Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)

[André]

Right now listening to this:



His Bruckner leaves me cold. His Mahler is quite good, but invariably exchews extremes of dynamics and emotions. His Ravel is up there with the best. He made the NYPO play like a refined band. They in turn injected a welcome grit to the music. His NY years were a quite interesting era. Other than that he surfed and coasted on the crest, with all the world's orchestras waiting for 'Pierre' to give them a nod. There was always a bit of condescension to his demeanor and I think it spilled into his music-making.

[Cato]

I must mention that one of the greatest Gurrelieder performances ever came from Boulez and Jess Thomas:

[asin]B000002816[/asin]

[bhodges]

My two favorite Boulez concerts - both at Carnegie Hall - were in 2003, when he conducted his own Répons, and in 2005, when he led the LSO in The Rite of Spring. For the former, Carnegie used platforms to cover some of the seats on the main floor, to create the aural equivalent of a snow globe: the instrumental and electronic sounds were flying everywhere around the hall. And his version of the Stravinsky - the sounds making Carnegie's floor vibrate - was one of the most relentless, quietly brutal interpretations I've ever heard.

The last few years have made me fearful of this day - he'd been so ill, cancelling appearances and not working much - but he leaves a huge legacy.

--Bruce

[JCBuckley]

Peter Stein's production of Pelléas et Mélisande, conducted by Boulez, was the most thrilling opera performance I ever saw. And Boulez's conducting masterclass at the Barbican, to mark his 70th birthday, was an exceptional experience too. As one journalist wrote at the time:

'He plainly tried to be helpful rather than patronising (a very difficult balancing act, that) and there were little encouraging gestures – especially the fatherly squeeze of the arm at the end of each session. Could this really be the modernist monster of popular mythology?'

[SimonNZ]

The Ensemble Intercontemporain he founded and gave a mandate continues to be, for my money, the most exciting and inspiring group on the planet, and will continue to serve as a testament to his forsight and the strength of his commitment.

[André]

There seem to have been aJekyll and Hyde phenomenon lurking behind the benign, avuncular festures of Oncle Pierre.

First of all, he changed over time. After all, he was 90 when he died, and his influence on the modern music circuit had waned somewhat. According to this article in The Atlantic from 1995   http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1995/09/unreconstructed-modernist/376461/ , he was more and more recognized as a conductor, and at the same time his music was played  - and talked about - less asnd less.

Boulez the musical avant-gardiste was a bitch when it came to appraising or discussing other composers' music. Boulez the widely-travelled conductor was on the other hand hailed as a legend. And he basked in the glow of such accolades as musicians and critics gave his work. Make no mistake: he was a great conductor. This was his last successful calling card. Plus the man seemed to have mellowed. After all he ended up conducting Bruckner and Mahler, didn't he ?

[André]

The Ensemble Intercontemporain he founded and gave a mandate continues to be, for my money, the most exciting and inspiring group on the planet, and will continue to serve as a testament to his forsight and the strength of his commitment.

This is not exactly what happened. Boulez had been in self-imposed exile in Baden-Baden (Germany) for some years when the call came from the Élysée. President Pompidou had decided to make his mark on french cultural scene and needed a standard bearer for the musical portion of his cultural policy. Pompidou fostered the IRCAM (Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique-musique, 1969) as well as the Centre Pompidou.

During these years Boulez lobbied to get a government-subsidized musical ensemble to foster his views on modern music. He was the director the ensemble for 2 years (1976-1978). The Pompidou years were critical for the rise and pre-eminence of Boulez the musician and theoretician, a period in which he frantically (and sometimes viciously) lobbied to establish his views on modern music. Meanwhile the Intercontemporain continued under different conductors who did not always see eye to eye with its founder's views.

It is obviously too soon to assess properly the life and times of a man who, just like Wagner was as much a musical beacon as he was a schemer and lowly, gutter-style polemicist.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Can someone please change the thread title for the sake of accuracy? he died in 2016 I'm pretty sure!


And this:

The Ensemble Intercontemporain he founded and gave a mandate continues to be, for my money, the most exciting and inspiring group on the planet, and will continue to serve as a testament to his forsight and the strength of his commitment.

Hear hear!

[bhodges]

Can someone please change the thread title for the sake of accuracy? he died in 2016 I'm pretty sure!

As the originator of this thread, happy to make this edit - done. 

--Bruce

[SimonNZ]

During these years Boulez lobbied to get a government-subsidized musical ensemble to foster his views on modern music. He was the director the ensemble for 2 years (1976-1978). The Pompidou years were critical for the rise and pre-eminence of Boulez the musician and theoretician, a period in which he frantically (and sometimes viciously) lobbied to establish his views on modern music. Meanwhile the Intercontemporain continued under different conductors who did not always see eye to eye with its founder's views.

Interesting. How different were the views of some of the later conductors? Do you know of any examples?

Coincidentally I just purchased this book a couple of weeks ago, haven't had a chance to look into it yet, but it probably covers a certain amount of this:



Has anyone read it?

[André]

It's normal that some of the conductors who succeded Boulez at the EIC saw things such as programming in a different view. Robertson for example tried to program american minimalists but his ideas met with resistance from within.

