Boulez Bartok Carter Prom 65 Ensemble Intercontemporain

My companion attended some of Boulez's first Proms in 1965 and 1966 (including the UK premiere of Éclat on 2 September 1966), and still keeps the original programme booklets.  So Prom 65: Bartók, Carter and Boulez with Baldur Brönnimann, Ensemble Intercontemporain and the BBC Singers was a special occasion.  An atmospheric Prom, the lights in the Royal Albert Hall dimmed in darkness, spotlighting the music, and the musicians. As things should be! For music is what some of us care about above all else, however media opinion might differ.  Late night Proms have a unique atmosphere, drawing out audiences who care enough about what they listen to that they'd gladly stick around til after midnight and miss the last bus or train home to be there.  Besides, smaller-scale music like this needs to be heard in surroundings more conducive to thoughtful listening than in mass-rally conditions.

Baldur Brönnimann and Ensemble Intercontemporain are, fortunately, regular enough visitors to London that they feel like family.  They all knew Boulez, personally, too, a factor which added extra poignancy, but the high standards of these performances proved that his legacy lives on.

Bartók's Three Village Scenes (1926) at the beginning, for good reason. Modern music isn't an aberration that began with Boulez, as some think these days, evidently unaware of Schoenberg, Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel and many others.  What all these "modernists" have in common is an affinity for approaches other than that of the late 19th century Austro-German tradition.  Bartók's immersion in Hungarian folk idiom  helped him find his unique voice.  His avant garde expressiveness stemmed from far deeper roots.  In Three Village Scenes, the BBC Singers sang with crisp articulation. I have no idea whether their diction was properly Hungarian or not, and don't care. What mattered was the sharpness of intonation, a  group of individual voices operating as a tight unit.  The orchestra came into focus in the second movement, Ukoliebavka, where a single voice intones a plaintive lullaby.  Here, Bartók's individuality - and modernity - palpably present in the shifting, tonally ambiguous forces swirling round her voice.  In Tanec mladencov, the sound of ancient instruments was invoked in new form.  Vigorous rhythms, jerky angular lines, vibrant energy.  

And so to Boulez Anthèmes 2 with Jeanne-Marie Conquer, the soloist par excellence in this piece which she has made her own, having performed it so many times, conducted by Boulez himself..   Although Boulez founded IRCAM  enabling whole new generations of composers to explore the possibilities of microtonality and more, Anthèmes 2 is one of the relatively few pieces he wrote that incorporates electronic sound.  I heard Boulez and Conquer do this piece live at Aldeburgh in 2010 at The Maltings, Snape, so was particularly keen to hear how the dynamic changed. Unsurprisngly it worked better, since the electronics bounced over the cavernous acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall, the  sound stretching for much greater distances than they ever could in the small, boxlike Maltings. Although the electronic effects are created by technology, the sound is "played" by human beings. The sound desk people are musicians responding to the violin, adapting and adjusting.   

Anthèmes 2 is a dialogue on many different levels.  Boulez said that, as a child, he was fascinated by the call and response of the Catholic Mass, by the use of archaic language and by the sense of ancient times co-existing with the present.  As Conquer played, the sound of her violin projected into the vast expanse of the RAH, enhanced so that it seemed to reach out to the upper galleries, and into the dome, deflecting back to the platform, the sound then taken up and transformed by the electronics. Since each of the six sections are so varied, getting this dynamic flow was quite some achievement. Magical, a haunting experience with profound emotional impact.

More "dialogue", with Elliott Carter's Penthode (1984-5) since Boulez and Carter were extremely close friends, bouncing symbiotically off one another.  Carter constructed Penthode like a mathematical theorem, employing five groups of four instruments, in unusual combinations, like  bassoon, piano, percussion and viola. The cells thus interact with each other to form the "orchestra".  The piece is thus both a deconstruction of the idea of an orchestra yet also a reworking of the fundamental idea of playing in harmony, without the actual  use of harmony.  Brönnimann and Ensemble Intercontemporain make Penthode sound easy, though it's not. Players have to listen acutely to one another, each a soloist in his and her own right. No going with the flow and hiding behind a large group, as can happen in lesser ensembles.  

In his poetry, E E Cummings defied conventional concepts of language: words deconstruct into fragments, and meaning comes from the visual impression of text across the page. Blank areas "speak", an idea that translates well into music.  Thus the very configuration of the forces Boulez employs in Cummings ist der Dichter : a small chorus, but one divided into 16 parts, the BBC Singers making the music flow across the line in the way that Cummings uses single characters of the alphabet sliding over the page.  Lines elide, the orchestral lines stretching in arching swathes  and oscillating flurries.  "Birds here, inventing air", Cummings writes in his bizarre,  inventive way, making you pay attention and observe.  "Pay attention and observe", a mantra which could also apply to Boulez.   Do we hear in this music the movement of birds, as we might in Messiaen ? I don't know, or care, because the experience of being alert and acutely sensitive to nuance is even more fundamental.

Listen to the re-broadcast here. The commentary is vacuous cliché, but the interviews, with members of the ensemble and singers, are enlightening.

Bottom two photos: Roger Thomas

Barbican Boulez Pintscher Ensemble Intercontemporain

A quick glance at this stage - what else but Pierre Boulez sur Incises, with Ensemble Intercontemporain, the orchestra he founded, and Matthias Pintscher, at the Barbican Hall, London, 28tth April 2015, part of the continuing Barbican Boulez at 90 celebrations.  This photo (courtesy Ensemble Intercontemporain) shows the symmetry that underpins so much of Boulez's work.  From strong structural foundations, the music bursts forth arising, ever fresh and organic. That's why Boulez rewrites and revises: ideas don't evaporate with the last stroke of the pen, but grow and proliferate.  Uncreative folk will never understand ! This concert also showed how Boulez's creative thrust continues to thrive, inspiring younger composers. Boulez's legacy lies in Ensemble Intercontemporain, through IRCAM,  through the new Philharmonie de Paris and through the many artists who've absorbed  the spirit of his music.

But first, Claude Debussy, to whom Boulez has paid so much hommage. Sophie Cherrier was the soloist in Syrinx (1913), a particular Boulez favourite.. It's exquisite,  the plaintive, seductive sounds of the flute rising from silence, as if probing and searching the universe. High, delicate Pan-pipes,  yet strong and confident. It felt as though we were in the Garden of Eden, before the fall.  This miniature segued into Boulez's Mémoriale (....explosante-fixe...Originel). From a simple basic sequence of notes, the piece grows in the interaction between flautist and small ensemble.

