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Mad About Music
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Pierre BoulezPierre Boulez
Since conducting his first concerts when barely out of his 20s, Pierre Boulez has become one of the foremost composer-conductors since Richard Strauss and one of the most influential musical figures of this century. Boulez joins host Gilbert Kaplan to share his musical favorites.
Richard Wagner Parsifal. Excerpt from Vorspiel. Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. Pierre Boulez . Deutsche Grammophon 435 718-2.
Arnold Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21. Nos. 8 & 9. Ensemble InterContemporain. Pierre Boulez . Christine Schäfer. Deutsche Grammophon 457 630-2.
Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 3. Excerpt from Sixth Movement. Vienna Philharmonic. Pierre Boulez . Anne Sofie von Otter. Deutsche Grammophon 474 038-2.
Pierre Boulez: Sur Incises. Excerpt from First Movement. Ensemble InterContemporain. Pierre Boulez . Deutsche Grammophon 289 463 475-2.
Frank Zappa "Dupree's Paradise". Ensemble InterContemporain. Pierre Boulez . RCA 10542.
Anton Webern Five Movements, Op. 5. (Version for String Orchestra) No.
5. Berlin Philharmonic. Pierre Boulez . Deutsche Grammophon 447 099-2.
Kaplan: Composer, conductor, revolutionary - Pierre Boulez on today's edition of "Mad About Music."
[Theme music]
For many music lovers, Pierre Boulez is the high priest of modern music. His standing comes, of course, in part from his own compositions, but more than anyone, he has articulated the new direction music has taken since 1950. Often attacking the old as outdated, and being a champion of the new, with the spirit of a real revolutionary. Pierre Boulez , welcome to "Mad About Music."
Boulez: Thank you very much for inviting me.
Kaplan: Now, revolutionaries often pay a price and you certainly did in an unexpected way last year, didn't you, when the police actually arrested you in Switzerland. What happened there?
Boulez: Well, I don't know, still. I must say, they apologized, but they did not give me any explanation, but it was surprising, I must say that to be woken up at 6:30 in the morning, and by the police precisely, and they asked for my passport, they asked for my plane ticket, everything - and two hours later, it was cleared, but they never explained to me why. So I had to accept this part of the mystery.
Kaplan: Ah, well, the mystery to some extent was explained, if you believe the press accounts. They said at some point in your career, you had written a speech or in a book, in I suppose a metaphorical way that we ought to bomb the opera houses and this in turn put you on the list as a possible terrorist. Do you think it might be that?
Boulez: : Well, no, I think that was an explanation, because this - that was an interview in the magazine, German magazine, Der Spiegel. And that was the title of the interview. Let's go bomb the opera houses because of the routine, and I said, it would not be the most economical but the most radical solution, and it was not without humor; but people very often have read the title, and not the article.
Kaplan: I see. Well, you know, music - particularly new music - can bring about violent reactions, and I'm thinking of the fist fights that broke out in the audience at the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Now I see on your musical selections, you brought us something by Stravinsky. Tell us about your view of Stravinsky and why you brought this particular piece.
Boulez: Well, I think Stravinsky is a very important figure, one of the most important figures in the 20th century, and you know, one speaks always about Rite of Spring. But I chose Les Noces, by Stravinsky also, which is for different instrumental organization. And in Les Noces he had quite a lot of difficulties to find the right instrumentation. And then he discovered, years after, that the instrumentation should be with four pianos and percussion, and of course the choir and the vocal soloists. But this combination is really exceptional, first, the voices on the one part and all these percussive instruments on the other side, and then also it proves that he was not satisfied with using always the same type of tool for all his works. That's the first reason why I chose Les Noces. The second reason is that Stravinsky was obsessed by unity - rhythmical unity. So after 70, almost 80 years, I think that Les Noces has kept its power, unique power, as a sound, and as a rhythmical realization.
[Music]
Kaplan: An excerpt from Stravinsky's Les Noces, the English Bach Festival Percussion Ensemble led by Leonard Bernstein, the first selection of my guest on "Mad About Music," composer and conductor Pierre Boulez . Now, as I have described you as the high priest of modern music, I hope you will not mind if I put a question to you that so many music lovers always ask. And it's basically, what went wrong with composing that in the past 50 years, composers and listeners fall so far apart, that the audience for music since the 1950s is so small?
