Pierre Boulez

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Pierre Boulez (1968)

Pierre Boulez [ pjɛʀ buˈlɛz ] (born March 26, 1925 in Montbrison , Loire department , † January 5, 2016 in Baden-Baden ) was a French composer , conductor and music theorist .

Life

Pierre Boulez, who actually wanted to study mathematics and technical sciences first, became a composition student of Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory in 1943 and studied with Andrée Vaurabourg , Arthur Honegger's wife , and René Leibowitz in 1945/1946 . From 1946–1956 he was musical director of the Madeleine Renaud / Jean-Louis Barrault ensemble at the Théâtre Marigny . 1951 he worked in the Groupe de Recherches Musicales of Pierre Schaeffer with the Musique concrète and visited in 1952 for the first time the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt . There he worked as a lecturer and conductor of the Darmstadt Chamber Ensemble from 1955 to 1967.

In 1954 he founded the Domaine Musical concert series in Paris , which he directed until 1967, and became guest conductor of the Südwestfunk Orchestra in Baden-Baden . He also taught at the Music Academy in Basel from 1960 to 1963 and at Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts) in 1963 .

In 1966 he made his debut as a Wagner conductor with Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival . He turned away from the tradition of slow tempi ; its 1967 performance was the one with the shortest playing time for this work in Bayreuth. Also there he conducted the Ring des Nibelungen in 1976 in the initially controversial and later largely praised production by Patrice Chéreau . This production on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival was called the Ring of the Century .

1967–1972 he was guest conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra , 1971–1975 he led the BBC Symphony Orchestra and 1971–1977 as successor to Leonard Bernstein the New York Philharmonic Orchestra . He founded the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique-Musique ( IRCAM ) at the Center Beaubourg in Paris , of which he was director from 1976–1992.

Pierre Boulez 2008 at the Donaueschinger Musiktage

Also in Paris he was founder and 1976–1979 director of the Ensemble InterContemporain (EIC). In 1984 he recorded three compositions by Frank Zappa for the album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger with the 16-member ensemble InterContemporain in Paris.

On February 24, 1979, he conducted the world premiere of the version of Lulu by Alban Berg, completed by Friedrich Cerha, with Teresa Stratas in the leading role at the Paris Opera .

From the 1990s, Boulez worked as a conductor in concerts and CD recordings, mainly with leading traditional orchestras , including the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic . In 2004 he returned to Bayreuth as the conductor of Parsifal (staging: Christoph Schlingensief ) .

At the opening concert of the Donaueschinger Musiktage on October 17, 2008, under the direction of Boulez, pieces by Fabián Panisello , Isabel Mundry and Enno Poppe with the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg premiered and his own work Figures - Doubles - Prismes (1963/1968 ).

Pierre Boulez had lived in Baden-Baden, Baden-Württemberg , since the early 1960s , where he died in 2016 at the age of 90. The city awarded him the Gold Medal of Honor in 2004 and honorary citizenship in 2015. Boulez was buried on January 13, 2016 in the main cemetery in Baden-Baden . An official memorial service took place in the presence of the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and numerous personalities from the political and cultural life of France on the following day in the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris.

music

Pierre Boulez (2004)

In addition to Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono , Pierre Boulez was one of the outstanding representatives of the musical avant-garde , especially serial music, from the mid-1950s . In his compositions, Boulez combined rationality and logic with the poetic traditions of French music, especially impressionism . His first creative phase was characterized by an extremely critical attitude towards his own work and the compositions of others. So he repeatedly disrupted performances by more conservative colleagues with like-minded colleagues and withdrew numerous early works. But even later he revised his older works again and again so that they hardly reached their final form, but always only represented stages of a compositional development process.

Works

Compositions (selection)

  • 12 Notations (1945) for piano
    • Arrangements for orchestra:
      • Notations I – IV (1978; revised 1984)
      • Notation VII (1997)
  • Piano Sonata No. 1 (1946)
  • Sonatina for flute and piano (1946)
  • Piano Sonata No. 2 (1947)
  • Livre pour quatuor (1948/1949) for string quartet
  • Polyphony X (1951) for 18 instruments
  • Le marteau sans maître (1952–1955) for alto voice, alto flute, guitar, vibraphone, xylorimba, percussion and viola. Text: René Char
  • Structures for two pianos
    • Livre I (1952)
    • Livre II (1956–1961)
  • Piano Sonata No. 3 (1955–1957)
  • Strophes (1957) for orchestra
  • Pli selon pli, portrait de Mallarmé (1957–1962; revised until 1989). Texts: Stéphane Mallarmé
  • Doubles for orchestra (1958)
  • Eclat for 15 instruments (1965 ff.)
  • Domaines for clarinet solo (1961–1968)
  • Livre pour cordes for string orchestra (1968 ff.)
  • cummings is the poet (1970; revised 1986) for 16 solo voices or mixed choir and 27 instruments. Texts: EE Cummings
  • … Explosante-fixe… (1971) for a variable ensemble
  • Mémoriales (1973–1975) for orchestra
  • Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna for orchestra (1975)
  • Messagesquisse (1976/1977) for solo violoncello and six cellos
  • Répons (1981) for six instrumental soloists , chamber ensemble, computer sounds and live electronics
  • Dérive II (1988; revised 2006) for eleven instruments
  • Incises (1994; revised 2001) for piano
  • Sur Incises (1996/1998) for three pianos, three harps and three percussionists