Yann Robin's Asymétriades (2014), premiered last year by Ensemble Intercontemporain, continued the concept of explosion. There isn't much in the repertoire that showcases the double bass to this extent. Nicolas Crosse demonstrated a dazzling array of bowings, fingerings and other techniques so spectacular that the sheer audacity of his playing mesmerized.  Virtuoso pieces like this can sometimes overwhelm the rest of the music ( I'm thinking of Unsuk Chin's Cello Concerto)  but there's so much energy and inventiveness in Asymétriades that it could stand on its own merits as an invigorating, joyous jaunt. Serious music could do with more good humour!

The first chords of Matthias Pintscher's Choc (Monumento IV)  evoked Boulez so strongly that perhaps this early work, written when Pinstcher was 25, was chosen as a memorial to Boulez, While Robin's Asymétriades rushes along like a cheerful, madcap romp, Pintscher's Choc contrasts shock with sudden, tense breaks, to make listeners listen. 

Highlight of the evening, though, was Boulez sur Incises. Ensemble Intercontemporain was founded by Boulez to specialize in new music, so they have the idiom as second nature.  This was easily the best performance of anything so far in this current Boulez series - sharp, vivid, no falling off or smoothing out (unlike Fischer's  Pli selon Pli with the BBC SO, reviewed here) From this basic formal structure - three harps, three pianos, three percussion parts create elaborate maze-like patterns that proliferate, fragment and reconstitute.  The percussion parts include marimba, vibraphone, tubular bells and glockenspeil, so the soundscape is luminous,  shimmering with light and perpetual motion. As always, Paul Griffiths puts things like a poet. "The effect is of a piano hurtling through a hall of mirrors which copy oir distort its sound. Or perhsps it is a maze of mirrors, since every so often the tumult comes to an end, the tempo slows, and the fast figurations fall apart again, only for the music, after a while, to speed off again in another direction".

Paris Philharmonie Grand Opening Galas - links

The Philharmonie de Paris opens today.  It's a huge project, many years in evolution, designed to give Paris a world-class cultural centre, like the Philharmonie in Berlin, or the South Bank in London (as was).  The former Cité de la musique will be updated as "Philharmonie 2".  The new main auditorium (pictured above), which seats 2400,  resembles the design of the Berlin Philharmonie.  Like the South Bank, the new centre will cater to different types of music, though mainstream (and moden) classical music will be its base. The resident orchestras are the Orchestre de Paris and Ensemble Intercontemporain. Read more on the Philharmonie de Paris website HERE  

Like many big projects, the new Philharminie doesn't come without controversy. Read more HERE and HERE. The South Bank is still controversial after 60 years,  At least the new Philharmonie isn't in the heart of town, where it would have had to cater for the kind of non-musical uses which have worn down the South Bank. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson's pet project, the £141 million Olympic complex gets underway with hardly a mention in the British media. So it's going to house branches of the V&A, Sadler's Wells, two university campuses and links with American universities, but is it actually an arts venture? Or is it a new branch line for the Olympics gravy train  At a time when the arts in London are seriously threatened by a government that puts politics above the arts, it's pretty cockeyed. There's a sound business case for keeping London as an international arts powerhouse, but some politicians are more interested in votes than business sense.

So let's consider the new Philharmonie de Paris on its musical offerings. The first Gala Opening concert features Dutilleux, Fauré, Ravel, and Thierry Escaich.  Paavo Järvi .conducts the Orchestre de Paris with soloists Renaud Capuçon, Sabine Devieilhe, Matthias Goerne and Hélène Grimaud. Arte.tv is screening the concert live, even in the UK.
The second opening gala, on 15th at 2030 (Thursday) features Lang Lang in a programme of Borodin, Tchaikovsky and Berlioz.  On arte  tv HERE.

On Friday 16tth, William Christie conducts Les Arts Florissants in motets from Mondonville  and Charpentier together with parts of Rameau Les Indes galantes.   Tito Ceccherini conducts Ensemble Intercontemporain  in an interesting programme: Varèse Intégrales, Ligeti Concerto for piano and orchestra, Magnus Lindberg's Related Rocks and two pieces by Yan Maresz HERE 

On Saturday 18th, Laurence Equilbey conducts Max Bruch Die Loreley a rarity recently revived, which I've written about HERE (Max Bruich Die Loreley - non-Wagnerian Wagner   On the same evening, Lionel Sow conducts Carl Orff Carmina Burana.   And on Sunday there's a documentary about the Philharmonie, a "Musical Dream" HERE.

For a complete list of forthcoming concerts, see HERE

Wigmore Hall Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Intercontemporain

Ensemble Intercontemporain, one of the great new music ensembles, made a welcome return to the Wigmore Hall  London, built around Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire,, with Salomé Haller. With characteristic wit, Ensemble Intercontemporain preceded Pierrot Lunaire with Luigi Dallapiccola Due studi (1946-7) and  Bruno Mantovani Carnaval for clarinet, piano and cello. (2014), enhancing the multiple connections between them. .

As a very young man, Luigi Dallapiccola heard Arnold Schoenberg  conduct Pierrot Lunaire in Florence in 1924.   In Due Studi, written 20 years later, Dallapiccola uses twelve-tone rows, but the influence of Pierrot Lunaire is much more subtle. There are two movements, Sarabanda and Fanfara e fuga.  Tight dialogue between Hae-Sun Kung (violin) and Hidéki Nagano (piano).

Ensemble Intercontemporain did the Wigmore Hall an honour by giving the world premiere of Bruno Mantovani's Carnaval for clarinet, piano and cello. (2014). which will be heard next week at the  Opéra Bastille.  Mantovani is a major figure in new music, greatly respected and widely performed, so this premiere was a significant event. Carnaval evolves over eight sections, each strikingly individual, yet written so tightly that the piece works, as a whole, like a powerful mechanism. "Clarinet and cello battle it out, their weapons adjacent notes - E and F -in a high register. Then they stop." writes Paul Griffiths in superb programme notes worthy of past standards at the Wigmore Hall  "The conflict, however remains, the two instruments  reiterating their points....with glissandos from the cello answered by arabesques from the clarinet". In the second section, the piano dominates, then withdraws as cello and clarinet soar in a heady maelstrom of flying quarter tones. ".....Dynamic wobbles and arpeggios.....luminous flurries and tremolandos are revisited before the music works back to a steady tempo"

Carnaval connects to Pierrot Lunaire in that it evolves through a series of different, and very individual "tableaux" to express something  that can't be articulated in speech but has strikingly vivid dramatic effect. The structure is tightly compressed, intensifying the sense of constant movement and sudden change. Disconcerting, but in a thrilling, satisfying way. Hopefully it will be performed again soon: hardly had the notes trailed off, than I wanted to hear it again, and again. It's that good. Jérôme Comte played the clarinet, Éric-Maria Couturier played the cello and Hidéko Nagano the piano - just three instruments, but they packed a powerful punch. 