Boulez: The audience for contemporary music was always small. Contemporary music is not always performed and because I must say that performers are not very courageous. They don't dare to do something because they are afraid that the public, the audience, will react. But myself, I am not at all against the reaction of the audience. If they want to disapprove, they can disapprove, and maybe these people who listen to contemporary music and who are not pleased, maybe later they say, "maybe I was wrong, maybe I should listen to that again."
Kaplan: Well, let me sort of throw an idea at you and see what you think about it. One of the reasons that's often given by people who don't embrace contemporary music is there seems to be a law that has been passed by the contemporary composers that it is against the law to write a beautiful melody, with any of the traditional harmony that one has grown up with. And I think that you would agree this is not a characteristic of most modern music. Or almost any modern music. Now why is that melody, as we know it, has been banned from music?
Boulez: That's not banned at all, that's the same argument always! And that's a different type of melody, different type of harmony, and then, if you know how to listen to it, you recognize the melodic line. That's simply a kind of new territory, and you have to get familiar with it, that you can recognize really the melodic aspects.
Kaplan: So you would make the case that contemporary music has in it real melodies, hummable melodies, which you might leave the hall being able to reproduce.
Boulez: Well, I think, if you ask, I don't know the last string quartets of Beethoven, or even in Mozart, some symphonies, and you know, if you want to, to whistle the G-minor Symphony, you would have some problems, I suppose.
Kaplan: : [Whistles the melody]
Boulez: : Well, the beginning of course! But then after the beginning, please go on.
Kaplan: All right! Then let's talk about the group that is writing today, leaving yourself aside, of course. Who among the composers of the last 25 years, say, do you think will endure?
Boulez: Well, in the last years, also in my generation, let's say, I can't give you names. I'm not really, you know, a man who can decide for the future. But I think the names of Stockhausen, Berio, Nono, Ligeti, Bertwistle will remain, certainly because they are important moments in the development of the 2nd half of the century. Like, for instance, in the first half, you will have somebody like Stravinsky, Bartok, the three Viennese -- Schoenberg, Berg, Webern - Varese also for some works, and Ives for some works.
Kaplan: All right, then let's turn away for a moment from contemporary music to your role as a conductor. And here your standing as a revolutionary may be in jeopardy. Because while you certainly are performing contemporary music, you are also recording a complete Mahler cycle.
Boulez: Well, why not? That's what I mean, you know, I consider that music is one, and not various things. Is one, because I don't think that contemporary music should be separated from the repertoire. And I think - I mean, I am faithful to the saying of Alban Berg, who said, "I would like that classical music will be performed like contemporary music, and I would like contemporary music to be performed like classical music." And for me, you know, the conductor is not something special. When I conduct classical repertoire, for instance, Wagner, I have done quite a lot and some in Bayreuth, it gives me some ideas about myself, first, and also about the new works either I am writing or I am conducting by people of my generation or people much younger than me, even.
Kaplan: You know, when you speak of your work in Bayreuth, I immediately think of the revolutionary Ring cycle you performed, because it provides a perfect example of combining the new and the old. In this case, you curiously represented the "old", as the conductor conducting 19th century music, while the director, Patrice Chereaux, delivered the "new" -- a radical and, to some people's views, shocking staging. But musically you've also put your stamp on Parsifal there - so, I thought it'd be interesting to listen to the Vorspiel as you presented it in Bayreuth.
[Music]
Kaplan: An excerpt from the Vorspiel from Wagner's Parsifal. The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and on the podium my guest on today's edition of "Mad About Music", Pierre Boulez . You can learn more about Pierre Boulez , read a transcript or listen to any of our prior shows by logging on WNYC.org and then click on "Mad About Music". When we return we'll learn Pierre Boulez 's view on a composer many regard as perhaps the most influential of the Modernists.
[Station Break]
Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan with my guest on "Mad About Music", composer and conductor Pierre Boulez . Now, earlier when you were discussing contemporary composers who will endure, you mentioned Schoenberg, and I see he is on your list of selections today. Do you regard him as the pivotal figure that he's often described to be?
Boulez: He's one of the pivotal figures. I don't want to, you know, to reduce music of the 20th century to one figure. He is very important because he has renovated the language, a certain part of the language. But Stravinsky's very important, also, for renovating some other parts of the language. And Berg renovating the opera, for instance.
