A few notes: 0:22 : Thanks to Tyson Davis for the deep-fried Boulez image. 11:32 : _Structures_ was a suite of pieces (I & II), with _Structures 1A_ as the first (and most well-known) example of total serialism as described. 19:47 : There's an apostrophe there that shouldn't be.
I was a student of Boulez at Harvard in 1963 and we remained friends until his death so I can appreciate the fine job you did of putting this biography together. There is much about the man and his music that remain a mystery but I can assert that he devoted his entire life to the service of music. He had no personal life to speak of but he was a dedicated and loyal friend.
It sounds like you were lucky none of your opinions offended him to the point of cutting off the friendship as he did according to the bio, with several important contemporaries.
And despite all that, he was ultimately just another (rightfully) neglected modernist like Stockhausen, Legeti, etc., that are completely unknown to the public, know only to a small subset of connoisseurs, and who’s name won’t outlast his century.
@@Manx123 Fifty years from now it will be interesting to see how he fares in popularity. Sadly, I won't be here but you can let me know through seance.
@@stephenjablonsky1941 You can add to that list Berio, Xenakis, Schnittke, Hammersmith; literally nobody knows these Boulez people, and somehow even fewer people will know them in the future. Any lasting pure classical music died with Shostakovich, since composers with talent went to compose for other genres since those can provide more money and fame.
@@Manx123 Berio was more talented than the others you mention. The problem is that mid-century modernism seemed to reinvent what we mean by music and ignored the average audience members ability to tolerate confusion and dissonance.
After struggling with attempting comprehending Boulez's writings (both musical and verbal) I am msot impressed with this video. Where were you when I was in grad school? lol I attempted to read Boulez's book, "Boulez on music today". I got to page 3. That book was really about HIS music today (1970's). It was like trying to read "Finnegan's Wake". I never met anyone that got any further into it than I did. Anyway, hats off to you, sir, for a magnificent (and difficult) job!
Boulez was not a total snob. He took Frank Zappa seriously enough to be willing to conduct his own orchestra through a program of more or less serial compositions Zappa had written and already recorded with either the Mothers of Invention or the London Symphonic Orchestra, on Zappa's request. This resulted in The Perfect Stranger, an LP issued in 1984. I love it.
Boulez certainly calmed down later in life; I can't imagine the polemic-writing Boulez of the 50s and 60s acknowledging Zappa's genius since he wasn't a serial composer.
What an amazing find you are, Classical Nerd! I've been fascinated by Boulez for a long time. I feel like there is a heart to his music, something maybe in the realm of spirituality, that comes through at the end of his rigorous procedures. But I didn't know a lot about his life. Thank you. Also you do this really well! Here's hoping you get 100k subscribers.
Thanks for the Boulez reveal..Such a mind !! Thanks for those glorious musical examples..challenging to perform I’m sure but to listen to uplift the sensibilities and to open one’s mind. Thank you for your hard work and in-depth knowledge that you so easily relay !!
Rest assured, the life of someone as brilliant and talented as Boulez is never easy. Combine that with the challenges of being a composer and conductor, two occupations that seem to feature emotionally dysfunctional individuals. Pierre had no meaningful emotional attachments to man or woman, but he was a very loyal and cordial friend. I was his student at Harvard in 1963 and maintained a friendship wit him through the early years of this century. I came to love the hidden soul that few every saw on the podium or the screen. He always did his best to connect to those he trusted with what little he had to offer. He was married to music and that was his one true love. Much of what you recounted here was the machinations of a revolutionary who was always unsure of himself as composer and conductor. That's why he was always revising his music. He could never leave well-enough alone. I will say that his performances were always gifts to the many composers he promoted. His tuxedo had a crimson lining that one occasionally caught glimpses of in moments of conductorial passion. That is the perfect metaphor for who he was.
@@stephenjablonsky1941 Wrong. They mostly lived happy fulfilling lives. Once I visited the home of Richard Strauss - spoke to one of his grandkids. Definitely happy. Thing is - "great" composers were generally "popular". Or at least professionally successful. JS Bach did not father 26 children out of a deep feeling of depression. Terry Riley seems like fun. Duke Ellington had many friends, and so on. The myth of the misunderstood genius is just that - a myth.
I got a bolt out of the blue when I heard that Boulez despised Xenakis. Somehow I felt they had a lot in common that would have gotten them together. Imagine if they had actually got along and put their brilliant mathematical minds together. Alas, all I can do is but dream of it.
@@myprivatestash9210 Yes, I read his book on formalized music a few months after this comment and came to discovered this. He had a very unique approach towards music compared to the serialist. I don't think that either of them were necessarily right but I do stylistically prefer Xenakis' music. I also like that he had a sense of intuitiveness in his work while also imposing micro and macro structural restrictions on them.
Such a great talk. Classical Nerd has the great and paradoxical gift of making 'inaccessible' music somehow accessible. I've tiptoed in an out of Boulez's music for years. Fascinated but still not quite able to figure out how to approach it. This talk really helped.