When Salomé Haller entered for Pierrot Lunaire, it was almost immediately apparent that the performance would be neither wan nor pallid.  She didn't need to wear a Pierrot costume as did Albertine Zehme, the former actress who created the part for Schoenberg himself.  (See photo at right, where she's not in costume.)  Haller wore a dark suit with a glorious brooch of mother-of-pearl in the shape of two moons, one large, one smaller. At first, she simply presented the music as incantation. We were drawn into this surreal world as if by hypnosis, so that we were responding ourselves to what the songs might "mean" - a more creative process than listening passively. Haller began to "act", in much the way Sprechgesang isn't quite singing nor quite speech. This ambiguity worked well, suggesting stylized formality rather than realism. Is Pierrot real or a creation of the imagination  Who are these other personalities like the blasse Wässerin, the Dandy and the Madonna? The closer one gets to literal meaning, "das Bild des Glanzes zerfloß"

Pierrot Lunaire can turn the idea of narrative song upside down.  In this performance, what struck me was the relationship between voice and instruments that speak without words. Sophie Cherrier's flute sang, as flautists have sung for centuries, from Greek times to the present. When she exchanged flute for piccolo, the sound seemed even more ancient, even more plaintive.  This close relationship revealed the complex  structure that underpin's Schoenberg's creation. Wandering tonality and elusive images are held together on firm, orderly foundations. The songs don't work together as narrative, but reveal ideas constantly re-forming, and changing perspectives.

Boulez Pli selon Pli Ensemble Intercontemporain London

Pierre Boulez conducted Pli selon Pli at the Royal Festival Hall with Barbara Hannigan and Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble. It was the apogee of the South Bank Exquisite Labyrinth weekend. Pli selon Pli contradicts assumptions. It's modern, but delicately beautiful, structurally intricate, yet profoundly emotional. Instruments like celesta, harps, guitar, mandolin and bell-like percussion. How lyrical percussion can be! Strange, limpid semi-harmonies, not simplistic dissonance. Understand Pli selon Pli, and hear how far off the mark myths about modern music (and Boulez) really are.

As vocal music, Pli selon Pli is even more remarkable.  It's based on five poems by Stéphane Mallarmé but Mallarmé isn't a conventional poet, so straight word setting would be pointless. Even translations are futile, because so much depends on the sound and shape of words, images and patterns of expression, and above all, the creative response of the reader. Boulez's Pli selon Pli is thus a highly intuitive "Portrait" of Mallarmé, built round "Improvisations" (all his words)  inspired by three poems, encased by two equally visionary movements.  Unlike conventional song the vocal part is so integrated into the whole that it seems to flow, silently, as an undercurrent beneath the orchestra, only emerging at critical moments. Boulez's approach to voice is so unique that he's unlikely to do opera in any recognizable sense of the term.

Pli selon Pli begins with a single explosive burst. It's significant for the work is built on single chords and cells, every colour kept as pure as possible. As in impressionist painting where brushstrokes shine, as in Debussy, whose influence hovers implicitly. At the core of the orchestra is the celesta, behind the conductor, five harps behind it, supplemented by xylophones, marimba, beaten bells and piano used as a percussion instrument. To the conductor's right, guitar and mandolin. Theya ren't noisy, flashy instruments but central to the whole piece. The celesta is often used because it has a "celestial", other worldly sound, much less dominant than piano. The guitar and mandolin may represent something more humble than, say, violins, evoking the image of poet or troubador. Vocal instruments, in their own way.

With textures as diaphanous as these, every note counts: careful listening mandatory. This is chamber music on a large scale, where listening and silences are part of the process. It feels as if the music is beiung turned over and examined from different angles. Mallarmé's first poem, Don (Gift), has images, but no grammar. Words are separated by spaces filled by dots, which are as essential to meaning as the words themselves. . Boulez expresses this with sequences of single chords, rippling around the voice. You're listening to the spaces and thinking, while the voice stretches forwards, searching and exploring. In this first poem, meaning is suggested by images of rock-like harshness - basalt. lava, winter - contrasted with images of ephemera - foam on waves, memory, loss. When Hannigan sings the word "hiver" (winter) the single notes around her prickle like penetrating frost, the sea itself frozen hard. Ce lac dur oublié que hante sous le givre le transparent glacier".

The Improvisation on Une dentelle s'ablouit combines Mallarmé's puzzles with Boulez's intricate structures, this time in reverse. Like lace, Hannigan's lines trill and twist - horrendously difficult to sing - but behind her the music unravels. Whispering sibilants of cymbals being brushed, a fairly long passage for maracas. Then, as if brought to life by the line flotte plus qu'il ensevelit, the flutes emerge floating the vocal line that's subsumed behind the orchestra. Deftly placed silences again - a long gap between "au creux néant" and musicien" to emphasize dormant creation. Similarly, emphasis on the word "le sein", the key word in "Selon nul ventre que le sein filial on aurait pu naître". Few composers are quite this sensitive to meaning.

Mallarmé throws a wild card with multiple puns on vowels in A la Nue Accablante Tu but Boulez parries with sound that extend the vowels and cut across them with sharp sibilants.  Again, the hard images from the beginning of the cycle, "basse de basalte et des laves", Hannigan's voice intoning darkly, her legato rising and falling like the waves of the sea implicit in the symbols of foam and shipwrecks. The orchestral cells break into patterns that might suggest water, light, churning like the motions of waves. Languid but purposeful.  Gradually a new perspective emerges. Trumpets, tuba, tubular bells, so reminiscent of Messiaen that it feels like a deliberate reference, especially given the meaning of this work as a whole. If Boulez is referring the penultimate section of Et exapecto resurrectionem mortuorum, it gives Pli selon Pli even greater resonance.

