Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde

Book Description

Anthropologist Georgina Born presents one of the first ethnographies of a powerful western cultural organization, the renowned Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris. As a year-long participant-observer, Born studied the social and cultural economy of an institution for research and production of avant-garde and computer music. She gives a unique portrait of IRCAM's composers, computer scientists, technicians, and secretaries, interrogating the effects of the cultural philosophy of the controversial avant-garde composer, Pierre Boulez, who directed the institute until 1992.
Born depicts a major artistic institution trying to maintain its status and legitimacy in an era increasingly dominated by market forces, and in a volatile political and cultural climate. She illuminates the erosion of the legitimacy of art and science in the face of growing commercial and political pressures. By tracing how IRCAM has tried to accomodate these pressures while preserving its autonomy, Born reveals the contradictory effects of institutionalizing an avant-garde.
Contrary to those who see postmodernism representing an accord between high and popular culture, Born stresses the continuities between modernism and postmodernism and how postmodernism itself embodies an implicit antagonism toward popular culture.

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Informative but constantly deprecates contemporary music.......2006-07-02

RATIONALIZING CULTURE is Georgina Born's ethnographical presentation of the Institut de Recherce et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), one of the world's foremost music research centres, located in Paris at the Centre George Pompidou. In 1984 Born, a musician-cum-ethnographer spent a year observing the institute, and this expanded version of her subsequent Ph.D thesis was published in 1995.

Fans of contemporary music--and I'm one--will be pleased to have the opportunity to learn something of the structure and day-to-day life of IRCAM. Born details the bureacratic hierarchy, the various types of employees, and the "squatters", composers entering after-hours to use the centre's equipment and hoping to be established workers there. She talks about typical visits by composers who come to be trained and to realise a piece at Ircam, and about the use of the fearsome 4X machine, IRCAM's early technological breakthrough. Born could not use real names in the preparation of her thesis, so instead people are referred to with random initials or with general attributes, but it's not particularly challenging to guess who is who. PL, the "black American composer" is Alvin Singleton, for example, and WOW is Jean-Baptiste Barriere. There are photos of IRCAM's hallways and offices, one containg a young Kaija Saariaho at work. Among the author's ethnographic themes are the phenomenon of the avant-garde (the "outsiders") becoming subsidized by the government ("the Establishment") and IRCAM's early shift from composer-scientist equality to scientists at the service of composers.

In spite of the book's informative presentative of IRCAM, it is fraught with problems. Born mixes what should be a dispassionate report about the sociology of IRCAM with her own opinions on contemporary music, which she seems to loathe immensely. Right from the beginning she writes that she left the conservatory to play in rock bands because she didn't like modern styles. In the chapter on music, while reporting the discussions of some composers on their inspirations, she even suggests that what they are doing isn't real music at all.

Throughout Born writes in such a way as to make the reader think that IRCAM is a worthless institution on the verge of being shut down. Granted, IRCAM took a while to get off the ground, and if one goes only by Born's 1984 chronicle, one might get the impression that it's not a terribly productive place. However, in the years following, many wonderful pieces came out of IRCAM, by such composers as Saariaho, Lindberg, Benjamin, and Eotvos. In 1984 all of the technology--a couple of huge servers--seems to be constantly on the fritz and without sufficient processing power for all users, but within a couple of years the centre transitioned to PCs and work gets along fine. Born does dedicate a few pages in the last chapter to later events in IRCAM, but she still ends the book in a critical fashion, not acknowledging any of the great achievements of the centre. Hand-in-hand with this are snipes at Boulez, whom Born seems to think a tyrant who holds music back instead of a benevolent dictator who has done so much to advance the art. At least there's little outright sniping at him here--on a recent radio BBC programme she accused him of "stealing" French music funds instead of really deserving them--but there is nonetheless a serious lack of respect.

