Discovering Pierre Boulez

by Gwen Herat at the Royal Festival Hall, London

Musing around the Royal Festival Hall trying to pick a concert in the next two days. I was getting somewhat bored. My favourite, Vladimir Jurowski was not conducting in the next forty-eight hours and was not much impressed with the others. Next thing I knew was that I stumbled on another composer whose music I had not heard before.

Pierre Boulez and who is he?

My curiosity did not kill the cat. Phew: Is every living composer a legend. I though this was crazy. One week before I went through this same experience when I attended that BBC Symphony Orchestra’s prom on Sir Harrison Birtwistle and at the end of the concert, I came out convinced Sir Harrison to be a living legend. And now; it is Boulez. My curiosity did not stop there and ended up listening to some of his tapes. It struck me Boulez to be robust and fulsome with some heavenly scores and too good to be true. No wonder the Southbank Centre is all excited for Exquisite Labyrinth which is weekend Festival of Six concerts dedicated to his 60 years of compositional hell-raising.

Pianist

Earlier, Boulez had conducted the Berlin Staatskapelle with world-renowned pianist, Daniel Barenboim at the Royal Festival Hall just three months ago. His scores for the concert had been;

Wagner-Eine Faust Overture, Liszt – Piano Concerto No. 2 in A, Wagner – Siegfried Idyll, Liszt – Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat.

Then, this weekend I was lucky to attend the Weekend dedication to this great composer/conductor at the Southbank Centre and listen the Exquisite Labyeinth being performed.

And then I discovered the real Pierre Boulez,

He had been the mythically all-powerful, all-consuming avant-grade musician. The twinkle-eyes, snowy-haired though supposedly a Satanic source, was nothing of the sort. I was expecting to hear bell-raising music but it was nothing of the sort. This Frenchman; all suave even while advancing towards seventy, appeared more of an Englishmen.

He had been sort of a picky person rubbing against many people or being arrogant at times. He had disrupted Stravinsky premières and insisted that opera houses should be blown up.

Symphony

He loathed certain music and was open about them. He even rubbed against his teacher, the iconic Messiaen, calling Tarangalila Symphony vulgar and told his master about it. This score had been one of Messiaen’s greatest works and the composer never spoke to Boulez for the next five years.

Apparently, Boulez had been an angry young man who always wanted things to go his way. Did I find this temperaments in his music. I did or I imagined but Boulez is a composer I can easily forget with time.

He had never studied orchestration professionally but with his stint with the Folie Bergere of which I never thought much for a future composer. However, with re-orchestrating Tchaikovsky for the theatre, was a massive impetus for Boulez towards his future greatness. He never turned back since.

The test of a great composer or conductor is the ability to reveal new depths in familiar or not-so familiar score of great masters and build a bridge between them and today’s music lovers like me whose passion never decreases.

That is what I found in Vladimir Jurowski who I am missing this season as I have to return to Sri Lanka before he picks up his baton. To me sometimes, the complexity of a newly-found composer such as Pierre Boulez can be a challenge. But the test of great music is its capacity for endless re-interpretations and I find Boulez doing it right now or been done for him at the Royal Festival Hall.

Boulez’s top five scores

Sur Incises (1996-98) for three pianos, three harps and three tuned percussions; is a whizzing firecracker of a piece in which the most ravishing French sounds this side of Debussy are sent on a half-hour rollercoaster ride.

Notations: For Piano (1945) and for orchestra (1978) present are pill-sized vignettes, bursting with all sorts of neon colour, like an 18 certificate Kinderszenen.

Pli Selon Pli (1957-62) for soprano soloist and orchestra was once put down by Igor Stravinsky as ‘pretty monotonously and monotonously pretty’. It is in fact one of the most delicate musical waves imagination, a masterfully soft crochet of technique and feeling. The Piano Sonata No.2 (1947-8)a glimpse into what a floral youngster, the 22-year old Boulez must have been before the focus of the real world that tamed him. La Marteau Sans Maitre (1953-55) sound like’ ice cubes clicking together in a glass’ wagged Stravinsky.

The strangely cocktail-lounge instrumentation; guitar, xylorimba and vibraphone; does give it the whiff of the jazzbar. But this is not so bad.

So, did I discover Pierre Boulez.... I guess, I did.
Did I discover his music? ..... I guess no.
Age no bar. Pierre Boulez in full control.