Lovely passages for solo celesta, for the double basses, lower strings, and violins, but guitar and mandolin return to the forefront again. The last movement, almost wholly orchestral but for one line, feels like song, with endless choruses from different parts of the orchestra. Arpeggiatos and individual cells but unstoppable forward thrust : the image of waves and the sea. The single vocal line is ironic. "Un peu profound ruisseau" sings Hannigan, "calomnié la mort", stressing gaps betyween words, and shrieking wildly up the scale, as if the line is being drowned by what the orchestra is singing. Towards the end, she no longer sings but exhales, as she did at the beginning of thee whole piece, the word "la mort" barely gasped, as if it's too much to contemplate. As Pierre-Laurent Aimard said during the afternoon piano sessions, one of Boulez's signatures is reverberance that continues long after a performer stops playing. The "music" continues to resound, and should be listened to, as it's part of the whole. Alas, someone started clapping too soon. 

I'm sorry I haven't done an instant review on this as I haven''t been well, but Pli selon Pli is music that repays reflection "fold by fold".  I don't know if I have time to write up the other concerts in thsi excellent series - especially the Aimard/Stefanovich masterclasses and the Eötvös/London Sinfonietta concert with fantastic Clio Gould Anthèmes II. But read Mark Berry in Boulezian instead HERE and HERE. 

Email from a friend :

Seems Boulez did Pli selon Pli from 21 September onwards in Amsterdam, Milan AND Turin, Munich and Paris before London. It had been performed in Lucerne, with just the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra (ie bigger than the LFA Ensemble) on 8 September. No wonder he looked a bit worn out.

You might also like these posts : Full video of Boulez conducting Pli selon Pli in Paris, and an interview with Barbara Hannigan by Ivan Hewett.

Boulez Pli selon Pli VIDEO Cité de la Musique

Pierre Boulez conducted Pli selon Pli tonight at the Royal Festival Hall London with Barbara Hannigan and Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble. HERE is my review. Hard-boiled British audiences rarely give standing ovations but most of this audiences were on their feet applauding. You'd expect that from popular repertoire but esoteric new music?  And a crowd this size isn't the usual new music coterie. This remarkable concert was the culmination of a three day intensive marathon on Boulez's music organized by the South Bank, titled "Exquisite Labyrinth". Excellent title, for Boulez's music is exquisite, and labyrinthine. "It's about the excitement of creative adventures". said Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who should know.  Thanks to Dodorock, a regular reader and friend (see his site De chez toi, which is good on European events) here is a link to the Cité de la Musique broadcast  of Boulez Pli selon Pli from Paris (Salle Pleyel) recorded 27/9. Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain have been touring and the London concert was the last in the series. As I was going past the artists door after the concert, I understood why some of the audience were in black tie. Dinner party for Boulez after the show. When you're 86, that takes stamina. Longer review of the Boulez weekend and concert to follow. But enjoy this film and imagine being there.

Whistling tunes from Boulez

"It was a beautiful day and guess what? I found I was whistling tunes from Boulez!" says Barabra Hannigan, who's singing Pli selon Pli on Sunday 2nd October, part of the three-day Boulez retrospective Exquisite Labyrinth at the South Bank, London. "It’s just very beautiful in the way it unfolds. What I love about Boulez is the way the music is very strict in its structure but inside it’s beautifully fluid. It feels like I’m singing liquids of all different colours and viscosities, which are constantly changing.”Read more in this interview here Hannigan speaks with Ivan Hewett.

Read my post from March 1st about the Boulez marathon HERE. With persistence, I managed to bookstraight away tho' some tickets weren't yet online. Full details from the South Bank HERE. The series is curated by Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Boulez, Aimard, Abbado, Bruckner South Bank

Exquisite Labyrinth, the name for a Boulez extravaganza at the South Bank on 2nd October 2011, Pierre Boulez conductes Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Royal Festival Hall. They're doing Pli selon Pli with Barbara Hannigan. From noon that same day, Pierre Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich play three Boulez concerts : Notations I-XII, Piano Sonata 1 to 3, Incises and Structures Book 2. Aimard also gives a talk about Boulez before the big evening concert. A genuine "total immersion" now that the BBC Barbican series has gone horribly downmarket (of which more later, and about Ferneyhough who deserved better)

Members of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (of whom many are Berliner-Philharmoniker) will be present at Boulez Day, some playing in the evening concert, some listening in. Because Claudio Abbado brings the extended Lucerne Festival Orchestra to the South Bank on October 10th and 11th. Both nights are built around Bruckner's Fifth Symphony. First night companion piece is Schumann with Hélène Grimaud, second night, Mozart's Haffner Symphony.

This year there's a Liszt Forum on 15/10 and two Aimard concerts 8/11 and 7/12 where he'll be playing Liszt in context - Wagner, Scriabin, Bartók and Stroppa (featured composer at Aldeburgh this summer)

Boulez Aldeburgh Ensemble Intercontemporain Carter Ligeti

Pierre Boulez brought Ensemble Intercontemporain to Aldeburgh. This is a major coup, which London venues can't easily arrange. But Aldeburgh can bring Boulez and his amazing orchestra to a hall seating barely 500, in a small country town, because Pierre-Laurent Aimard is Festival Director. They go back together since Aimard was a boy.

This grand finale to the Aldeburgh Festival was much more than a concert, it was a consecration. Ligeti, Boulez, Carter on the programme, but many others invisibly present because of their close connections: Messiaen, Stockhausen, Kurtág and so on. Boulez may not have conducted at Aldeburgh before - he's too expensive - but his "family" of composers have been an integral part of the Festival for years.

Edgard Varèse was the "First Wild Man of Modern Music". Boulez was one of his earliest champions. Varèse didn't have electronics or computer facilties: Boulez created IRCAM so composers of the future would have access to the best technology and support from other creative minds.  It was fitting that the concert should start with Varèse's Octandres. It's not his most famoue piece, but perhaps the most "classically" pure. Seven winds, one double bass -- no klaxons, so no extramusical baggage, but thoughtful exploration.

It was a good prelude to György Ligeti's Chamber Concerto (1969-70) expanding the concept of single instrument protagonists develops into music of delightful but deft complexity. Technically, Ensemble Intercontemporain are of course flawless, but this was truly inspired.  Superb musicianship is liberating, These players don't need to "think",  they play with instinctive freedom. Boulez's conducting style is understated, the merest jerk of a finger, the most refined twist of the wrist, but Ensemble Intercontemporain are so much in tune with him, they catch every nuance.