Thank you so very much for the best study of Boulez I have ever seen. If I had been a young music major at this time I would follow you to any college to hear you teach Pierre Boulez. I have studied him all my life, having been a music composition major for a good long period before I became a novelist. I learned things, one after another, I have never known all these years, from you. The thing that is uncanny is that Boulez adds up as music. But still, how anemic is the fundamental concept of serialism? Come on, it was just a Procrustean bed. Mahler is bad enough. I never got that our Pierre freed himself on 'sets' not 'full rows'--thank you for telling me that! Believe me, I could go on. Thank you so much. I will watch it again. Dwight Brooks
Like many composers, Boulez seems to have had a narcissistic streak, and his ideology as portrayed sounds a little crazy; but he did devise amazingly colorful sound combinations, and he had amazing ability as a conductor. I can attest personally to the efficacy of his rehearsal technique.
@@DavidA-ps1qr Very amusingly put. I guess the whole purpose of Art is at issue. Evidently artists like Bach and Haydn meant to glorify God, which would be the highest purpose of all. In times when artists were mostly regarded as servants, pleasing the patron was essential. Pleasing oneself as an artist had to be part of the mix if one was to do good work. But when nothing else matters, the audience may be small, or not show up at all.
The sterility of Boulez is stunning. Well-made in acoustical terms, but who cares if nothing musical is communicated? It is 'objective' music, i.e. consisting entirely of the material level of music, which is sound. PB is good at aesthetically arranging the sonic surface, spicing it with 'unexpected' sforzati (to wake-up the audience, and in this style entirely predictable again).... but the whole exercise is pretentious, patronizing, and merely reflecting the time capsule of postwar utopianism. It all sounds very outdated... without some really interesting artistic qualities which could redeem it, and offer something of interest to later generations. It is a museum piece, bound to that short period of postwar depression called modernism. How much more interesting - to name an example - Schoenberg''s Pierrot Lunaire is nowadays - which has survived a century.
@@SuperUrton Ok I gave his music another chance and yes it is very innovative in many ways especially how he pushed the envelop of serializing more aspects of the music besides the pitches...so bravo, I am a fan
Hello man very nice content you have on this channel. I can't believe I didn't discover you earlier but I'm glad a friend of mine shared with me this incredible channel. I have a request about a french composer from the 19th Century named Amédée Méreaux. It would be truly great if you could make a video about him on this channel and thanks for you efforts!
Terrifically written essay...thanks so much for posting. I'm always surprised to hear that Boulez despised Xenakis. To me they are musical 'cousins' so to speak. The 'dazzling color' of SUR INCISES along with the irresistible rhythmic energy are what make it my favorite of his works. "Genuinely expressive" as you say. At his best, to me, Boulez found a balance between a complexity that most us can't fully follow and beauty of sound that makes it so attractive.
According to Julio Estrada, Xenakis did use some serial techniques-he was just very subtle and hush-hush about it. (I don't think I buy his contention that Xenakis was some kind of secret serialist, but it makes sense that he incorporated some of its precepts into his own language.)
Boulez was sych a paradox ....he made so many fine recordings of mainly approachable works and did many approachable works live including much mainstrean repetoire. He spent years from 1966 conducting Parsifal. Much of his own music is too difficult to be repetoire and exists as live music only in the elite world of contemporary music ensembles. Repons and Pli selon Pli are fine works. My opinion is the same as 2 months ago.
In the library i found a book with the sheet music of his 3rd sonata. The book was bigger than two normal pieces of sheet music, the funny thing was that it said “please don’t add your fingerings to this book”. As if anyone could play that.
The rules that he's using don't sound very different from Baroque contrapointal rules in terms of voice leading, despite him wanting to "destroy" the ladder.
Thankyou ! Im so jealous of his book shelf . I have the ives memos -many of these books wont be found in softcover .He says more in 35 minutes than I'm able to really get or remember from 2 large books on Boulez . The early frenchwoman's book is personal she rarely delves into the music even though she has examples of it in the book . The new autobio is expensive and impressive almost encyclopedic will be the goto for quite some time .
It's weird as I am not fan of Boulez's music and musical philosophy, but I have so much respect for him. Probably because of his experience, his absolutely insanely ear. I do really love his disciplined and straightforward conducting style though.
Excellent video, full of fascinating insights and essential biographical information. More of a footnote: Boulez was chief pianist at the famous ‘Foiles Beigeres Club’ playing things like the Warsaw Concerto. All while he was writing the 2nd Piano Sonata according to the conductor Diego Masson.
The DG complete works box is one of my treasured possessions. He's very French, like Carter, so there's lots of beautiful music for all the maths, but each jewel is intricately set. You said that Carter and Elliott were two sides of the same coin and both films are fantastic.
Something has gone wrong with my tablet so Boulez conducting Schoenberg is playing in the background as you are speaking on this video. Awesome. Also, I just wanted to say, other than Varése, I find the composers also labeled as "futurist" to be very underwhelming. Try as they might to destroy the past, many of them seemed to forget they also needed to replace it with something worth listening to.
As an iconic conductor, I have utter respect for him. As a composer, I'm afraid that your excellent video fails to change my mind on his output.............Dreadful. Thank God, since his death, nobody ever performs it and is now thankfully forgotten.
Pierre's only relationship was a pet turtle he had way back when. He was very close to his sister but was incapable of having a loving, mutually satisfying liaison with a man or women. His marriage was to music. Conducting turned out to be his only way of relating passionately with others. I was a student of his at Harvard when he used to smoke Gauloise cigarettes at lunch which he later gave up. Hans Messner his valet, was almost like an adopted son.
