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Pierre Boulez is among the most influential contemporary musicians, both as a composer and as a conductor. He is known principally for his extension of the techiques of serialism beyond the limits of the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, under the strong influence of his teacher Messiaen, into a logical style that brings with it a paradoxical freedom. His career as a conductor has brought him engagements with the most famous orchestras in a relatively wide repertoire, from Rameau to Wagner and to the contemporary.

Piano Music

The music Boulez has written for piano includes three sonatas, the last involving an element of chance in the possible choices of order offered to performers. The first part of Structures I, for two pianos, was first performed by Messiaen with the composer in 1952 and Structures II by Yvonne Loriod and Boulez at Donaueschingen in 1961.

Instrumental Music

The compositions of Boulez include works for various groups of instruments. Le marteau sans maître is scored for flute, guitar, vibraphone, xylorimba, percussion and viola, and Improvisation sur Mallarmé I for soprano, harp, tubular bells, vibraphone, four percussion, while Improvisations II adds celesta and piano. Improvisation sur Mallarmé III is for soprano and orchestra. The choice of instruments here, as in Eclats and other works is seemingly eclectic, certainly unusual, but logical in its relation to the music, much of which remains open to further development. - Bio from Naxos

Here I'm giving a website of youtube. It is important to listen to his other piano pieces rather than just sonatas, so that we can know him better. We have more examples of his different works so that we can compare the similiraties and differences of them by listening them.

Pierre Boulez, Douze Notations pour piano

Zhang duomi

Here is a link of Pierre Boulez - Livre pour cordes - Wiener Philharmoniker.Composition is of? great quality.Elegant performance and conducting.It is a wonderful piece of music.One of the greatest artist of the? twentieth century.
Wang Han

http://www.edwebproject.org/boulez.html

This is a link containing interview with Boulex on various topics, from his thoughts on serialism, the other artists who influenced him, his view on history, music in the university, electronic music, himself as conductors and others. I noted that even he is one of the leading composers in serialism, actually his idea of composing is flexibility of finding solutions in each cases they, as composers faced. It is pretty strongly seen that he 'rejected' the idea of history since by only folowwing history, we will only merely quoting the past, not creating something new. Once at the end he mentioned "Because I was born in 1925, part of my youth occurred during the War, when times were very bleak. You had only one thing to look up to, and that was culture. I have never seen concert halls more full than during this period. I remember having seen a piano recital given in a hall in Paris, maybe a week before the Liberation. The atmosphere was very tense, as you can imagine. But everyone came, even without transportation, on bicycles, walking from all over. The hall was jammed." Apparently history has shaped his firmness believe of the idealism of music, but in the same time I wonder if he ever thoughts about who is the audience who are going to listen to him? Once the article mentioned when he was conducting the NY philharmonic, putting the Webern and Berg in the programme - and almost all the audience asked for refund, eventually he did compromise his later programme by mixing old and new music. Do we really have to get rid of 'old' music as Boulez said "History," Boulez insists, "seems more than ever to me a great burdon. In my opinion we must get rid of it once and for all."

Imma


This is the information about structures book. We can know that Boulez was affected by his teacher Messian, and also the composition enviroment of ? world war. Boulez had close connection with Shornberg which later he got his classical twelve-tone element. 

He said he want to "make a clean sweep of one's heritage and start all over again from scratch".Quite to the contrary he said "All those predictions of an aborted Apocalypse are a burlesque spectacle", claiming "that few epochs in musical life have been so exalting to live in".

-----Wu Na

Here is a link to some quotes by, and about Boulez.

The quotes are sometimes humorous, particularly when they are made by other composers about Boulez. It is interesting to see some of Feldman's biting remarks about Boulez's music. Some other great musical minds that ponder Boulez's music in this article include John Cage, who says Boulez's music can only be understood in relation to the past.

Boulez himself gives quotes that are sometimes cryptic, sometimes revealing. Also relevant is the opinion of the intelligentsia, including Sartre on Boulez, as it is reflective of the type of artistic environment that surrounded Boulez as he was developing as a musician.

