Pierre Boulez, composer, conductor, and formidable musical intellectual was born in Montbrison, Loire, France on 26th March 1925. In his childhood he took piano lessons. Following his baccalaureate he initially studied advanced mathematics with a view to following his father into a career in engineering, but instead became determined to pursue a career in music, studying piano and harmony privately. By 1943, having reached a sufficiently advanced standard he applied, though without success, to join the advanced piano class at the Conservatoire de Paris. He was however admitted to a preparatory harmony class there in early 1944 and made rapid progress. While studying counterpoint privately during that year he applied to study harmony with Olivier Messiaen, and in 1945 joined Messiaen’s advanced harmony class. Around that time he was introduced to the works of Arnold Schoenberg in a performance conducted by René Leibowitz of the strictly dodecaphonic Wind quintet, op.26. He studied later with Leibowitz, and through him discovered the works of Anton Webern to which he found himself more attuned.

Showing rapid progress in his own composition, Boulez embraced serial procedures in composing his Douze notations for solo piano (1945), followed shortly after by a chamber arrangement of eleven of these twelve-bar aphorisms; both scores remained unpublished. In the later 1970s Boulez rediscovered the original piano score and chose to expand and elaborate numbers I-IV as individual pieces for large orchestra under the title Notations. When played as a set the recommended order is: I, IV, III, II. Further elaborations were later commissioned but only VII was completed.

Other early works include: the Piano sonata no.1 (1946, rev 1949), the dynamic Sonatine for flute and piano (1946, rev 1949), and a setting of René Char’s poems for a radio production of Le soleil des eaux which he later transformed into a standalone cantata with vocal soloists and chorus (1948, rev 1950, 1958, 1965). Another René Char setting resulted in the cantata Le visage nuptial (1946, rev 1951, 1988-9). These later versions illustrate the way that Boulez’s perfectionism often led him to review and revise earlier works. This is one reason for his relatively small compositional output. The extensive time later devoted to his work as a conductor also affected the time he could devote to composition.

Boulez’s formidable and substantial Piano sonata no.2 was completed in 1948. At times violent and aggressive, the work is complex and highly demanding of the performer. Boulez saw it in some ways as an approach to destruction of the classical forms.

The early 1950s saw Boulez move initially toward total serialization of all parameters of music: pitch, duration, rhythm and dynamics, culminating in the two books of Structures for two pianos. In retrospect he saw Structures Livre 1 more as an experiment that had to be undertaken, and already in Structures Livre 2 he was retreating somewhat from the most extreme position.

Boulez’s most well known work Le marteau sans maître (1955, rev 1957) was composed in a much freer form of serial composition. Again he set poems of René Char, alongside instrumental commentaries. Like Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Le Marteau is composed for an unusual instrumental ensemble: alto flute, viola, guitar, xylorimba, vibraphone and percussion alongside the partially wordless mezzo-soprano voice.

The later 1950s brought forth two of the three Improvisations sur Mallarmé that, with later revisions, were to form parts of the large scale work Pli selon pli (1959-62, rev 1983, 1989). The unfinished Piano sonata no.3 (1955-7, rev 1963) allowed the performer some degree of liberty in performance.

By this time in his life Boulez had become very busy as a conductor, having started with the Domaine Musical concerts in Paris in the 1950s. In later years he became variously principal conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London and the New York Philharmonic, succeeding Leonard Bernstein. Recordings from later years show strong relationships also with the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and the Bayreuther Festspiele.

Throughout his conducting career, Boulez took on the task of educating audiences to listen to and appreciate works from the earlier 20th century as well as those of his contemporaries. He chose also to hold some of his concerts in less formal settings to encourage new audiences. One example, the Round House, a former locomotive shed in Camden, London was the location for some of his BBC Prom concerts. In New York’s Philharmonic Hall seats were removed for so-called rug concerts where the audience could stretch out on rugs and cushions.

Composers like Mahler and Wagner were now receiving more of his attention and he was invited to conduct at the Bayreuther Festspiele. Apart from Wagner he chose only to conduct twentieth century operas, beginning with Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. He discovered Janáček’s operas only late in his life.