Kaplan: And yet you have selected Schoenberg to play today, so what's your thinking behind that?
Boulez: Because I chose exactly the Pierrot Lunaire, not anything else by Schoenberg. I could have, for instance, taken Erwartung, but Erwartung is in the tradition of opera more or less, Wagnerian opera, let's say. Pierrot Lunaire is very specific because he used, first, a very small amount of musicians, only five musicians, and also that's a kind of abstract theatre. Because that's not real theatre, that's not an opera, nothing to do with opera. But I mean, the first performance was given by musicians behind a screen. The musicians were supposed not to be seen, and the singer, which was not a singer, was an actress, as a matter of fact, was in front of them and was telling the text, really, like in a cabaret. And that is the influence of the cabaret on the music of Schoenberg, as funny as it seems, because Schoenberg is always seen as a kind of very somber figure. Because generally one says, oh, Schoenberg after all is very sad and dramatic and so. No. You find in this piece a big range of expression, maybe more than in any other work by him.
[Music]
Kaplan: An excerpt from Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Christine Schäfer and the Ensemble InterContemporain, conducted by Pierre Boulez , my guest today on "Mad About Music". Now, let's talk about interpretation as a conductor. Mahler perhaps more than any composer has such a wide range of interpretation. It may be true of others, but for his music at least it seems to bring out these extremes. And I read somewhere once, perhaps it was a critic or an analyst, describing this range, and it had you at one end and Leonard Bernstein at the other end, where Bernstein was described as being hot-blooded, passionate, and you were described as being clinical and cool. Do you regard that as remotely accurate?
Boulez: Well, I think that's a question of subjectivity of the man who wrote that, or the woman, I don't know.
Kaplan: Well, but more speak of your own approach .
Boulez: Yes, I think it's - you see, I don't rely only on myself emotionally when I conduct. You cannot just be emotional about it, in my opinion. Because then the structure is not anymore there, the important moments or the secondary moments are not different shaded enough. I look at all these types of combinations of expressions, and then after I can say when I am aware of that, then I can be more emotional because I know what it is inside, and I think the more you know the score, the more intuitive you can be. That's a paradox. But I mean, for me, intuition is not given. On the contrary. Intuition comes as a supplement of knowledge.
Kaplan: Well, your most recent release of Mahler is his Third Symphony, and that, as you know, ends with one of the most sublime, soaring adagios, this long structure you were talking about, a beautiful melody, the very thing I was suggesting modern music rejects. Now, when you're conducting that last movement, we're talking about structure, we're talking about emotion, surely there, that music must just wrap its arms around you in a very personal way.
Boulez: Yes, certainly, but I mean, I cannot really avoid, for instance, to see that the last melody, with a brass, is exactly the same pattern as the beginning with the strings in a different speed. And then if I'm not aware of that, I cannot really begin this melody in the strings at the very beginning if I don't foresee in front of me the very ending. So I have this horizon in front of me when I begin. But I have always this intuition, which is really established by analysis. And that is my way of looking at scores. You know, I like precision, detail, organization, and then when I have that under control, then I can begin to fly, really.
[Music]
Kaplan: The concluding moments of Mahler's Third Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic and, on the podium, my guest today on "Mad About Music," Pierre Boulez. When we return we'll explore how Pierre Boulez feels, watching other conductors interpret his music.
[Station Break]
Kaplan: This is Gilbert Kaplan with my guest on today's edition of "Mad About Music", composer and conductor, Pierre Boulez . Now the issue of authenticity is coming up more and more these days as people try to understand the composer's intentions. Now I have an opportunity with you to find out what a real composer thinks about this question. How much latitude do you accept in the way others conduct your own music?
Boulez: When I was in the position of the back-seat driver, when I see somebody conducting my music, then I have always the impression, I can do something differently, but I mean, I refrain myself, because I think that's not fair, first. And I accept, you know, if it is within limitations, of course, if it is not out of the reach of the music, then something I accept what he is doing.
Kaplan: All right, then, let's turn to your own music and before the show, I asked you to select one of your own compositions that was accessible to listeners who are less familiar with the modern idiom. So, what did you bring us?
Boulez: Well, I bring Sur Incises. That's a work for three pianos, three harps and three percussion. I chose that, and I chose that also because that's a kind of very, you know, rhapsodic moments, where you don't have any effort; the sonority, I think, is very seductive, and nobody has really any problem with that.