Bertrand Lee

It's interesting to see how the composer approaches to his own music, expecially in the topic of analysis. The way of using words to describe his own composition is kind of fascinating, such as, a "musical seed" or a "musical slap".( to be precise, it's the English subtitles though). In this clip(and the other two), Boulez explains his own composition, "Sur Incises", in the public, by having a group of musicians side by side on the stage to give examples of what he talks about. The piece he talks about was written in 1996, after the work for piano "Incises" which composed in 1994.

In addition, here is a link to a playlist of Boulez as a composer.

- Akkra Yeunyonghattaporn -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC8_TegjyxY Here is a link of Mahler 3rd symph. - Pierre Boulez . I think he is a great conductor.This movement showed us that? a symphony containing the whole universe. He is very passionate and lyrical in this video.He makes all the sound parts become 1.This is the most incredible.
-Wang Han

I listen to Pierre Boulez's "Le marteau sans maître" this piece have 11 movements but actually is not as long as everyone will think, I really want to know what's the piece all about. Here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE3ewzYp3GU

Hou Chuan-An

 Above belowing is the link of Pierre Boulez's master class:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/video/2008/aug/28/pierre.boulez

I choose this because this is more vivid for us to understand him, as we can see how he talked about the  future of contemporary music.

Dai Xuan

I have play this piece last year, It is very interenting I think

-Danning

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  1. 06 Sep 2009

    u0907190

    Boulez

    Introduction
    (born Montbrison, 26 March 1925).
    He studied with Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire (1942-5) and privately with Andrée Vaurabourg and René Leibowitz, inheriting Messiaen's concern with rhythm, non-developing forms and extra-European music along with the Schönberg tradition of Leibowitz. The clash of the two influences lies behind such intense, disruptive works as his first two piano sonatas (1946, 1948) and Livre pour quatuor for string quartet (1949). The violence of his early music also suited that of René Char's poetry in the cantatas Le visage nuptial (1946) and Le soleil des eaux (1948), though through this highly charged style he was working towards an objective serial control of rhythm, loudness and tone colour that was achieved in the Structures for two pianos (1952). At this time he came to know Stockhausen, with whom he became a leader of the European avant garde, teaching at Darmstadt (1955-67) and elsewhere, and creating one of the key postwar works in his Le marteau sans maître (1954). Once more to poems by Char, the work is for contralto with alto flute, viola, guitar and percussion: a typical ensemble of middle-range instruments with an emphasis on struck and plucked sounds. The filtering of Boulez's earlier manner through his 'tonal serialism' produces a work of feverish speed, unrest and elegance.

    In the mid-1950s Boulez extended his activities to conducting. He had been Barrault's musical director since 1946 and in 1954 under Barrault's aegis he set up a concert series, the Domaine Musical, to provide a platform for new music. By the mid-1960s he was appearing widely as a conductor, becoming chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1971-4) and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1971-8). Meanwhile his creative output declined. Under the influence of Mallarmé he had embarked on three big aleatory works after Le marteau, but of these the Third Piano Sonata (1957) remains a fragment and Pli selon pli for soprano and orchestra (1962) has been repeatedly revised; only a second book of Structures for two pianos (1961) has been definitively finished. Other works, notably Eclat/Multiples for tuned percussion ensemble and orchestra, also remain in progress, as if the openendedness of Boulez's proliferating musical world had committed him to incompleteness. Only the severe memorial Rituel for orchestra (1975) has escaped that fate.

    Since the mid-1970s Boulez has concentrated on his work as director of the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, a computer studio in Paris where his main work has been Répons for orchestra and digital equipment.

    Extracted with permission from
    The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music
    edited by Stanley Sadie
    © Macmillan Press Ltd., London.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmm5lNDmDzU&NR=1
    This link about Pierre Boulez interview explaning realtime systems and instrumental interpretation questions. Early Max FTS system on NeXt at Ircam. Midi flute and midi piano captures. But it's france language so I can't understand. Who's understand please explane in the class(smile)