Some of the most amazing playing in the quieter passages, where the line floats seamlessly even though it's taken up by different instrument.. Perhaps another example of what Ligeti meant when he said his music levitated, like a helicopter. Catch this performance when it's broadcast on BBC Radio 3 online, on demand, internationally for 7 days from 30 June. Studio recordings may be more perfect, but this live performance had élan, vivacity, sparkle. "Breathtaking" is an over-used cliché, but in this case it was apt: you didn't want to breathe lest you miss a moment.  A very well kmown composer/conductor was sitting near me. He sat transfixed.

What are Years is the title of  Elliott Carter's new song cycle, an Aldeburgh commission, in association with the Lucerne Festival and Tanglewood. Aldeburgh is now up there with the biggest. Britten would be thrilled, though some of the British press would rather it became a provincial backwater.  The cycle is to poems by Marianne Moore. Five songs, a group of four which cohere, the final song leading into an unknown, new direction.

Moore's disjointed combinations of phrases without structure suit Carter's vocal writing. Although he was a singer himself (glee clubs and chorals in college)  he doesn't set text in a "singerly" way. Instead, he makes much of Moore's jerky rhythms, sudden bursts of expression, deliberate holdings back and silences. What are Years is certainly not poetry reading but music revealing itself through the framework of text. The voice acts like an instrument, probing and eliding, stretching and pulling the words as if they were abstract music. Claire Booth has the measure of the piece, interacting well with the orchestra, whose role here is critical, enveloping the fragmented nature of the text with a flowing, serene line that suggests the passage of time.

Natural then that Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain ended with Boulez's Dérive 2, written for Carter's 80th birthday, nearly a quarter of a century ago. Now Boulez himself is older than Carter was then. But age is irrelevant when a mind is fertile.  Perhaps that's why Dérive mutates, growing in the imagination. Boulez's music is strongly organic, in the sense that it evolves from deep roots, and grows vigorously. following a definite trajectory, excursions spiralling outwards and growing branches of their own. Again, Ensemble Intercontemporain played vivaciously, energetic but elegant. For me, one of the joys of Boulez's music is the sense of inventiveness and renewal. It may look "difficult" on the printed page, but musicians like Ensemble Intercontemporain reveals its innate liveliness.

Anthèmes II is another Boulez growth-piece, where the violin is augmented by electronics. Jeanne-Marie Conquer and the IRCAM sound desk make sounds that twine round each other symbiotically: which is which, who's leading whom? It's a sophisticated piece, yet approached with wit.

Hearing Dialogue de l'ombre double in the intimate performance space of the Britten Studio at Snape was wonderful. because seeing the movements intensifies the impact of the shifts in sound. It's like a dance bwetween clarinet (Jérôme Comte) and electronics, so seeing Comte change position marks stages in the ritual. The tiniest change of position means a change in sound dynamics. It's a concerto that uses the acoustic of performance space, and sound inaudible to the human ear . Hence the electronics, which pick up things that exist, but we couldn't otherwise hear. It's a multi-layered work, where the boundaries  between clarinet and electronics are deliberately blurred, teasingly up-ended. You have to listen acutely to pick up the subtle shifts and counterbalances, but it's immensely rewarding, especially enhanced by darkness and light as in this performance. Comte emerges from the shadows. Is he playing or is it the sound desk? Again, it's playful and organic, formidable but not at all frightening. If only Varèse, John The Baptist of modern music, could have been with us, too!

Aldeburgh - Bach Mass crowd flock to Boulez and Carter

Pierre Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain came to the Aldeburgh Music Festival. It was the big finale, and such an important concert that I'll write about it in depth later. First, though, the first of the two days with Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain, one of the most amazing orchestras in the world.

Nearly every year at Aldeburgh, Bach's Mass in B Minor gets an outing because it's perfect for Snape. This year, John Eliot Gardiner conducted, guaranteed to sell out within hours. Car park packed with tour buses, full of Bach Mass fans. But the wonderful thing is, many of the Bach Mass crowd came hours early, and heard Pierre Boulez talk to Pierre-Laurent Aimard. They stayed for the concert after the talk - Boulez Incises for Piano, Sonatina for Flute and Piano and Elliott Carter's Duo for Violin and Piano (Dimitri Vassilakis (p), Emmanuelle Ophèle (fl) Hae-Sun Kang (vn))

What's more the Bach Mass Crowd listened attentively. No-one brainwashed them into thinking "Difficult is Dangerous". Maybe they didn't all get it, but they were prepared to listen and think for themselves.  Surprisingly warm applause!  Maybe this audience related to Boulez because he's their own age group, but it felt sincere. A million times better than the stagey fake applause that happens in some places where people think they're proving something by standing up to clap, even for rubbish.

Boulez isn't the demon some sensationalists make him out to be. Nadia Boulanger hated everything about him,. One of the reasons for the schism in American and European tastes springs from Boulanger's jealous antagonism to Messiaen and anyone who might challenge her view that early Stravinsky was what modern music should be. Including Stravinsky himself, later on.

French music's always been different from Austro-German music, said Boulez, and the Nazis weren't going to promote modern music. So French musicians were isolated, especially during the Occupation, when Boulez was studying with Messiaen.  He learned Webern from scores, also hard to come by. Hans Rosbaud was his mentor, indeed, it was Rosbaud who asked Boulez to conduct at short notice when Rosbaud fell ill. Boulez took the train to Germany, and started another career. Learning from the score has been Boulez's mantra ever since. That's why he set up Domaine Musicale, so new music could be performed by top musicians who cared about it. From Domaine Musicale to Ensemble Intercontemporain, and to IRCAM.

Boulez talked about John Cage "from whom I learned so much", about American poetry and painting, which influence his music. Boulez's knowledge of European art and literature is formidable, though he didn't mention it in the talk.  He gave up on serialism and other isms decades ago, "It was too boring. Why twelve tones when you can have so many other possibilities?". But Schoenberg showed the way. Boulez and Aimard discussed various works, Le marteau sans maître, the Piano Sonatas, Cummings ist der Dichter.  They could have gone on much longer, but even at Aldeburgh, time schedules intrude.