You have also missed his recorded legacy of his own works draws different lines in the sand in the same way the scores do. Pli selon pli not only was reworked over time but his choice of singer is just as important. It is a crying shame his work on Pli selon pli with François Pollet wasn’t recorded. The differences in timbre between Łukomska, Bryn-Julson and Schäfer match those of the score. The same goes for Le Marteau sans maître, Minton, and then Elisabeth Laurence and Hilary Summers (both of whom I heard live). Thes changes re matched in the change of style generally. The approachability of later works like Dialogue de l’ombre double, Anthèmes 2 and Sur Incises I fear you passed over. I never thought I would ever hear either of the first two of those works and know them intimately enough to anticipate the next section as I would, say, Beethoven’s 6th (which is full of surprises) but I did. I still regret not speaking to him when I was in Berlin. His dedication to modern music was something I was lucky to enjoy during his time with the BBC. Yes, he was opinionated, but I can think of other composers who were, but maybe less forthright or brusque as he.
absolutely LOVE each one of your well-presented& knowledgeable videos..great sharing of informative insights giving each composer a much needed " human " dimension...greatly appreciated..PLESE do MORE. !! a very happy subscriber. !! AWESOMW. !!
Two questions: 1) Was this video intended to answer the question "Voulez-Vous Boulez-Bous"? 2) As he increasingly turned to conducting in his later years, could one say that Pierre found God when he performed and recorded several of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner which are permeated with octave unisons?
1) I'm afraid I don't get it. 2) Boulez always conducted music that was progressive and innovative in its time. He believed that, in his era, meant strict serial adherence-and within his framework, he wasn't okay with reinforcing something at the octave. He didn't apply that critique retroactively.
A really excellent presentation. He was a wonderful conductor of certain works such as music of the 1st half of the 20c and also Bruckner. He conducted too many post 1950s modernistic works and some later works of his were far too complex e g Sur Incises. Pli selon Pli and Respons are good.
@@ClassicalNerd oh THANK YOU THANK YOU Thomas ! PLEASE discuss all the works comprising "Le Livre de la Jungle" and his symphonic poem "Le Buisson Ardent." Koechlin's music is FINALLY garnering more and more justified attention, which it has deserved all along.
Nice Thumbnail. It would have been appropriate to not just mention in passing Mallarmé and Joyce and actually talk a little bit about the relation between Mallarmé's Le Livre and A Throw of the Dice... to the conception of Indeterminacy in Boulez work, specially in the 3rd Sonata. Boulez was much more of a lyrical composer than a dry mathematical composer. Some of his works from the middle to the late period are quite sensuous.
@@punksterbass probably - at least when it came to music theory. Try dividing the octave into an uneven number of parts instead of 12 - voila! Actual, not imaginary lack of tonal center. because of math. if that flips your wig. And we were discussing Boulez, not Babbitt.
@@ClassicalNerd Be sure to cover Babbitt's time-point system when you get round to it. Also I wrote an exhaustive essay about the Three Compositions for Piano (1947) which also covers the rhythmic procedures in the second movement which are scarcely talked about in the literature. I could send you it if I can manage to find my copy of it somewhere. Depends how deep you want to go!
In 2006 there was a celebration of both Boulez and Cage at the Cité de la Musique in Paris. It was well attended and there were few, if any, empty seats. It was worth the trip from London for this intensive programming. Cage came off second best for me.
Thanks for sharing. Fortunately, history has spoken very clearly: the great majority of the Classical music world continues to not give a damn about Boulez or his “music.” Let alone the rest of humanity.
He was a very influential composer and, as a conductor, many of his recordings are highly regarded. So I don’t think the majority of the classical music doesn’t give a damn about him
Serialism was yet another constriction through rules that just replaced older "rules" but to no good effect. The idea that you have to go through a set number of notes/rhythms to avoid any semblance of recognisable theme or harmony in order to be progressive and valid just establishes another just as predictable set of notes that is as imprisoning as any earlier rules, but even worse. Moreover, in order to not use octaves, or any "conventional" chords, serial music often constantly uses major sevenths and minor ninths, in an effort to avoid octaves, thereby defeating the whole point of avoiding "predictable" intervals
Wendy Carlos wrote a computer program to count adjacent intervals used in serial music. Tritones 9ths 7ths are chosen better than half the time in an effort to avoid a semblance of tonic-dominant relationship. Predictable indeed!
I wouldn't say boulez's music "avoids any semblance of a recognizable theme." Structures and the 2nd sonata do that but everything else he wrote has tons of attention to detail and lots of recognizable moments, as well as consonant intervals.
@@growskull Nah, loathing Boulez is the progressive position. The philosophy of young Boulez is a perfect mirror of the proto-fascism of the Italian Futurists.
Okay? Serialism is the most patently ridiculous notion in music, assuming the intention is actually beauty. Getting good at something nobody cares for isn’t impressive.
Boulez was not nearly as polemical about serialism as you say. He supported, admired and highly praised composer contemporaries such as Carter and Ligeti, even though neither of them used serial techniques in their music. (Ligeti only briefly, Carter never.) Also, he did NOT invent 12-tone serial technique, Milton Babbitt did, in a far different and much more sustainable way.