[Music]
Kaplan: An excerpt from the composer Pierre Boulez 's Sur Incises. Performed by the Ensemble InterContemporain, led by Pierre Boulez, the conductor, and my guest on today's edition of "Mad About Music." Now, normally my guests on this show are neither composers nor conductors, and they are simply people who love music, and we focus on what they like to listen to. So, what do you like to listen to, just for pleasure, not music you're studying, not music you want to learn, just music you like to listen to?
Boulez: Well, I listen to music from time to time. You know, I prefer of course to go, if I have time, to go to concerts, because I think the experience, direct experience of music is impossible to replace. But sometimes, you know, things you hear rarely, and repertoire, which is not much in use, generally, like the music of 14th century, 15th century, or the Gregorian chants, for instance. That really you don't find in the concert halls, generally, or very exceptionally, and therefore if you cannot go, I prefer to listen to this music than to music of the repertoire I know already.
Kaplan: I find it interesting that you say that there is no substitute for a live performance, and yet, I could be wrong about this, but I understood it was your view that when you make recordings, you never make live recordings. No recordings of live performances.
Boulez: Yes, because I find that a recording is a different object. Live performance, you give whatever you want, that's what I mean, and the most you can, but if there is an accident, yes, the accident is forgotten unless it is really very obvious. And on the disc, for instance, you cannot accept that even with corrections. I have accepted only once or twice, to have live recording because it was absolutely impossible to do otherwise. But that was a compromise for me, and when I do recording, I do really a studio recording. Because then, it's much more difficult because you have to keep the tension of a performance, and at the same time that everything is perfect. And I find that recording session is infinitely more tiring than a concert.
Kaplan: Um. That's interesting. Now, you mentioned that you listened to music of the Middle Ages, and the scope of music is so broad, and that nicely leads to the next segment of our show, which we call the "wild card," which enables you, as a guest, to pick a piece of music that is not from your profession, not from classical, not from opera, it can be anything. It can be rock music, jazz, so what have you brought us today?
Boulez: Well, I brought something by Frank Zappa, because that's the only person, individualité, I knew in this world. And because, you know, he came to get in touch with me. And I remember, he proposed to me a score for orchestra, and I was just leaving New York and living in London, so I said, I have the Ensemble InterContemporain, if you want a piece performed, please write for this Ensemble, because I will perform it surely. And I was interested by him, because he was trying very hard to transcend the kind of borders. You know there is a border between serious music and pop music. And I think, generally, the people of classical music, generally, are extremely condescendent with their colleagues, and you know, oh, yes. But I find there is a way of expressing themselves which interests me, and I liked this way by Zappa, who was trying to get out of the routine of pop music, and was really trying extremely hard to get a new world from himself, even, and that I found really, not only interesting, but remarkable.
[Music]
Kaplan: An excerpt from "Dupree's Paradise" by Frank Zappa, performd by the Ensemble InterContemporain, conducted by my guest on today's edition of "Mad About Music," Pierre Boulez , making his first foray into a collaboration with a rock composer. Now, we've been talking about modern music, and I know you feel that some composers whose music was created, perhaps, 100 years ago, still can deliver the shock of the new. And I gather you would regard Webern in this sense.
Boulez: Yes, certainly, Webern was much ahead of his time. Absolutely stunning. And I thought this man, thinking in 1913, about this kind of music, that's for me, there are some exceptions like that, we have Mallarmé in the French poetry, you have Emily Dickinson in this country also, where poems are really extraordinary, written in the 1860, 1870. And then you have some geniuses who are really passionately ahead of their time. And I admire them very much, because they have the courage, not only to think, but to realize what they want to realize, without fear. And I would like to hear, to listen again, to the pieces Opus 5 for string orchestra, because that was also one of the things of Webern, he was never satisfied with just, you know, doing routine job. So, he was asked by his publisher to make something for string orchestra. And he took his Quartet Opus 5, and then these Five Pieces Opus 5, and then he transcribed them for orchestra, but I mean that's not only an enlargement transcription, let's say, what was for one violin is now for sixteen violins. No, he changed, and for instance, there's melodic line, arc - changing color between the cello solo, between the viola solo, between the violin solo, and everything is transformed. And some effects, which are in the Quartet already convincing, but are much more striking when he has written them for string orchestra. And therefore, I find them extremely attractive, and for the audience, also, they are very attractive. Like all these Webern, each summer I play, for instance, Opus 6, all the pieces Opus 5, they are always a very big success with the audience.