Later, there was a screening of the film, Piano du xxe siècle, where Pierre-Laurent Aimard talks through Boulez Piano Sonata no 1, almost bar by bar, showing why it's so interesting. Aimard knows what he's talking about and is so enthusiastic it illuminates the full performance even if you already know the work. It's a wonderful film, made in 1985. lots of extras as background, like a shot of "Boulez's school report", Messiaen's comment on the official record of the Paris Conservatoire. "Un tel musicien! Il aurait un grand avenir."

The film is part of a series for French television, but is most certainly not dumbed down. Boulez, Messiaen, Stockhausen, Ligeti, each documentary filmed to enhance the music itself.  For this film, says Aimard, "we aimed for a risk taking element with the camera, keeping its movements  and gestures improvised, albeit prepared with the greatest of care in order to correspond to the extremely active and free gestures of the music".

Is that the secret of promoting music ? Not just new music, but all music. The film engages with a specific piece, describing how it works and how it came to be. Intelligence, imagination and freedom of spirit - just like the piece itself. No wonder Messiaen used this piece as basic teaching material.  He wanted his students to think,  and create original work. Those who hate  "difficult" music have only themselves to blame.

Aldeburgh Festival June 2010

FOR REVIEWS OF CONCERTS please follow link "Aldeburgh 2010" on right, or use searchg facility. Lots on related topics, too.

Booking's already well under way for this year's Aldeburgh Festival. This year's big opera is George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill, seen last year at the Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House.

This time it will be paired with Luciano Berio's Recital 1, instead of the rather oppressive Birtwistle piece heard in London. Berio's Recital 1 is more in tune with Benjamin's magical world, where whimsy and horror combine. Read about Into The Little Hill by following the link above - it's a masterpiece. Recital 1 is every performer's nightmare. The singer starts a recital but the pianist has disappeared! So she improvises....

Those who have seen Into The Little Hill will want to hear it again, especially with Berio, but be warned, it clashes with Rumplestiltskin, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group's smash hit (seen in Birmingham and Huddersfield) performed at the Spitalfields Festival in London. You could wait for the next weekend's performance but that clashes with the first night of Idomeneo at the ENO.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard plays the big First Saturday Night concert with Bach and Benjamin's transcription of the Canon and Fugue from Kunst der Fuge. Piano fans must book this weekend: Leon Fleisher plays the Sunday concert. Fleisher suffered neurological damage in the 1960's. Gradually he regained the use of his left hand, but the crisis let him blossom as teacher and conductor. He's giving a masterclass, too, which should be good.

There's a film about Fleisher too, because one of the major themes of this year's Aldeburgh Festival is "Music and The Brain". This sounds fascinating. Lots of different talks, concerts and films about the way the brain processes music, and fuels the creative process. One is about synaesthesia, backed with a concert featuring (of course) Messiaen and Scriabin.

Alfred Brendel's back, too, giving a talk on the theme "Does classical music have to be entirely serious?" Everyone who's heard or read Brendel knows this will be more intelligent and more original than most. Royal Philharmonic Society take note!

Very unusual indeed will be the event on 20 June when Aimard and a neuroscientist will explore how the brain allows two hands to move in contrary motion. Can we adapt to ambidextrous skills? A stimulating programme not only for pianists, I think.

There'll be a workshop on "Togetherness" about how chamber ensembles communicate. Motion-capture technology will show how players relate to each other by many complex social and musical interactions.

More brains too the second week. Pierre Boulez and members of Ensemble Intercontemporain talk with Aimard and play works by Boulez and Elliott Carter. The next day Aimard and Thomas Zehetmair play Mozart, Schoenberg and Boulez. June 26th is the Big Day, when there'll be two concerts with Ensemble Intercontemporain, with Boulez conducting. Guess what? The world premiere of Elliott Carter's What are Years? Carter should know, he's 101. Plenty more Boulez music this week, and George Benjamin, too. And this being Aldeburgh, new music is interspersed with early music - Exaudi and the amazing polyphony of the Huelgas Ensemble and Bach Mass in B Minor (Monteverdi Choir and JEG).

Plenty of respect too for the Aldeburgh tradition of musicians-as- Directors. There's a big feature on Peter Pears and concerts of music by previous directors, such as John Woolrich, Thomas Adès, Oliver Knussen and of course Benjamin Britten himself. This year's festival is the best I can remember because it's uncompromisingly UNsuperficial : top quality music, placed in relationship to life and original thinking. Definitely not dumbed down but all the more fun for that. Wonderful programmes this year - make the effort and be rewarded. This 63rd Festival is so good that it is worth travelling a long way to get to. Click on photo to enlarge for detail. It's a cliff near Aldeburgh. The coastline there often crumbles : now you can see WHY Peter Grimes's house became dangerous. Britten knew first hand, and made sure the danger came into his music. The apprentice's death was an accident waiting to happen.

Aldeburgh Festival 2009- big on the European circuit

The Aldeburgh Festival is very much a fixture on the European music circuit. Far more than any other British composer, Britten saw himself as European at heart, so the Aldeburgh Festival has always had an international, progressive outlook, with strong connections abroad. Londoners don't know what treasures they have "in their own backyard".

Britten's ideals come to fruit in this year's Festival, titled "Glitter of Waves". It's Pierre-Laurent Aimard's first full year as artistic director, and he brings sharp new focus. Even the buildings have been extended to provide new theatres and workshops, at last fulfilling Britten's vision for Snape.

Harrison Birtwistle's two new chamber opera set the tone. Dowland's Semper Dowland, semper dolens, is "theatre of melancholy, in which Birtwistle adapts Dowland's Seven Teares figured in Seven Pavanes and interweaves them with Dowland's songs. Early English music reinvigorated with modern British music.

The big premiere is The Corridor, a scena for soprano, tenor and six instruments. As Orpheus and Eurydice escape the Underworld, he looks back on her despite being warned not to do so, and he loses her forever. "I see the Corridor as a single moment from the Orpheus story magnified, like a photographic blow-up", says Birtwistle. Given his long standing fascination with primeval myth this should be interesting. Libretto is by David Harsent, who wrote The Minotaur and other important Birtwistle milestones, so expect limpid, lucid poetry in direct modern speech - extremely moving on its own terms. Mark Padmore and Elizabeth Atherton sing the lead roles. The London Sinfonietta, Britain's best modern music ensemble, will perform. VERY high profile indeed. Even if it's repeated in London, seeing it first at Aldeburgh is part of the experience, for it was here 41 years ago that Britten and Birtwistle met. Britten apparently wasn't impressed. But Birtwistle's come a long way since Punch and Judy. Perhaps Britten would now be pleased, for Birtwistle has developed and is now an Elder Statesman himself, undisputedly this country's foremost opera composer.