My sources are all listed in the description if you'd like to check my work. For what it's worth, Boulez's writings _are_ highly polemical-not to mention that everyone I've ever met who met him noted, without my prompting, how opinionated he was-and I don't claim that Boulez _invented_ 12-tone serial technique-only that he was absolutely central to its development, which is borne out starting with _Structures 1A._
Boulez was a dogmatist and dictatorial snob whose acclaim in music arose from dogged attempts to impose strictures to destroy it. I'll take Messiaen or Ligeti or even some Xenakis any day over most of Boulez.
Me too. Because, after all, most Messiaen's music or Ligeti's music you could feel and listen the relations, the structures, the harmonies/modes relations. With Boulez it's almost impossible. I listened before "Le Marteau Sans Maître". The rhythms were closer to Messiaen. But it's almost without clear harmony. With Messiaen you have a clear harmony even if he used 9 or 10 note chords....But again, it's because relations. That's what Xenakis criticized of Serialism music. The result at the end is almost the same as total chance despite the supposedly total control.
I cannot deny your experience. Perhaps his innovation exceeded his dogmatism that propagated what was, at the time, his innovation (depending on the time of your attendance). However, his seeming rigidity (indirectly buttressed by his statements and assertions about ultraserialism, and his application of it as a basis of dismissiveness of others' music) exerted a pernicious influence over composition and music criticism for decades.
I do like some of his music, such as the two pieces you mentioned, as a well as "Pli Selon Pli" among others, but his influence and seeming haughtiness have grated on me for decades.
What is most interesting about Boulez's compositional practice is the fact that he was never satisfied with the results and very often revised his music at a later date. Some revisions were minor but usually they resulted in entirely new pieces. His music is always very busy and even hyperactive. It would have been impossible for him to write a lullaby.
From what I've heard, Boulez was an absolute bastard of a human being: I really don't like the man, or his view of music and art. But still, he was important
A few notes:
0:22 : Thanks to Tyson Davis for the deep-fried Boulez image.
11:32 : _Structures_ was a suite of pieces (I & II), with _Structures 1A_ as the first (and most well-known) example of total serialism as described.
19:47 : There's an apostrophe there that shouldn't be.
Plz make a video about busoni
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
i love eating deep fried boulez
I thought it was pronounced boo-lay
@@robertridley9279 It is most assuredly not.
You just won the Pulitzer price for best thumbnail ever.
Whyyyy hahahaha 😂😂😂
I particularly enjoy the fact that this is his only video where the thumbnail looks like this.
You mean, the 🅱️est thumbnail ever?
@@mitodrumisra8972 :B:
@@solarean :Bruh:
"Absolutely hated Sibelius" lol -- Thanks for the great video! I studied with Boulez and knew him quite well. :)
Oh man I envy you
I am so sorry
😂🤣😅
How well?
@@edwardgivenscomposerhaha，"im so sorry"
1:47
someone: what do you do in life?
Messiaen: big fan of birds
*cough* Scriabin *cough*
I was a student of Boulez at Harvard in 1963 and we remained friends until his death so I can appreciate the fine job you did of putting this biography together. There is much about the man and his music that remain a mystery but I can assert that he devoted his entire life to the service of music. He had no personal life to speak of but he was a dedicated and loyal friend.
It sounds like you were lucky none of your opinions offended him to the point of cutting off the friendship as he did according to the bio, with several important contemporaries.
And despite all that, he was ultimately just another (rightfully) neglected modernist like Stockhausen, Legeti, etc., that are completely unknown to the public, know only to a small subset of connoisseurs, and who’s name won’t outlast his century.
@@Manx123 Fifty years from now it will be interesting to see how he fares in popularity. Sadly, I won't be here but you can let me know through seance.
@@stephenjablonsky1941 You can add to that list Berio, Xenakis, Schnittke, Hammersmith; literally nobody knows these Boulez people, and somehow even fewer people will know them in the future.
Any lasting pure classical music died with Shostakovich, since composers with talent went to compose for other genres since those can provide more money and fame.
@@Manx123 Berio was more talented than the others you mention. The problem is that mid-century modernism seemed to reinvent what we mean by music and ignored the average audience members ability to tolerate confusion and dissonance.
Superb talk on a controversial but remarkably gifted musician. Whether as composer or conductor, I find Boulez's work both fascinating and rewarding.
After struggling with attempting comprehending Boulez's writings (both musical and verbal) I am msot impressed with this video. Where were you when I was in grad school? lol I attempted to read Boulez's book, "Boulez on music today". I got to page 3. That book was really about HIS music today (1970's). It was like trying to read "Finnegan's Wake". I never met anyone that got any further into it than I did. Anyway, hats off to you, sir, for a magnificent (and difficult) job!
Boulez was not a total snob. He took Frank Zappa seriously enough to be willing to conduct his own orchestra through a program of more or less serial compositions Zappa had written and already recorded with either the Mothers of Invention or the London Symphonic Orchestra, on Zappa's request. This resulted in The Perfect Stranger, an LP issued in 1984. I love it.
Boulez certainly calmed down later in life; I can't imagine the polemic-writing Boulez of the 50s and 60s acknowledging Zappa's genius since he wasn't a serial composer.
Those descriptions are amazing. Especially love the James Joyce one.
