Pierre Boulez, the path of a composer – The World

Le Monde | 01/06/2016 at 14:35 • Updated 01/06/2016 at 6:54 p.m. | By Renaud Machart

Little is known about the first musical tests of Pierre Boulez, who died Tuesday, January 5 at the age of 90 years: the man never let appear any page that fully met him. So should we consult the archives of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) for its Three Psalmodies for piano (1945), an interim version (1947) of his First Sonata Piano (begun in 1946 and published in final form in 1951) and those of the Cologne Radio which remains an excerpt from Forgotten stoned signal (1952), a music twelve solo voices for “musical” of Armand Gatti.

Placed under the sign of number “12″ (twelve pieces of twelve steps each), its Notations (1945), created in conjunction with the Three Psalmodies by pianist Yvette Grimaud, will soon be removed from his catalog, but are reinstated it when, in the 1980s, Boulez’s rework gradually orchestral versions, while agreeing to compare the original to their new version. Rare scores for magnetic tape, developed at musique concrete Group of National Broadcasting, founded and directed by Pierre Schaeffer, show a little known chapter in the work of Boulez: Two band for concrete music studies Magnetic (1951-1952) as well as Mechanical Symphony (1955) for the experimental film Jean Mitry

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systematism

In 1955, while he was at the end of his term “chief music “within the Renaud-Barrault company, Boulez wrote a long and demanding stage music for The Oresteia, Aeschylus. The difficulty qu’auront the actors to sing the chorus passages forcing the musician to simplify and cut much of its partition, which will surprise the critics with its modernity. At the request of the radio test club, designs Boulez in 1957 an astonishing and poetic music (for oboe, harp and percussion) for the radio play Twilight Yang Kouei-Fei by Louise Faure (1957). He will take into fragments for subsequent works.

First official album, the First Piano Sonata elliptical work, radical and bristling, precedes a Sonatine for flute and piano (1946) and Second Piano Sonata (1947 to 1948). In this work a formidable difficulty, Boulez says the foundation of his language, an audible systematism despite capricant rhapsodic character of the room. The great pianist Maurizio Pollini in Italian will be a famous performer.

Discover the poetry of René Char

The discovery of the poetry of René Char (1907 to 1988 ) inspired his first vocal compositions Boulez: Le Visage Nuptial (two versions: 1947 and then from 1951 to 1952) and The Sun Water , whose many changes between 1948 (a radio play whose registration has not been found) and 1965, establish a principle of incomplete and provisional typical of the composer. Similarly, the Book quartet (1948-1949) was created partially in three concerts between 1955 and 1962, discontinued (except for formations that had already played) and redesigned in Book for Strings (1968) for string orchestra and again reintroduced in 1985 in its version for four bows.

In 1951-1952, Boulez composed the First Book his Structures for two pianos, a work of extreme aridity where it grows at its peak integral serial determinism strictly governing the heights, shades and times.

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On the same principles, Boulez wrote between 1953 and 1955, Le Marteau Sans Maître on Char texts. This composition (most famous and most recorded of its author with the Second Sonata ) for contralto and instrumental ensemble is a musical intransigence tempered by sound poetry percussion evoking non-European sounds .

First ultradéterminisme antidote to his previous compositions, the Second Book (1956-1961) Structures for two pianos introduced a dose of freedom in the course of the work, at the discretion of the performers, as in Third Piano Sonata (1955-1957), confirming the desire to release the locks too restrictive of integral serialism. If Boulez designs “a work renewed at each execution,” he refuses provided the total indeterminacy of the open form other composers will practice at the same time.

fluidity and sensuality

The taste of Boulez for poetry and literary theories of Stéphane Mallarmé led him to write, between 1957 and 1962, a large set of pieces under the title Fold selon pli (1957-1962). Revised until the mid-1980s, this cycle is assigned a vocal sawtooth and extraordinary polyphonic complexity which make listening arduous despite the passage of an exemplary refinement. After secondary and often grisailleuses partitions designed in the 1960s, Cummings ist der Dichter (1970) for choir and chamber orchestra, is emerging as one of its most poetic achievements. Following the first versions of … exploding-fixed (1971, reworked the following year and then in 1993 in a version with electronics), Ritual in memoriam Bruno Maderna ( 1974-1975) and Messagesquisse (1976) for solo cello and six cellos (control of Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich)

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In 1981, Boulez works in what can surely be considered his masterpiece, Répons, for six soloists (two pianos, harp, vibraphone, xylophone / glockenspiel and dulcimer), instrumental ensemble and electro-acoustic device in real time ( “live electronics” ). The subsequent iterations have evolved together with technology developed at IRCAM, the musical laboratory created in 1977 by Boulez at the Centre Pompidou. The score, which seems to resonate with music polychoral Venetian 1600s and Wedding (1914 to 1917), Stravinsky, will be recorded in 1996 by the composer in a final version. Répons combines sound poetry of immense charm to great writing rigor: mineral aridity and sometimes suffocating many of his earlier scores gives way to the fluidity and sensuality

decorative Hedonism

Drift 1 (1984), an almost impressionistic breathing, and most frantic Drift 2 (1988-2006) are “comets” of “planet” Répons . On Incises (1996-1998), for three pianos, three harps and three percussion, is the long and industrious development of Incises (1994-1995), short and volcanic piece for solo piano competition

Double Shadow Dialogue , for clarinet (1985) -. a way to unexpected appropriation of Three pieces for clarinet only (1919), Stravinsky – and Anthèmes 2 for violin (1997), originally for solo or band instrument, are remodeled in versions with live electronics. But as technology in Répons, seemed to serve the poetics of the work, as in these two parts, it seems won by a somewhat decorative empty hedonism.

The composer was thinking for a long time to finally write for the operatic stage. A project designed with Heiner Müller’s (1929-1995) had been abandoned at the death of the playwright. In 2009, Boulez would have agreed to finally write an adaptation of Waiting for Godot of Samuel Beckett for the Scala in Milan. But serious sight problems and declining health of Pierre Boulez in his later years will prevent him to carry out his project.