NZ, if you read french, you will find this interesting:    https://www.erudit.org/revue/circuit/1999/v10/n2/004649ar.pdf    Another insider's view (from IRCAM) details his views on Born's book.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I heard him conduct a number of times, in Chicago in the late 90s, and in New York shortly thereafter.

At the CSO concerts I was able to watch him from the front, from the gallery seats behind the orchestra. This was fascinating, because you could see the parsimony of his movements, and his deadpan facial expressions. He didn't even use a baton, just moved his hands as if sketching something on an invisible board in front of him.

Some critic called him "the Mr. Spock of modern music" and I thought that was apt. In my view he was a great conductor within a rather narrow range, an interesting if sometimes wrongheaded musical polemist, and a composer whose work I respected even if I didn't like it that much. A triple threat, whose like we shall probably not see again, at least anytime soon.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Pierre Boulezenegger

http://youtu.be/y17-pJZ9nEg

Says 'hasta la vista, baby' on 5 January 2016.

[knight66]

Here is a complete post from our recently lamented friend Lis, it dates from 2007. Mike

==========================================================================

This afternoon I spent close to an hour watching Pierre Boulez rehearsing the Wiener Philharmoniker in concerts by Alban Berg's Three Pieces and his own Notations I-IV. An overwhelming revelation of those two pieces, which had always left me muttering: "Huh?" Oh no, today's session did not remove all the 'huhs', but I got closer to hearing what was being played. Some day I might even understand it completely because of Boulez's enlightening, informative chats in between.

What really impressed me was Boulez's miraculous talent for hearing. An example was a passage in Berg's Orchesterstück II Reigen. There are about one hundred musicians playing, what seemed to me, whatever they wanted to, however they wanted to, more like the sound I am used to when the entire orchestra is tuning up at the beginning of a concert. Boulez interrupts them and asks trumpet 3 to play for him a G. The young man does it. "No, no, wrong, try again". The trumpeter tries again; Boulez not satisfied and after the third try he hums a G for the musician, and he gets it right! Perfect! To me they all sounded the same. Now how on earth could Boulez detect this barely off-key G among the mass of other notes produced by the entire orchestra? He showed this same talent during his Notations IV. He asks three trombones to repeat a certain bar. No good. After repeated tries it is discovered that the mute of one trombonist is shaped different than the other two!

Have I helped you to understand why I love to watch DVDs? Even the videos of concerts are a revelation of what makes any classical piece of music worth my time and concentration. BTW, Boulez during rehearsal is so much more lively, even charming, than during regular performances. 

[James]

Pierre Boulez 1925 – 2016
Celebrating the life and work of composer, conductor and innovator, Pierre Boulez
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dq79z

[knight66]

<sup>http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2016/01/memories-of-boulez.html[/sub]

Here is a link to a very balanced look at Boulez. I have been reading a lot about his output as a conductor. Over and again I read that it is an x-ray, like the plans of a high-rise building, that you hear all the orchestration. And that usually goes hand in hand with an opionion that the outcome feels detached, removed, cold, dispassionate, bloodless, lacking in emotion. But that it is all wonderful....

So, he had a fantastic ear, he lays the score out clearly. But then, is it an autopsy? Is that great music making?

Mike</sup>

[Karl Henning]

It does have something of the air of a hostile takeover, doesn't it?

(That said, I enjoy his Berlioz.  Go figure!)

[ritter]

....

So, he had a fantastic ear, he lays the score out clearly. But then, is it an autopsy? Is that great music making?

Mike

In his review of Boulez's recording of Mahler's First Symphony, amazon customer Grady Harp used a phrase I find very apt to describe Pierre Boulez's conducting: "Passionate BECAUSE of analytical correctness". This is the kind of music-making many of us enjoy, and yes, it is IMHO music-making of the highest calibre.

It does have something of the air of a hostile takeover, doesn't it?

(That said, I enjoy his Berlioz.  Go figure!)

Some people can be very passioante about hosile takeovers, you know.   

[JCBuckley]

In his review of Boulez's recording of Mahler's First Symphony, amazon customer Grady Harp used a phrase I find very apt to describe Pierre Boulez's conducting: "Passionate BECAUSE of analytical correctness". This is the kind of music-making many of us enjoy, and yes, it is IMHO music-making of the highest calibre.

Exactly

[knight66]

In his review of Boulez's recording of Mahler's First Symphony, amazon customer Grady Harp used a phrase I find very apt to describe Pierre Boulez's conducting: "Passionate BECAUSE of analytical correctness". This is the kind of music-making many of us enjoy, and yes, it is IMHO music-making of the highest calibre.
Some people can be very passioante about hosile takeovers, you know.   

I think that is very good and I don't argue with it. I don't invaribly find him cold, as I think I indicated in my earlier posts. But clearly a number of people who do like his work, do find a lack of overt emotion. We all look for different things. I find Haitink generally too detached, but I shy away from a lot of Bernstein's discs as being OTT. The Shirley Bassey of conductors, drama everywhere. But, then I love his Falstaff, his Rosenkavalier, but not much of the Mahler/Tchaikovsky end of his output.

I also saw from another article today that in the sixties and seventies Boulez would program CPE Bach up against Webern and Ockenham with his own music. There are always unexpected sides to such complex people.

Mike