What an amazing find you are, Classical Nerd! I've been fascinated by Boulez for a long time. I feel like there is a heart to his music, something maybe in the realm of spirituality, that comes through at the end of his rigorous procedures. But I didn't know a lot about his life. Thank you. Also you do this really well! Here's hoping you get 100k subscribers.
@Michael Mossey: Yes there is heart in Boulez's music. A heart that beats in precise multiples of 12, no more or less.
I love his music, wish there was more of it on classical music radio. Some Zappa pieces would be cool too.
Thanks for the Boulez reveal..Such a mind !! Thanks for those glorious musical examples..challenging to perform I’m sure but to listen to uplift the sensibilities and to open one’s mind. Thank you for your hard work and in-depth knowledge that you so easily relay !!
Rest assured, the life of someone as brilliant and talented as Boulez is never easy. Combine that with the challenges of being a composer and conductor, two occupations that seem to feature emotionally dysfunctional individuals. Pierre had no meaningful emotional attachments to man or woman, but he was a very loyal and cordial friend. I was his student at Harvard in 1963 and maintained a friendship wit him through the early years of this century. I came to love the hidden soul that few every saw on the podium or the screen. He always did his best to connect to those he trusted with what little he had to offer. He was married to music and that was his one true love. Much of what you recounted here was the machinations of a revolutionary who was always unsure of himself as composer and conductor. That's why he was always revising his music. He could never leave well-enough alone. I will say that his performances were always gifts to the many composers he promoted. His tuxedo had a crimson lining that one occasionally caught glimpses of in moments of conductorial passion. That is the perfect metaphor for who he was.
"two occupations that seem to feature emotionally dysfunctional individuals" What an obnoxious stereotype. Wash your mouth out, will you?
@@edwardgivenscomposer Are you a composer or a conductor?
@@stephenjablonsky1941 Retired astronaut. Why perpetuate the notion that great artists must be crazy or depressed?
@@edwardgivenscomposer I know of very few great composers who lived happy, fulfilled lives. How about you?
@@stephenjablonsky1941 Wrong. They mostly lived happy fulfilling lives. Once I visited the home of Richard Strauss - spoke to one of his grandkids. Definitely happy. Thing is - "great" composers were generally "popular". Or at least professionally successful. JS Bach did not father 26 children out of a deep feeling of depression. Terry Riley seems like fun. Duke Ellington had many friends, and so on. The myth of the misunderstood genius is just that - a myth.
I got a bolt out of the blue when I heard that Boulez despised Xenakis. Somehow I felt they had a lot in common that would have gotten them together. Imagine if they had actually got along and put their brilliant mathematical minds together. Alas, all I can do is but dream of it.
Xenakis leaves all these serial composers in the dust. He found their dedication to base-12 mathematics as amateurish.
@@myprivatestash9210 Yes, I read his book on formalized music a few months after this comment and came to discovered this. He had a very unique approach towards music compared to the serialist. I don't think that either of them were necessarily right but I do stylistically prefer Xenakis' music. I also like that he had a sense of intuitiveness in his work while also imposing micro and macro structural restrictions on them.
@@almuel Great book.
Such a great talk. Classical Nerd has the great and paradoxical gift of making 'inaccessible' music somehow accessible. I've tiptoed in an out of Boulez's music for years. Fascinated but still not quite able to figure out how to approach it. This talk really helped.
Thank you so very much for the best study of Boulez I have ever seen. If I had been a young music major at this time I would follow you to any college to hear you teach Pierre Boulez. I have studied him all my life, having been a music composition major for a good long period before I became a novelist. I learned things, one after another, I have never known all these years, from you. The thing that is uncanny is that Boulez adds up as music. But still, how anemic is the fundamental concept of serialism? Come on, it was just a Procrustean bed. Mahler is bad enough. I never got that our Pierre freed himself on 'sets' not 'full rows'--thank you for telling me that! Believe me, I could go on. Thank you so much. I will watch it again. Dwight Brooks
Brilliant presentation, reading Boulez "Music Lessons" at present.
Like many composers, Boulez seems to have had a narcissistic streak, and his ideology as portrayed sounds a little crazy; but he did devise amazingly colorful sound combinations, and he had amazing ability as a conductor. I can attest personally to the efficacy of his rehearsal technique.
You are right. Boulez composed music that he wanted listeners to hear rather than music listeners wanted to listen to.
@@DavidA-ps1qr
Very amusingly put. I guess the whole purpose of Art is at issue. Evidently artists like Bach and Haydn meant to glorify God, which would be the highest purpose of all. In times when artists were mostly regarded as servants, pleasing the patron was essential.
Pleasing oneself as an artist had to be part of the mix if one was to do good work. But when nothing else matters, the audience may be small, or not show up at all.
The sterility of Boulez is stunning. Well-made in acoustical terms, but who cares if nothing musical is communicated? It is 'objective' music, i.e. consisting entirely of the material level of music, which is sound. PB is good at aesthetically arranging the sonic surface, spicing it with 'unexpected' sforzati (to wake-up the audience, and in this style entirely predictable again).... but the whole exercise is pretentious, patronizing, and merely reflecting the time capsule of postwar utopianism. It all sounds very outdated... without some really interesting artistic qualities which could redeem it, and offer something of interest to later generations. It is a museum piece, bound to that short period of postwar depression called modernism. How much more interesting - to name an example - Schoenberg''s Pierrot Lunaire is nowadays - which has survived a century.