In 1976 Wolfgang Wagner asked Boulez to conduct the Jahrhundertring – the centenary Ring production – with direction by Patrice Chéreau. Initially considered highly controversial the production was later much praised and remains available on Blu-ray from recordings made in 1980.

At the invitation of President Pompidou, Boulez was encouraged to return to France to oversee the establishment of the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique (IRCAM) which opened in 1977. The building sits opposite the Centre Georges Pompidou and accommodates a concert hall with fully adjustable acoustics, an anechoic chamber and a variety of studios containing electroacoustic equipment. The Ensemble InterContemporain (EIC), based at IRCAM, was founded by Boulez. He experimented with electroacoustic techniques in later revisions of ... explosante fixe ... – two of them later withdrawn, but the final 1993 revision using live electronics stands. The large-scale work Répons (1980, rev 1982, rev and expanded 1984) also uses live electronics. Dialogues de l’ombre double (1985) for solo clarinet player and their shadow. The soloist interacts with their own pre-recorded sounds.

In 1974 Boulez composed Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna in memory of his friend and fellow composer and conductor who had died the previous year. This work was the first of several to use material from a ‘composition kit’ that Boulez composed for a 1972 issue of Tempo magazine published in commemoration of Igor Stravinsky.

Elaborations form another trend in Boulez’s works. Domaines (1968) exists as a work for solo clarinet, but also as an elaboration for solo clarinet moving between instrumental groups. Incises (1994), written as a solo piano competition piece was later expanded as Sur incises (1996), for three pianos, three harps, and three (mostly tuned) percussion parts. Anthèmes (1991, rev and expanded 1994) was composed for solo violin, but as Anthèmes II (1997) it took on another dimension using live electronic transformations.

To draw this all to a somewhat bizarre close, let us recall the 75 year old Boulez’s rude awakening in the middle of the night in November 2001 when Swiss police raided his five star Basel hotel room and he was dragged out of bed for questioning. Seemingly he was considered a suspected terrorist. This misunderstanding appears to have resulted from someone having taken rather too literally comments he made in a conversation piece published in 1967 in Der Spiegel entitled »Sprengt die Opernhäuser in die Luft!« – “Blow up the opera houses!”. Much embarrassment all round.

Recordings

The definitive set of recordings of his compositions (13 CDs): Pierre Boulez – œuvres complètes – complete works was issued in 2013 by Deutsche Grammophon and has just been reissued (4847513). Much of that content might be considered definitive recordings.

Some works that have undergone subsequent revision have appeared in earlier recorded versions as well as later revisions. Two examples: Pli selon pli first appeared (Halina Łukomska as soloist) on LP in 1970 and remains available on a Sony CD or download SMK68335 while the definitive version (Christine Schäfer as soloist) dates from 2001 on Deutsche Grammophon and is included in the œuvres complètes set. An earlier version of Le soleil des eaux appeared on LP in the later 1960s (Josephine Nendick as soloist) with the definitive version (Phyllis Bryn-Julson as soloist) appearing in 1990 on Erato and also included in the œuvres complètes.

The dense Livre pour quatuor that was revised at various times, received its ‘definitive’ recording in 2012 from Quatuor Diotima in collaboration with Boulez (Megadisc Classics 9780201379679) – possibly now deleted. That recording however has just been superseded by a new Quatuor Diotima recording to include a previously unrecorded 4th movement on which they collaborated with Boulez. Left unfinished at his death, that has been completed by Philippe Manoury. (Pentatone PTC5187360)

One last recording of note: a new Tamara Stefanovich CD entitled Organised delirium couples the Piano sonata no.2 – on which she worked with Boulez – with works by Bartók, Eisler, Shostakovich and Domenico Scarlatti. (Pentatone PTC5187358)

Image attribution: By Joost Evers / Anefo - Nationaal Archief: entry ab37cdb0-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl, Wikimedia Commons.

Antony Gordon 2025-03-17