host a "Boulez weekend" in March 2015, to celebrate the composer's 90th birthday. A highlight will be a concert with students of the Paris conservatoire, with world premiers of homages to Boulez by composers such as Betsy Jolas, Bruno Mantovani, Philippe Manoury, Hugues Dufourt, and many more...

Also, an exhibition on Boulez will run from March through June...

http://saison-2015.philharmoniedeparis.fr/weekends/agenda?field_theme_tid=569

[Mandryka]

Formant. One alternative way of looking at it is that Boulez meant to draw attention to the music as an exploration of resonanaces, there's an awful lot of pedal directions in the score. I just listened to Rosen playing it, listening out for the resonances - this may well be a good way into the music.

Has anyone here studied the score? I wonder if there are any special, unusual, pedal effects.

When he was writing Pli selon Pli, he was interested in the idea of a form which was continually fresh and being formed in performance. This was something he and Stockhausen thought was special about a Gamelan concert they heard. So the idea of music as something in perpetual formation, rather than fitting into an existing preestablished structure, is a very Bolezian idea. So I'm quite attracted to the idea that he chose "formant" to suggest something "forming"

The question is proving to be quite a fruitful one.

[Mandryka]

In his discussion of Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux, Harry Holbreich defines the notion of a formant as "sound-objects, bird song, a complex of colours or of rhythms, of course never resembling each other from one appearance to the next, taking the place of the old idea of themes."

[torut]

In Par volonté et par hasard, Boulez told something similar to what CRCulver posted. The interviewer questioned about the term formant used for the third sonata because that surprised him. Boulez contrasted the term formant with another term développant, the former being uniform but movable and the latter being non-uniform and possibly interfered each other. He didn't explain why he used present participles. They are related to the structure, and he didn't say anything about the sound spectrum or resonances.

[Karl Henning]

In Par volonté et par hasard, Boulez told something similar to what CRCulver posted. The interviewer questioned about the term formant used for the third sonata because that surprised him. Boulez contrasted the term formant with another term développant, the former being uniform but movable and the latter being non-uniform and possibly interfered each other. He didn't explain why he used present participles. They are related to the structure, and he didn't say anything about the sound spectrum or resonances.

Interesting, thank you.

[snyprrr]

I just had a bowel formant. Please call a doctor!!

[Karl Henning]

I think you've got an excellent point there, Così.... It seems that if Boulez attacks something we like, then he's an unremitting ass. But Boulez's proselytizing is the result of a thoroughly intellectual approach to the art of music, and to the need (undiminished to this day) to put accross a certain way of looking at this art.

I don't think it is necessarily that.  Stravinsky expressed coy opinions about many composers, and while I do not share his dislike of Vivaldi (e.g.), one writes such remarks off.

But I think, in the first place, that a thoroughly intellectual approach to music is of itself fundamentally wrong-headed; and that Boulez has been disingenuous to some degree or another in many of his musical fatwas over the decades.

[Karl Henning]

I didn't know anything about Boulez' behaviour and character before. In general though I dislike ideologies and their aggressive disciples. So many things were considered "the latest", "the only possible way, 'nowadays'", and history has passed over it ... It is so unwise and immature, and lacking respect for the other. I have no problem if someone passionately dislikes something, but I passionateley dislike it myself if someone proclaims his beliefs to be "the right way, and the only way".

Yes, the whole "clique mindset" is activist, and inartistic.

[Cosi bel do]

Well, first let's not lose all that has been said already :

Well, a lot of people don't like Richard Strauss. Me, I'd happily give Boulez the finger.

For some reason I thought that you liked Boulez... Didn't you say that you enjoy the piano sonatas?

These were actually the works that turned me off of his music for a long time.

I'd give Bach the finger if he were like Boulez as a person.

Oh, I see what you mean. Well, he's gotten better... I was talking to the former conductor at my university last year about Boulez and he said that he's met him a few times and comes across as very friendly.

Some of his old quotes are (unintentionally) hilarious, though. My favorite is the one I mentioned earlier about Stockhausen: "He still complains that he hasn't heard a good recording of his Mixture. I told him that its because it is not a very good piece." Then there's always the brothel music one directed at Messiaen.

That's not a very nice thing to say about our dear Bouboule

...who's pen may have been very sharp, but personally is extremely well-mannered and pleasant. I had the chance to briefly exchange some words with him; as a teenager--me, not him  --in Bayreuth in 1979, and then more recently in the nineties in Madrid and in a on-line conversation in the now extinct Deutsche Grammophon forum, and he was charming...

Yes. I guess he's actually very French : a little egocentrical, with sharp ideas and a will to express them, but well-mannered, polite and (as far as I know) quite humane.

Who organizes riots to suppress music he doesn't like.
If he had had the power he's have been a second Zhdanov.

Yeah, at least according to Ross's book, when he was younger he was a manipulative little &%$#.  As I recall, he would vindictively attack Stravinsky behind his back for not being radical enough and selling out progressive ideals, and then turn around and kiss his ass because he needed him on a bill with "good" (i.e.. more "modern") composers so as to get funding and sell tickets.  Whats more surprising is he later he built up his rep by conducting the Stravinsky oeuvre.   Not particularly admirable.
    But then conductors, like generals, are often unattractive when studied closely.  Best to just measure them by what they produced.

Well, he was 20 years old, and he led a riot against the neoclassical programs (with Stravinsky works, but that was a secondary question) of the first concerts of contemporary music in Paris after the Libération.
So, 2 things :
- first, I think anyone i entitled to a few mistakes or excessive acts at such a young age, and such "mistakes" are certainly preferable to those of an old Cortot ;
- furthermore, I don't think his position, at such a time, was entirely uncalled for : for years so much music had been banned as entartete and, when it was possible again to play it, the fact that some neoclassical Stravinsky was programmed could not only be conceived as timid, but might have fueled the feeling that it was also kind of a forced choice, when American troops were still everywhere around.