Just love this channel so much
Thanks so much for the video I’ll be seeing ...explosante-fixe... live this winter
I am not a big Boulez fan, though he is a great conductor. I think I might have to give him another chance...
His music is certainly interesting with his further development past the traditional 12 tone row
@@SuperUrton Ok I gave his music another chance and yes it is very innovative in many ways especially how he pushed the envelop of serializing more aspects of the music besides the pitches...so bravo, I am a fan
He’s my favorite
Hello man very nice content you have on this channel. I can't believe I didn't discover you earlier but I'm glad a friend of mine shared with me this incredible channel.
I have a request about a french composer from the 19th Century named Amédée Méreaux. It would be truly great if you could make a video about him on this channel and thanks for you efforts!
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
Terrifically written essay...thanks so much for posting. I'm always surprised to hear that Boulez despised Xenakis. To me they are musical 'cousins' so to speak. The 'dazzling color' of SUR INCISES along with the irresistible rhythmic energy are what make it my favorite of his works. "Genuinely expressive" as you say. At his best, to me, Boulez found a balance between a complexity that most us can't fully follow and beauty of sound that makes it so attractive.
According to Julio Estrada, Xenakis did use some serial techniques-he was just very subtle and hush-hush about it. (I don't think I buy his contention that Xenakis was some kind of secret serialist, but it makes sense that he incorporated some of its precepts into his own language.)
Thank you talking about him. Long live Boulez, the most powerful musician of the XX Century!
I just discovered this channel and added about 30 Videos to my "watch later" playlist. Good stuff!
You may say that Webern's death was due to a trigger happy soldier but I would say that his death proves that smoking is hazardous to your health
Boulez was sych a paradox ....he made so many fine recordings of mainly approachable works and did many approachable works live including much mainstrean repetoire. He spent years from 1966 conducting Parsifal.
Much of his own music is too difficult to be repetoire and exists as live music only in the elite world of contemporary music ensembles. Repons and Pli selon Pli are fine works. My opinion is the same as 2 months ago.
This is marvelous. Thank you!
Earned my subscription.
In the library i found a book with the sheet music of his 3rd sonata. The book was bigger than two normal pieces of sheet music, the funny thing was that it said “please don’t add your fingerings to this book”. As if anyone could play that.
The rules that he's using don't sound very different from Baroque contrapointal rules in terms of voice leading, despite him wanting to "destroy" the ladder.
There’s a certain delicious irony in inventing rules in order to become unbound from previous rules
he's one of my favorite conductors of all time, his music i need to listen to more of to make a full judgement on though
Thankyou ! Im so jealous of his book shelf . I have the ives memos -many of these books wont be found in softcover .He says more in 35 minutes than I'm able to really get or remember from 2 large books on Boulez . The early frenchwoman's book is personal she rarely delves into the music even though she has examples of it in the book . The new autobio is expensive and impressive almost encyclopedic will be the goto for quite some time .
This lecture is excellent.
It's weird as I am not fan of Boulez's music and musical philosophy, but I have so much respect for him. Probably because of his experience, his absolutely insanely ear. I do really love his disciplined and straightforward conducting style though.
Excellent video, full of fascinating insights and essential biographical information.
More of a footnote: Boulez was chief pianist at the famous ‘Foiles Beigeres Club’ playing things like the Warsaw Concerto. All while he was writing the 2nd Piano Sonata according to the conductor Diego Masson.
Hilarious!
This was uploaded on my birthday epically!
The DG complete works box is one of my treasured possessions. He's very French, like Carter, so there's lots of beautiful music for all the maths, but each jewel is intricately set. You said that Carter and Elliott were two sides of the same coin and both films are fantastic.
Wonderful and Informative. well articulated
Something has gone wrong with my tablet so Boulez conducting Schoenberg is playing in the background as you are speaking on this video. Awesome. Also, I just wanted to say, other than Varése, I find the composers also labeled as "futurist" to be very underwhelming. Try as they might to destroy the past, many of them seemed to forget they also needed to replace it with something worth listening to.
Please do Michael Finnissy some day!
I don't cover living composers because you can't really do proper retrospectives on ongoing careers. Sorry!
What an interesting and educational video--and very well delivered. Thank you.
As an iconic conductor, I have utter respect for him. As a composer, I'm afraid that your excellent video fails to change my mind on his output.............Dreadful. Thank God, since his death, nobody ever performs it and is now thankfully forgotten.
Thanx, Maestro 🌹🌹🌹
Pierre's only relationship was a pet turtle he had way back when. He was very close to his sister but was incapable of having a loving, mutually satisfying liaison with a man or women. His marriage was to music. Conducting turned out to be his only way of relating passionately with others. I was a student of his at Harvard when he used to smoke Gauloise cigarettes at lunch which he later gave up. Hans Messner his valet, was almost like an adopted son.
What a great video, thank you
My fav composer. Thanks
Can you do Carlos Chavez?
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You have also missed his recorded legacy of his own works draws different lines in the sand in the same way the scores do. Pli selon pli not only was reworked over time but his choice of singer is just as important. It is a crying shame his work on Pli selon pli with François Pollet wasn’t recorded. The differences in timbre between Łukomska, Bryn-Julson and Schäfer match those of the score.
