PIERRE BOULEZ

Chef d’orchestre

Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Boulez        1956-1962

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PIERRE BOULEZ CONDUCTOR - STRAVINSKY, SCHOENBERG, BOULEZ, etc. 1956-1962

By Christophe Lointier

If we asked a layman to name two composers who personified the contem­porary music of France in the second half of the 20^th century, no doubt but that Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) and Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) would the first two musicians to come to his lips.

Messiaen, the elder, whose reach in the educational field had no equal, received praise very early for his poignant Quatuor pour la fin du temps — a work within everyone’s reach that he wrote in 1941 while interned in a prisoner-of-war camp — and then, much later, for his opera Saint-François d’Assise, crowning two decades of musical research that combined the Christian faith with transcriptions of birdsong. As for the younger Berlioz, he took lessons in advanced harmony from Messiaen at the Conservatoire de Paris; he also admired the “creative spontaneity” of the latter, whom he considered this “master”. Berlioz was capable of bridging different cultures, and went on to become no doubt one of the greatest composers of our times.

The creator

The opus of Pierre Boulez is hardly massive (some sixty works in all) yet it is punctuated by major pieces—regularly improved—that undermined the foundations of musical academicism. Polyphonie X, first performed in 1951, caused a scandal due to its serialism, which was judged too theoretical and intransigent. In a letter to a friend, Berlioz wrote, “There are places where the synthesis of language and sensibility seemed striking, and others where the musical “making” of it was not up to what I wished to express or, conversely, this “making” of it attains an independence and undoes what I desired to express.” Boulez would mend his ways a little later, with Le marteau sans maître based on René Char’s poems, by operating a relative softening of his musical language in more “melodic” accents, propped up with orchestration that was “far eastern.” In Pli selon pli, a tribute to Mallarmé, the composer would develop the refinement of those famous “structures” even more visibly and introduce a principle of liberty into the work, by means of the choice of several versions that he gave to performers, and also a certain improvisational licence within a predetermined framework. There would follow the suite Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna, the musical grave (1973) composed in tribute to his recently-deceased composer-friend and founded on an ensemble of seven notes that relate to the name “Maderna.” And finally Répons, an electroacoustic work that requires a particular mechanism for the stage, namely an instrumental ensemble situated in the centre of the audience, with six soloists placed around the limits of the room and an electric device that interacted with the soloists in real time.

The initiator

While Boulez was incontestably the leader of the French avant-garde and research into sound, throughout his life in music he would also plead the cause for spreading contemporary music, by turns as a teacher or in directing various institutions: from 1976 to 1995 he would hold the professorial chair in the “Invention, technique and language of music” at the Collège de France, with the aim of increasing public awareness of various practices in composition, and the analysis of works of music. However, while it’s true that music can be elucidated, above all it also has to be played, and Pierre Boulez would consistently promote that. As early as 1954 he created the “Domaine musical”, a concert society whose repertoire, in its first instance made up of ancient music, gradually changed its orientation to works of the 20th century and the avant-garde. Later, at the request of President Georges Pompidou, Berlioz founded the Ircam (the acronym for “Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique”)—today still the world’s most sought-after centre for young creators—and the famous “Ensemble intercontemporain,” a group of thirty-one soloists dedicated exclusively to performing contemporary music. We can add that Boulez, whose influence on the music world grew without pause (sometimes earning him caustic criticism), also became involved in such great projects as the Bastille Opera, the “Cité de la Musique” and the “Philharmonie de Paris.”