[Music]
Kaplan: The Fifth Movement of Webern's Five Movements, the Berlin Philharmonic, led by my guest on today's edition of "Mad About Music," Pierre Boulez.
Now, as a way of concluding this show, I'd like to ask you a final question, and it's probably one you've been asked before. How would you characterize what your music represents in the historical sweep of the music we've been listening to? And what would you like to be remembered for as a composer?
Boulez: Well, I mean, I did the best I could. That's all what I can say. You have to be modest, and the more you are aging, you see what you have accomplished, and what you would like to have accomplished, and certainly, we were a very radical generation, immediately after the war, 1945, I was 20 in '45. So we were extremely radical because the situation of the world was a very radical one. Do I regret this radicalism? No. I don't regret it at all. Because I think, you know, it pushed us to find new solutions and we did not accept at all old solutions. The more you go in life, the more you have this exchange between the realism and utopia. But utopia should be always there. And at the conclusion, you know, the more I go to the end of my life, you know, I am really the more aware than ever that utopia is the main incentive in life, and then reality is accommodating this utopia to normality.
Kaplan: I have to just ask you a little further on that, because I would like you to comment, if you can, on Boulez the composer. Schoenberg, they always say, 12-tone. Beethoven, elaboration of the Scherzo. Stravinsky, unbelievable rhythm and combinations. Is there a musical idea that you think you have focused on that might be stamped Boulez?
Boulez: I think that I have to - sorry, I think that's synthesis. Because, you know, I am not typically French from this point of view. But I tried to join things, which were very separate before, as I mean, the Viennese tradition was especially the most recent one with Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, the Stravinsky and Bartok solution, and you know, the French tradition with Debussy and Messiaen. And I am in the meeting point of these three streams, let's say, and I would like to be considered like one of the first who tried to synthesize these worlds which were far apart, and which are closer in my world, my own world.
Kaplan: Well, on that note, Pierre Boulez , thank you for appearing today. This is Gilbert Kaplan for "Mad About Music."
[Credits]
Since conducting his first concerts when barely out of his 20s, Pierre Boulez has become one of the foremost composer-conductors since Richard Strauss and one of the most influential musical figures of this century. Born in 1925, he studied piano as a boy before moving to Paris in 1942, where he studied at the Paris Conservatory with Messiaen, Andrée Vaurabourg, and René Leibowitz. In 1946, he became music director of the Renaud-Barrault Theatre Company, founding 7 years later the contemporary music concert series at the Petit Marigny Theatre, which became renown as the influential Domaine Musical.
During the late 1950s, he gave courses at the progressive Darmstadt summer school and then at Basle University, while continuing his work both as composer and conductor. He was a visiting professor at Harvard University in 1962-63 and, in 1976, was appointed professor at the Collège de France, a post he held until retirement in 1995.
In 1967, Mr. Boulez became principal guest conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, later accepting the positions of chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and music director of the New York Philharmonic. One year later, in 1972, he accepted the invitation by the French President to create and direct the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), the computer-music research center in Paris. And he then founded the Ensemble Intercontemporain.
Widely regarded as one of the leading interpreters of the Second Viennese School composers-Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern-he also performs and records much Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartók, Debussy, Ravel, and Messiaen. He has conducted Parsifal and The Ring in Bayreuth, Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and an award-winning Pélleas et Mélisande in Cardiff.
In 1995, he made a major tour with the LSO to celebrate his 70th birthday, as well in 2000 to celebrate his 75th birthday. Recent engagements have included a tour of Europe with the Ensemble Intercontemporain ; concerts in Vienna, Graz, Paris, Salzburg and Lucerne with the Vienna Philharmonic; and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, of which he is currently principal guest conductor. Until 2002/2003 Pierre Boulez held The Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall where he conducted in March an exclusive series of concerts with the Ensemble Intercontemporain.
A renowned composer, music theorist, and teacher, much of his influential writing
is available in English, including Boulez on Music Today (1971), Notes of an
Apprenticeship (1968, republished in a new translation in 1991 as Stocktakings
from an Apprenticeship), and Orientations (1981).
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