The same goes for Le Marteau sans maître, Minton, and then Elisabeth Laurence and Hilary Summers (both of whom I heard live). Thes changes re matched in the change of style generally.
The approachability of later works like Dialogue de l’ombre double, Anthèmes 2 and Sur Incises I fear you passed over. I never thought I would ever hear either of the first two of those works and know them intimately enough to anticipate the next section as I would, say, Beethoven’s 6th (which is full of surprises) but I did.
I still regret not speaking to him when I was in Berlin. His dedication to modern music was something I was lucky to enjoy during his time with the BBC. Yes, he was opinionated, but I can think of other composers who were, but maybe less forthright or brusque as he.
There's only so much anyone can talk about in 30 minutes.
yeeeess! one of my favorite composers
Thank you! Very helpful.
absolutely LOVE each one of your well-presented& knowledgeable videos..great sharing of informative insights giving each composer a much needed " human " dimension...greatly appreciated..PLESE do MORE. !! a very happy subscriber. !! AWESOMW. !!
Nice video!!
Two questions:
1) Was this video intended to answer the question "Voulez-Vous Boulez-Bous"?
2) As he increasingly turned to conducting in his later years, could one say that Pierre found God when he performed and recorded several of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner which are permeated with octave unisons?
1) I'm afraid I don't get it.
2) Boulez always conducted music that was progressive and innovative in its time. He believed that, in his era, meant strict serial adherence-and within his framework, he wasn't okay with reinforcing something at the octave. He didn't apply that critique retroactively.
Nice content!
Please do a video on Cyril Scott!
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
A really excellent presentation. He was a wonderful conductor of certain works such as music of the 1st half of the 20c and also Bruckner.
He conducted too many post 1950s modernistic works and some later works of his were far too complex e g Sur Incises.
Pli selon Pli and Respons are good.
Curious to hear your thoughts on Koechlin...
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@@ClassicalNerd oh THANK YOU THANK YOU Thomas ! PLEASE discuss all the works comprising "Le Livre de la Jungle" and his symphonic poem "Le Buisson Ardent." Koechlin's music is FINALLY garnering more and more justified attention, which it has deserved all along.
Nice Thumbnail. It would have been appropriate to not just mention in passing Mallarmé and Joyce and actually talk a little bit about the relation between Mallarmé's Le Livre and A Throw of the Dice... to the conception of Indeterminacy in Boulez work, specially in the 3rd Sonata. Boulez was much more of a lyrical composer than a dry mathematical composer. Some of his works from the middle to the late period are quite sensuous.
Excellent!👍👍👍
May I be so vile to request a retrospective on Iannis Xenakis?
I did a video on Xenakis some years ago-so it's not exactly the quality of today, but it's something.
Boulez is the musical equivalent of a painter using a calculator to paint and idk how I feel about it tbh
"paint by numbers" you mean?
@@edwardgivenscomposer I think it’s more like Paint with the numbers
@@RaysonWilliams that's a shame since he was like all "ultra-serialists" abysmal at math. (or he would have found a solution that worked)
@@edwardgivenscomposer Babbitt was abysmal at math? hahahahaaha
@@punksterbass probably - at least when it came to music theory. Try dividing the octave into an uneven number of parts instead of 12 - voila! Actual, not imaginary lack of tonal center. because of math. if that flips your wig. And we were discussing Boulez, not Babbitt.
its a shame that as he aged he became exactly what he hated. still absolutely love his compositors and philosophy as he was younger
love it!!
Great stuff. How about Elliott Carter?
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
Wonderful video BUT automatic subtitles kept writing CEREAL music, Boulez is turning in his grave right now lol
Oh, no, the books have moved around!
Technically, it's a different set because I moved ... but those _are_ the same style of bookshelves.
Yes i love boulez
The amount of judgement and gatekeeping from people like Boulez is infuriating and exhausting.
I had to slow down the speed of the video to 0.5 to follow what you’re saying, man😂
Can you do a video on Eyvind Alnæs?
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I would love to see one on Milton Babbitt.
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
@@ClassicalNerd Be sure to cover Babbitt's time-point system when you get round to it. Also I wrote an exhaustive essay about the Three Compositions for Piano (1947) which also covers the rhythmic procedures in the second movement which are scarcely talked about in the literature. I could send you it if I can manage to find my copy of it somewhere. Depends how deep you want to go!
1:52 “Big Fan of Birds” lmao
Personally I'm not too keen on octave equivalence
r/unpopularopinion
Question: How often does one,before pandemic, ever hear Boulez at a major symphonic concert. Thank God,seldom. The public is never completely wrong.
Boulez had the courage of his convictions.
He spent his youth forming claques that would boo the performances of Stravinsky and his old age conducting his music for money. What a hypocrite.
Warning David Tudor about music that could be difficult on the ears, little did they know what this guy was going to do later :)
I really cannot stand Boulez...
@Dhruva Punde What would you know about who I listen to?
@@BenjaminGessel It's hard >.
Can you PLEASE do Elliott Carter?
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
But is it music? And how many people go to Boulez recitals?
In 2006 there was a celebration of both Boulez and Cage at the Cité de la Musique in Paris. It was well attended and there were few, if any, empty seats. It was worth the trip from London for this intensive programming. Cage came off second best for me.
His music is often played in the hall named after him, La Grande Salle Pierre Boulez in the Philarmonie de Paris. Never a seat empty.