The maestro

At the dawn of the fifties, as the “Domaine musical” changed its inclination more towards modern repertoire, Pierre Boulez was experiencing difficulties in finding conductors willing to perform those works. His only solution was to conduct their first performances himself, yet this handicap laid the foundations for an exceptional career that led him to conduct the largest orchestras, despite the fact that some members of the music milieu deemed his conducting too liberal and insensitive. At the beginning of the sixties, he began an international career, first with the ‘Residentie Orkest’ in The Hague, and then with Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. In Paris in 1963, he was given a mandate to celebrate The Rite of Spring (for the 50th anniversary of its first performance) before going to Bayreuth to conduct Parsifal, one of the works that Berlioz loved most. Other contracts followed: to lead the Cleveland Orchestra, and then the BBC Symphony Orchestra in turn with the New York Philharmonic (taking over from Leonard Bernstein). Later would come the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We can also note that Pierre Boulez returned to Wagner’s den from 1976 to 1980, the occasion being the production of a new version of The Ring staged by Patrice Chéreau that would make history, earning the two men almost an hour and a half’s applause at its ultimate performance, with the curtain rising and falling one hundred and one times.

Nevertheless, the prestigious career of the French conductor should not conceal his first aims, notably the celebration of the father figures of France’s modern music legacy, and training the spotlight on the country’s contemporary creations. The present set consequently offers the maestro’s orchestral performances, recorded between 1956 and 1962, of works by Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky and composers close to Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono and  Luciano Berio, who illustrate the multiplicity of the inventiveness of the 20^th century in music and sound: spoken-sung works, polytonality, twelve-tone music and serialism, among others.

Christophe Lointier

© Frémeaux & Associés 2024

PIERRE BOULEZ CHEF D’ORCHESTRE – STRAVINSKY, SCHOENBERG, BOULEZ, etc. 1956-1962

CD 1 : PIERRE BOULEZ DIRIGE

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)

PIERROT LUNAIRE :

Première partie

1. Mondestrunken 1’46

2. Colombine 1’32

3. Der Dandy 1’09

4. Eine blasse Wäscherin 1’27

5. Valse de Chopin 1’10

6. Madonna 1’46

7. Der kranke Mond 2’10

Deuxième partie

8. Nacht 2’11

9. Gebet an Pierrot 0’54

10. Raub 1’12

11. Rote Messe 1’39

12. Galgenlied 0’17

13. Enthauptung 2’01

14. Die Kreuze 2’12

Troisième partie

15. Heimweh 2’11

16. Gemeinheit ! 0’58

17. Parodie 1’12

18. Der Mondfleck 0’50

19. Serenade 1’55

20. Heimfahrt 1’41

21. O alter Duft 1’24

LP ADES  MA 30LA 524 (1962)

SERENADE OP.24

22. Marsch 4’08

23. Menuett 6’28

24. Variationen 3’34

25. Sonett n°217 von Petrarca
(pour voix et basse) 2’46

26. Tanzscene 6’26

27. Lied 2’12

28. Finale 4’52

1 à 21 : LP ADES  MA 30LA 524 (1962)

Pierrot Lunaire – Trois Fois Sept Poèmes de Albert Giraud – version allemande de Otto Erich Hartleben. Récitante : Helga Pilarczyk. Piano : Maria Bergmann. Flûte et Piccolo : Jacques Castagner. Clarinette : Guy Deplus. Clarinette basse : Louis Montaigne. Violon : Luben Yordanoff. Alto : Serge Collot. Violoncelle : Jean Huchot.

22 à 28 : LP ADES MA 30 LA 525 (1962)

Serenade Op.24. Clarinette : Guy Deplus. Clarinette basse : Louis Montaigne. Mandoline : Paul Grund. Guitare : Paul Stingl. Violon : Luben Yordanoff. Alto : Serge Collot. Violoncelle : Jean Huchot. Basse : Louis-Jacques Rondeleux.

1 à 28 : Enregistrés à Paris en 1961 pour la collection « DOMAINE MUSICAL ».