I therefore think these accusations are really utterly ridiculous and insulting for a man who has always resisted political establishment (refusing to conduct in Paris Opera for the rest of his life after Barenboim was unfairly sacked) but used it also when it was useful for others (to fund the permanent Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris, for instance). A man who defended the works of so many composers (including Stravinsky) at times and in places when it was not always easy to play them, and fought at the same time for low ticket prices and free educative concerts. Nobody is perfect, and Boulez is not the only one who did such things, but he is certainly among the best models for younger conductors.

Well, Ross's statements are not quite exact (and, AFAIK, Ross is not really much of a Boulez fan). Boulez never made a secret of his distaste for anything neoclassical (including Stravinsky's music of the 30s and 40s). Simultaneously, he has always acknowledged his admiration for the "Russian" works (Sacre, Les Noces, etc., etc.).  Igor Stravinsky was fully aware of this, but yet maintained a cordial relationship with the junior composer that had started on a very good note at a dinner party in NYC (organized by Virgil Thomson, IIRC) in the late 40s . There were lots of disagreements (most notably, after the disatrous Paris première of Threni), but still, both men respected and, I'd say, were fond each other until Stravinsky's death. This might be difficult to assess completely, of course, because our knowledge of late Stravinsky is somewhat distorted (for lack of a better word) by Robert Craft--and it does seem there was no love lost between Craft and Boulez from the late 1950s onwards.

I for one can perfectly understand the"angry young man" Boulez (in the immediate post-WW II period) vehemently attacking what was considered the musical "establishment", in order to publicize his ideas and promote a (then) new and radical aesthetics. And the main symbol of that establishment were Stravinsky's works of the 30s and 40s, which were given in the infamous concert in 1945 or 1946--conducted by Manuel Rosenthal and booed by members of the "younger generation" (apparently Boulez himself was not present that evening, but he has said he would have booed if he had been  ).

Well, Boulez is within his rights to express his musical distastes with scorn and disdain (which is a practice he has not particularly grown out of);  but I am under no obligation to admire him for that practice (weakness, I should say).

Also (probably predictably, as I am both a composer and a conductor) I am loth to generalize about either conductors or composers based on Boulez as an individual.  I appreciate the efforts here to think the best of Boulez;  I just wonder how many misdemeanors we must wink at, over the long years.

Yes, I don't admire Boulez at all as a person. He's an amazing musician, but his personal likes and dislikes never interested me. At the end of the day, he's not doing himself any favors by expressing these dislikes however. I think a musician of his caliber should be a professional and knowing just the way he treated Dutilleux in his younger days alone is enough for me, like Ken, to give him the finger, but I can restrain myself of course.

Again, massive disrespect mainly based on rumors. For a long time, Boulez made a point not talking about Dutilleux, not even pronouncing his name, because he didn't feel like criticizing a colleague but didn't share much with him on a musical ground. But this changed in the 80s and Boulez frequently acknowledged his respect for the late compositions by Dutilleux. If not friends, they both had developed a deep respect for each other and mutually appreciated their contributions.

Anyone is entitled to see himself as a member of the "anti-boulezian" tendency. But let's stop pretending there are musical reasons under these postures, when everyone knows on which ground this opposition lies, really.

I think you've got an excellent point there, Così.... It seems that if Boulez attacks something we like, then he's an unremitting ass. But Boulez's proselytizing is the result of a thoroughly intellectual approach to the art of music, and to the need (undiminished to this day) to put accross a certain way of looking at this art.

So, I may enjoy a Verdi opera thoroughly, but can understand Boulez when he says Verdi is "stupid, stupid, stupid!"  . For many reasons (I'm originally Venezuelan, I'm a bit of a francophile, and I really admire Marcel Proust), I have a weak spot for Reynaldo Hahn; so, when I read in an interview, that Boulez had said "Reynaldo Hahn died just one year after taking over the directorship of the Paris Opera, thank God"  , it kind of hurt, but I can appreciate Boulez not having any time to lose  with the Reynaldo Hahn's of this world. And there's many more examples...

I've read somewhere that Boulez is a hypocrite because he was very polite to Shostakovitch when he met him (in Moscow), even if he despises his music...What did people expect? For him to spit on good old Dmitri? Really...

Sorry! André is right...we're going way off-topic here. Aplogies for that 

I didn't know anything about Boulez' behaviour and character before. In general though I dislike ideologies and their aggressive disciples. So many things were considered "the latest", "the only possible way, 'nowadays'", and history has passed over it ... It is so unwise and immature, and lacking respect for the other. I have no problem if someone passionately dislikes something, but I passionateley dislike it myself if someone proclaims his beliefs to be "the right way, and the only way".

I will never forget a little experience at school: I had newly discovered a composer I had never heard of before, and when I talked about it to my teacher his answer was "But he is so un-progressive/backward!". Oh, I thought (a pity I didn't say it then :-), that's how you judge, it's not about what he means to you, or what your student is enthusiastic about, it is about compliance with "the received way". I found this so shallow.

PS: I'm not very keen on this composer, Werner Egk, any more

[Mirror Image]

I personally feel that Boulez's legacy will not be one of fondness but rather one that is looked back upon as wishing he would have taken a less aggressive approach to criticizing music he didn't enjoy and for being a bit more humble about music in general. I certainly don't think his music has made much of an impact, but his work as a conductor is quite noteworthy and deserves, at least, some reverence.