🎵🎶🎶 is THE PUREST SCIENCE
The body of his work may be small, but it can't be small enough for me.
His oeuvre is like golf. The fewer pieces you've heard, the greater likelihood you have of winning.
What a terrible thing, to want other people to not be creative. If you dont like it you dont have to listen.
Thanks for sharing. Fortunately, history has spoken very clearly: the great majority of the Classical music world continues to not give a damn about Boulez or his “music.” Let alone the rest of humanity.
I care about his music.
He was a very influential composer and, as a conductor, many of his recordings are highly regarded. So I don’t think the majority of the classical music doesn’t give a damn about him
Do Conlon Nancarrow!
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
@@ClassicalNerd Wow! You sir are amazing.
Ballz (Boulez)
I despise him, now I understand why
Came for the thumb, stayed for the video
Serialism was yet another constriction through rules that just replaced older "rules" but to no good effect. The idea that you have to go through a set number of notes/rhythms to avoid any semblance of recognisable theme or harmony in order to be progressive and valid just establishes another just as predictable set of notes that is as imprisoning as any earlier rules, but even worse. Moreover, in order to not use octaves, or any "conventional" chords, serial music often constantly uses major sevenths and minor ninths, in an effort to avoid octaves, thereby defeating the whole point of avoiding "predictable" intervals
Wendy Carlos wrote a computer program to count adjacent intervals used in serial music. Tritones 9ths 7ths are chosen better than half the time in an effort to avoid a semblance of tonic-dominant relationship. Predictable indeed!
I wouldn't say boulez's music "avoids any semblance of a recognizable theme." Structures and the 2nd sonata do that but everything else he wrote has tons of attention to detail and lots of recognizable moments, as well as consonant intervals.
Limiting your material is one of the first things you have to do as a composer when you start a new piece. Not at all imprisoning
I am one of those people who would rather listen to a well played version of "Happy Birthday To You" than just about anything by Boulez.
why?
aka a fascist
@@growskull Nah, loathing Boulez is the progressive position. The philosophy of young Boulez is a perfect mirror of the proto-fascism of the Italian Futurists.
Xenakis leaves all these serial composers in the dust. He found their dedication to base-12 mathematics as amateurish.
Based and xen-pilled
Okay? Serialism is the most patently ridiculous notion in music, assuming the intention is actually beauty. Getting good at something nobody cares for isn’t impressive.
Can you do Edvard Grieg?
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
This is the reason classic music died
the exact opposite but ok
@@growskull no its dying and it's because of this bs
That thumbnail tho
Boulez was not nearly as polemical about serialism as you say. He supported, admired and highly praised composer contemporaries such as Carter and Ligeti, even though neither of them used serial techniques in their music. (Ligeti only briefly, Carter never.)
Also, he did NOT invent 12-tone serial technique, Milton Babbitt did, in a far different and much more sustainable way.
My sources are all listed in the description if you'd like to check my work. For what it's worth, Boulez's writings _are_ highly polemical-not to mention that everyone I've ever met who met him noted, without my prompting, how opinionated he was-and I don't claim that Boulez _invented_ 12-tone serial technique-only that he was absolutely central to its development, which is borne out starting with _Structures 1A._
He also supported, commissioned and conducted many young composers who had nothing to do with serialism
19:00
🅱️oulez
🅱️ruh
Boulez was a dogmatist and dictatorial snob whose acclaim in music arose from dogged attempts to impose strictures to destroy it. I'll take Messiaen or Ligeti or even some Xenakis any day over most of Boulez.
Me too. Because, after all, most Messiaen's music or Ligeti's music you could feel and listen the relations, the structures, the harmonies/modes relations. With Boulez it's almost impossible. I listened before "Le Marteau Sans Maître". The rhythms were closer to Messiaen. But it's almost without clear harmony. With Messiaen you have a clear harmony even if he used 9 or 10 note chords....But again, it's because relations. That's what Xenakis criticized of Serialism music. The result at the end is almost the same as total chance despite the supposedly total control.
But at the same time I admit I like his Ritual and Repons pieces.
@pianomanhere On the contrary Boulez was a radical innovator. I attended his lectures at the College de France, Paris, and he was always interesting.
I cannot deny your experience. Perhaps his innovation exceeded his dogmatism that propagated what was, at the time, his innovation (depending on the time of your attendance). However, his seeming rigidity (indirectly buttressed by his statements and assertions about ultraserialism, and his application of it as a basis of dismissiveness of others' music) exerted a pernicious influence over composition and music criticism for decades.
I do like some of his music, such as the two pieces you mentioned, as a well as "Pli Selon Pli" among others, but his influence and seeming haughtiness have grated on me for decades.
A great composer, but a horrible man.
What is most interesting about Boulez's compositional practice is the fact that he was never satisfied with the results and very often revised his music at a later date. Some revisions were minor but usually they resulted in entirely new pieces. His music is always very busy and even hyperactive. It would have been impossible for him to write a lullaby.
From what I've heard, Boulez was an absolute bastard of a human being: I really don't like the man, or his view of music and art. But still, he was important
If you've only heard the sensationalist quotes thatvget thrown around, then he might seem like that. Nobody that actually knew him says so.
Wrong. Duke Ellington was important. Boulez and his ilk are aberrations.