Writings and Conversations

  • Thinking about music today 1st lecture, translated by Josef Häusler (= Darmstadt Contributions to New Music , Volume 5). Schott, Mainz 1963.
  • Blow up the opera houses! In: Der Spiegel . No. 40 , 1967, p. 166–174 ( online conversation with Spiegel editors Felix Schmidt and Jürgen Hohmeyer).
  • Clues. 32 texts and essays written 1948–1974, translated by Josef Häusler. Belser, Zurich 1975, ISBN 3-7630-9016-9 ; Bärenreiter / dtv, Kassel 1979.
  • Workshop texts. 19 texts written 1948–1963, translated by Josef Häusler. Ullstein / Propylaeen, Berlin 1972.
  • Will and chance. Conversations with Célestin Deliège and Hans Mayer . Translated by Josef Häusler and Hans Mayer. Belser, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-7630-9024-X .
  • Thinking about music today 2nd lecture, given in 1963, translated by Josef Häusler (= Darmstadt Contributions to New Music, Vol. 6). Schott, Mainz 1985.
  • Jean-Jaques Nattiez (Ed.): Pierre Boulez - John Cage. Correspondance and Documents. (= Publications of the Paul Sacher Foundation, Vol. 1.), 48 letters and documents 1949–1954. Amadeus, Winterthur 1990.
    • German first edition: Dear Pierre - cher John. Pierre Boulez and John Cage - the correspondence. Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-434-50098-7 (translation: Bettina Schäfer and Katharina Matthewes).
  • Guidelines. Thoughts of a composer. 11 lectures 1976–1988. Translated by Josef Häusler. Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-7618-2009-7 .
  • Boulez on Conducting. Conversations with Cécile Gilly. Faber & Faber, London 2003.

Awards (selection)

literature

  • Antoine Goléa: Rencontres avec Pierre Boulez. Paris 1958
  • Michel Butor : Mallarmé Selon Boulez. Translated by Helmut Scheffel. In: Melos (journal) , 28, 1961, pp. 356-359
  • Joan Peyser: Boulez. Schirmer, New York 1976, 303 pp.
    • extended new edition: Boulez - Composer, Conductor, Enigma. McMillan, New York 1995.
  • Paul Griffiths: Boulez. Oxford 1978
  • Theo Hirsbrunner : Pierre Boulez and his work. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1985, ISBN 3-89007-047-7 , 244 pp.
  • Martin Demmler: Composers of the 20th Century. Reclam, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-15-010447-5 , pp. 46-51.
  • Jean-Noel von der Weid: The music of the 20th century. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-458-17068-5 , pp. 272-296.
  • Martin Zenck : Pierre Boulez: The score of the gesture and the theater of the avant-garde. Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-7705-5998-5

Web links

Commons : Pierre Boulez  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A delicate task . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1971 ( online record review).
  2. ^ French conductor Boulez died at the age of 90. In: Zeit Online . January 6, 2016, accessed January 6, 2016 .
  3. ^ Tomb of Pierre Boulez. knerger.de
  4. ^ Marie-Aude Roux: Pierre Boulez, inhumé à Baden-Baden, célébré à Saint-Sulpice. In: LeMonde.fr . January 15, 2016, accessed January 16, 2016 (French).
  5. ↑ Information from the Office of the Federal President
  6. ^ Member page of the German Academy: Pierre Boulez
  7. ^ Idw Science Information Service of October 23, 2012, accessed on October 23, 2012
  8. ↑ Election on December 15, 2014, awarded on January 18, 2015
  9. ^ City of Baden-Baden: Honorary Citizen in the 20th Century , accessed on January 21, 2015
  10. ^ City of Baden-Baden: Mayor Mergen awards Pierre Boulez the honorary citizenship ( memento from January 20, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ), accessed on January 10, 2017
  11. ↑ Pierre Boulez . ( boulezsaal.de [accessed on August 16, 2017]).
personal data
SURNAME Boulez, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French composer, conductor and music theorist
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Montbrison , Loire department
DATE OF DEATH 5th January 2016
Place of death Baden-Baden