CD 2 : PIERRE BOULEZ DIRIGE

STRAVINSKY & WEBERN

IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)

1. Renard 14’50

2. 3 Pièces Pour Quatuor à cordes – Pièce 1 0’54

3. 3 Pièces Pour Quatuor à cordes – Pièce 2 1’51

4. 3 Pièces Pour Quatuor à cordes – Pièce 3 3’31

5. 3 Pièces pour clarinette – 1 1’40

6. 3 Pièces pour clarinette – 2 0’59

7. 3 Pièces pour clarinette – 3 1’11

8. Concertino pour 12 Instruments 5’41

9. Symphonies d’instruments à vent (1920-révision 1947) 8’28

LP ADES MA 30 LA 541 (1962)

ANTON WEBERN (1883-1945)

SYMPHONIE OP 21

10. Ruhig sehr eitend 7’20

11. Variationen 2’43

2 Lieder, Op.8

12. N°1 : Du, der ichs nicht sage 1’02

13. N°2 : Du machst mich allein 1’03

4 Lieder, Op.13

14. N°1 : Wiese im park 2’07

15. N°2 : Die Einsame 1’20

16. N°3 : In, der Fremde 1’07

17. N°4 : Ein Winterabend 1’55

1 à 9 : LP ADES MA 30 LA 541 (1962)

1 : Livret de Igor Stravinsky – Traduction française de C-F Ramuz. Voix Tenor : Jean Giraudeau, Louis Devos. Basse : Louis-Jacques Rondeleux et Xavier Depraz. Cimballom : Elemer Kiss.

2 à 4 : Quatuor Parrenin : Violons : Jacques Ghestem, Jacques Parrenin. Alto : Michel Walès. Violoncelle : Pierre Penassou.

5 à 7 : Clarinette : Guy Deplus.

8 - 9 : Trombone ténor : René Allain.  Trombone basse : Maurice Suzan. Basson : André Razbot, Jean-Pierre Laroque. Violoncelle : Pierre Penassou. Clarinette : Guy Deplus. Cor anglais : Paul Taillefer. Flûte : Jacques Catagner. Hautbois : Claude Maisonneuve. Trompette : Jacques Lecointre, Pierre Pollin. Violon : Jacques Parrenin.

10 à 17 : LP VEGA C 30 A 66 (1956) – LES CONCERTS DU DOMAINE MUSICAL – SAISON 1956 – 4^ème CONCERT - Enregistré sous les auspices du conseil international de la musique avec le concours de l’Unesco.  Petit Théâtre Marigny.

CD 3 : PIERRE BOULEZ DIRIGE PIERRE

BOULEZ + LUIGI NONO & LUCIANO BERIO

PIERRE BOULEZ (1925-2016)

LE MARTEAU SANS MAÎTRE

1. Avant « L’artisanat furieux » 1’27

2. Commentaire I
de « Bourreaux de solitude » 3’50

3. L’artisanat furieux 2’04

4. Commentaire II
de « Bourreaux de solitude » 3’12

5. « Bel édifice et les pressentiments », version première 3’08

6. « Bourreaux de solitude » 4’08

7. Après « L’artisanat furieux » 0’50

8. Commentaire III
de « Bourreaux de solitude » 4’48

9. « Bel édifice et les pressentiments »,
double 6’57

10. Sonatine pour flute et piano 11’40

BONUS :

LUIGI NONO (1924-1990)

11. Incontri 5’46

LUCIANO BERIO (1925- 2003)

12. Serenata I - Flute et 14 instruments 10’17

1 à 9 : LP VEGA C 35 A 67 (1956)- Texte : René Char. Chant : Marie-Thérèse Cahn. Flûte : Jacques Tiberge. Alto : Serge Collot. Guitare : Paul Stingl. Xylorimba : P. Naudin. Percussions : A. Cavaillé. Enregistré sous les auspices du conseil international de la musique avec le concours de l’Unesco

11 : LP VEGA C 30 A 66 (1956)- LES CONCERTS DU DOMAINE MUSICAL – SAISON 1956 – 4^ème CONCERT - Enregistré sous les auspices du conseil international de la musique avec le concours de l’Unesco. Chant : Jeanne Hericard. Petit Théâtre Marigny.

10 & 12. LP VEGA C 30 A 139 (1958) - LES CONCERTS DU DOMAINE MUSICAL – SAISON 1957. Flûte : Severino Gazzelloni, David Tudor.