Next morning there's another Sinfonietta concert featuring bits of The Io Passion, and the 3 Settings of Celan - Claire Booth whom we hear everywhere and for good reason! Then Harrison's Clocks where Hideki Nagano plays the brilliant Birtwistle piece as part of an installation around the new buildings at Snape - very unusual. That same evening, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, with ensembles, will produce a "free thinking musical fantasy". Moto perpetuo movements from Beethoven and Bartok are interlaced with serene moments from Brahms and Messiaen. The finale is Ligeti. Aimard excels in imaginative juxtapositions like this - see the links on right for what he did last year at Aldeburgh with Bach and Kurtag. That's just the first weekend, 12th and 13th June.

The following week starts with a Britten song symposium, more performances of the Birtwistle operas, and some very interesting recitals including Christiane Oelze, (highly recommended!), Zimmermann, and Exaudi. Vladimir Jurowski conducts a chamber orchestra on Wednesday 15th - Gabrieli, Stravinsky and Birtwistle. The big concert on Friday night, 19th June, has George Benjamin conduct the BBCSO, in two premieres, Julian Anderson's Fantasias and Benjamin's Duet for Piano and Orchestra - with Aimard as soloist. Of course this will be broadcast, but the atmosphere at Snape is part of the fun, you want to "be" there.

Elliott Carter is the focus of the second week. In fact, he's planning to be there in person, scheduled to talk with Aimard, with whom he goes back decades. Carter's presence alone should make attendance compulsory, for he is an icon. He's closely connected to so many involved with this Festival, including Oliver Knussen who will be conducting the keynote Saturday night concert on Saturday 20th. This features yet another Carter premiere, On Conversing with Paradise, a song cycle to poems by Ezra Pound, for baritone and orchestra. This is rumoured to be powerful stuff. In recent years, Carter's style has distilled into intense zen-like depths, perhaps well suited to Pound's verse, which Carter has long loved.

This second week is the week to come for more Elliot Carter, Birtwistle and Thomas Adès chamber music. Ian Bostridge, Louis Lortie, Mark Padmore and Nicholas Daniel will appear in recital, too. The blockbuster concerts, though, will be the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, one of the hottest bands in Europe. This was founded by Claudio Abbado. Daniel Harding's been seminally involved since 1998. He's now principal conductor, but their first concert on 25th (Hadyn, Ligeti, Birtwistle) will be conducted by Susanna Mälkki, the charismatic conductor of Ensemble Intercontemporain. Aimard plays Birtwistle's Slow Frieze. Aimard conducts the second concert on 27th, another eclectic mix, Haydn, Stockhausen and Beethoven. Since the Mahler Chamber Orchestra is exceptionally good, and rarely heard in the UK, these are concerts that shouldn't be missed.

Then, on Sunday 28th, Masaaki Suzuki returns to conduct Bach's St Matthew's Passion. Suzuki's Bach is legendary. He's working with the Britten-Pears Orchestra. Its members are young, but enthusiastic. Britten and Pears would be thrilled.

Seats sell fast and accommodation gets hard to book, so check Aldeburgh Music sooner not later.

Elliott Carter centenary Boulez, Aimard London II

My thoughts on the Elliott Carter centenary concert below, to be read in conjunction with Mark's on boulezian blogspot (see link on right). Just like Carter's music, with different but complementary strands, celebrating friendship.

“I think the importance of music …is a sense that one can produce something that has a special and rather strong meaning, because we’re increasingly surrounded now by things whose meaning is cat food or God knows what…..the problem of consumer life has become universal. I don’t feel I’m writing for consumers. The wonderful thing about music is that you don’t consume –it’s something that is like a spirit: a lively spirit that gets into people and shows them all the different kinds of feelings they might have in life, even if they don’t experience them themselves”

(Carter in an interview with Marshall Marcus, Dec 2008)

Ponder and reflect on what Carter is saying, because it’s a key to understanding so much about modern music. The more dependent society gets on “soundbite thinking”, the more we need music that makes us think and feel. Carter’s music is not populist and probably never will be “easy listening”, but, as Pierre Boulez says, “A progressive and stubborn discovery with various and original means”. Music is a journey of awareness, which never ends, either for composer or listener.

This centenary tribute was in many ways a “meeting of friends” and communication. Dialogues, for example, is based on a fairly simple cell of patterns but is the basis for a vibrant exchange between piano and orchestra. Sometimes they are in harmony, sometimes they disagree, but it is an engagement. It’s a concerto, but one with such a lively sense of surprise that it feels like a freshly-minted concept. Aimard plays with lightness of touch, to emphasize the good-natured humour. Boulez shows that the soloists have “voices” here as if they were characters. The cor anglais is particularly droll.

More on the theme of fellowship followed. Matribute was written for James Levine to commemorate his mother, and Intermittences refers to chapter in Proust where Marcel is overwhelmed by memories of his grandmother. Both pieces are combined with Caténaires, written very recently for Pierre-Laurent Aimard who played it on the First Night of the Proms this year. Caténaires are the cables that link electric pylons, enabling the flow of electricity. Personal relationships mean a lot to Carter. By combining the three pieces, he’s showing how people connect and react off each other.

Hence the incredibly rapid rhythms, like the constant hum of electric cables. There’s a “buzz in the air” so to speak. Also striking are the sudden switchbacks and changes of direction. Each instrument is distinctly individual, yet they entwine like a cable, binding different but disparate threads into something new and strong. It’s a one-line piece with no chords. As Carter describes it, it’s a “continuous chain of notes….a stream of semi quavers constantly fast but also constantly fluctuating in register and in smoothness or irregularity”. Then, suddenly it ends, not broken, but as if it’s leaped into another atmosphere.

Since the Proms premiere, Aimard has grown even deeper into the piece, playing unbelievably fast flurries of notes so they seem to fly off the keyboard with a life of their own. Ensemble Intercontemporain, too, is in a totally different league from the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms The Ensemble was founded by Boulez as a specialist new music ensemble, each player chosen for his or her virtuoso status. The clarity Boulez gets from them is phenomenal, as it needs to be in music as precisely defined as this : truly the effect was electric. Many in this audience were musicians of the first rank, who really appreciate what it takes to play at this level. The tumultuous applause that followed was heartfelt.

Commissioned by Boulez for Ensemble Intercontemporain, Carter wrote the Clarinet Concerto specifically for Alain Damiens, the ensemble’s eminent soloist, whom we heard in superb form. Carter builds the piece around what he calls “family groupings” of instruments of different types, rather than the more usual blocks, which creates an unusual balance. Each of the seven movements has a distinct character, with sweeping swings of mood. Damiens moves between the different groups, creating a level of unity, a “caténaire”, so to speak, each new position subtly changing the dynamics. The final part, the Agitato is vigorous, all the players in action but in discrete cells.

Choosing Boulez’s own Dérive II to complete the tribute to Carter was an inspired idea. Carter and Boulez have been so closely associated for so long that the piece continues the idea of confraternity central to this programme. But it’s significant on a deeper level, too. Even at the age of 100, Carter is still writing, still finding new sources of inspiration. As he says, there’s “late Carter” and “late, late Carter” ! Dérive II exemplifies that open-ended, ever-renewing approach to creativity. The spirit that drives Dérive II is the spirit that drives Carter. This music isn't pre-packaged consumer product "like cat food", as Carter said, but "gets into people", constantly growing in their psyches. It was a perceptive affirmation of Carter's enduring vitality.

Dérive II grows out of Dérive I. Both explore the idea of development from simple cells, but with five extra instruments the possibilities expand exponientially. Sounds interweave and morph, sometimes pivoting on a single note, presaging, perhaps the switchbacks in Caténaires. It moves, unfolds, spirals, like a plant shooting out of the soil, its tendrils unfurling, turning towards the light. There are even lyrical passages where snatches of near-melody flit past, tantalizingly elusive. It feels like being in an enchanted forest of sound, each tree, branch, leaf vivid and different. Sometimes the forest is dense, sometimes the music opens onto clearings that reveal new ways of listening. Like Carter's own music, Boulez's is vital and vigorous, still evolving. Perhaps there will be "late, late Boulez" too, if he makes 100. Cat food fans beware !

It goes without saying that this was an astounding performance for this orchestra is so acutely attuned to Boulez's idiom that it was quite magical. I hope someone taped it for Carter to listen to. He would beam with delight !

Elliott Carter centenary Boulez Aimard London

Here is Mark Berry's superlatively well written review of Elliott Carter's centenary tribute. Often lots of good things on boulezian.blogspot, but this is one of the best ! Read it by clicking on the link on the list on the right - definitely RECOMMENDED !!!

Aimard Boulez Messiaen centenary Sept Haïkaï London

This centenary tribute to Oliver Messiaen began with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. On the very anniversary of the composer’s birth, they were joined by their founder, Pierre Boulez, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, both long term Messiaen champions. Since so many others associated with Messiaen were in the audience it felt like a family celebration. Yet, even in this year of extremely good performances, this concert stood out as exceptional. Obviously, the performance was superb, but even more interesting was that it proved just how visionary Messiaen was and how powerful his influence was.

Couleurs de la cité céleste refers to the biblical prophecy in which a shining palace appears in the heavens after the apocalypse. It’s made of jewels and glows with light, a powerful symbol of the goal of all creation. Bear the image in mind, for it epitomizes everything Messiaen believed in. This performance blazed with Messiaen’s sharp, lucid colours, but even more significantly, Boulez showed the firm foundations of its glory. The piece is tightly constructed, its structure itself reaffirming the ideas behind the vision. Like Buddhist mandalas and Sanskrit wheels, the symmetry in this piece suggests eternity. Messiaen himself said “The work does not end, but turns upon itself …like the rose window of a cathedral”. Like a living organism, the music continues to grow, even after it seems to have ended. Anyone familiar with Boulez’s own work will appreciate the importance of this concept.

Even more revolutionary is Sept Haïkaï, another Boulez favourite. This time the image is “floating gate”, the torii at the Miyajima shrine in Japan, which Messiaen visited in 1962. Ponder the image as it’s central to so much in this music and in Messiaen’s overall beliefs. The red arches stand alone in the sea, as if suspended between earth and sky. It is a gate, but to what ? That is the mystery of creation, as relevant to Messiaen as to Japanese spirituality. The arches stand amid a panoramic landscape. As the weather changes, as time changes, the surroundings change dramatically. It’s an almost miraculous metaphor for how Messiaen’s music works.

Even though it was written nearly 50 years ago, Sept Haïkaï is still a difficult work to penetrate. Those accustomed to thinking of Messiaen only in terms of birdsong, liturgy and colour have to “hear” in a completely different mode. Structurally it’s based on cells of instruments operating separately and simultaneously. Japanese gagaku music has been described as “a mosaic of melody, rhythm and harmony”, co-ordinated rather than fused, as in western music. Although the references are to Japanese music, the waving, pulsing rhythms derive from Indian talas. Conceptually, this is unusual, too. It’s not “wallpaper music”, but benefits from being listened to with a mix of rapt attention and liberating openness. Meditation as music ! Again, this is the essence of Messaien. The music comes to a sudden halt, but as with Couleurs de la cité céleste does it really end ?

Hearing Boulez’s Sur Incises in this context showed just how far reaching Messiaen’s ideas really are. Boulez’s masterpiece may sound nothing like Messiaen, but here is the same understanding of structure as a kind of exoskeleton, allowing profuse sound forms to flourish other than in conventional symphonic development. Boulez bases the piece on three “islands”, three pianos, three harps, three banks of percussion. Just as in Sept Haïkaï, the music grows on several different levels at the same time, intersecting, weaving rather than fusing, each individual element distinct.

Much has been made of the steel drums, for Boulez hears them as marimba writ large, drawing subtle sonorities from what is ostensibly a simple instrument. Pierre-Laurent Aimard ceded the piano part in Couleurs to Sébastien Vichard, pianist of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, a position Aimard was appointed to at the age of 19 by Boulez, for the cadenzas in this piece are so intricate they demand total concentration. Often those who don’t know Boulez assume he must be cold because he’s logical and precise. But Sur Incises reveals passionate intensity of quite another order. Like Messiaen, this is music as “living organism” growing and unfurling.

Photo by H. Orihashi