If you're curious about IRCAM, I'd recommend seeking the book out at your university library. It can be informative. However, Born's bias against great music, which permeates the whole book, is infuriating and I wouldn't recommend purchasing RATIONALIZING CULTURE.

the 'Slamming' of the Avant Garde by the Next Regime.......2001-11-10

I first read this book before I became aquatinted with the "New Musicology" of cultural criticism. I assumed it to be a sociological report, rather than a musicological one. I did think it odd that this ?sociologist? took such as consistently hostile viewpoint of the musicians within I.R.C.A.M. and thought that some of the scholarship was not very rigorous. I assumed that this was because it was a sociologist ?out of her element,? discussing issues, with which she was not familiar. I figured that she must have had a passing bad experience with the modernists and gone to study them, while complaining about them in revenge.
Later, in the course of studies in musicology, I came upon the strange camp of ?cultural criticism. There is a bit of solipsism in this viewpoint; all there is for anyone is a viewpoint constructed of a culturally specific semiotic code, that we can only understand the world through that code, and that we are therefore always biased to the point of being unable to really know anything. Therefore, in this viewpoint there is no knowledge, only a culturally situated set of biases, and any attempt to assert truth is looked upon as merely some sort of cultural power play.
Georgina Born seems friendly to this philosophy. Her scholarship is good compared to many examples of the "cultural critic" literature, many of which are purposefully obscure and jargonistic (taking after Derrida et al), merely to intimidate the reader with rhetoric. This is a trick that they ironically picked up from academia (who largely did that unintentionally). However, when there is no truth, why not try to assert yourself over the others with whatever means? When there is no truth, there are no lies. Postmodern thought has recently spawned individuals who regard systems of logic as merely culturally situated (and oppressive, biased) semiotic codes, with no relation to reality. Georgina Born makes good arguments by comparison, but it should be noted that this research was probably inspired by the work of those others that I have just mentioned. One of the things that is necessary to pave the way for such criticism is the clearing aside of those pesky scholars that still think that it is possible to know something "objective." Or at the least, to create a study that presents data in a straightforward manner rather than as pointed polemic
This book seems primarily motivated as a ?slam? (to use such as vulgar colloquialism) on the avant garde. Part of the doctrine of the avant garde was that they were supposed to be bringing the ?future? and destiny of a civilization back to it; they were prophets or ?cutting edge.? This of course implies that there was something to bring back; the idea of truth is implicit in the statement. The postmoderns have spent a good deal of their time trying to discredit the bulwarks of the avant garde and the study of music theory. In my opinion, book is part of that endeavour. It does contain some interesting titbits and some food for thought. This study could have been so much more interesting if it incorperated more points of view on the issues raised by ICRAM as an institution. Instead, we get an overdose of the rhetoric of the scholars of deconstructionism, cultural criticism, postmodernism, etc...

the avant-garde is no longer outside barking like a dog. . ........1998-06-21

The edifice of IRCAM, Insitut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique, an underground mecca for the new in Paris, well Europe is to foster a marriage between the current potentialities in technology and creativity,music composition. Pierre Boulez its founder and developer said so much in 1976, as part of the publicity. "The creator's intuition alone is powerless to provide a comprehensive translation of musical invention. It is necessary for him to collaborate with scientific research worker inorder to envision the distant future." This is the first in English at least, profile of this historic institutionalization of new music, or the avant-garde. Although any of these terms are meaningless today. Who can define anymore, what a progressive endeavor is with the fragmentation of culture. Ms Born lived at IRCAM, it is housed in the lower bowels of the Pompidou Centre, the well-thought out royal blue and bright red smokestacks of architect Renzo Piano punctuating the 19th century ambience which is Paris. The red light area of Rue St Denis is walking distance and composers from all over Europe who work by invitation at IRCAM never fail to find inspiration away from the sterility of their work in composition. Ms Born is quite interesting for she projects the agenda here as a social one. She sees a larger frame than the music itself by drawing on thoughts of noted sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu has done so much as eqaute how, who and why listens to new creations in music. And we learn it is now and perhaps will always remain an elitist cadre of those who follow and nourish themselves with culture. We learn through MsBorn, how a composer works and how she/he makes proposals,structures for a work with the scientific aid of someone who specializes in the electronic/computer end of music. There is many times a fine line which separates the two. Each the composer for one must have some knowledge of the computer potentialities and the technician should be versed in the history of c! omposition, the achievements the avnat-garde has made since the end of the War. We find quite fascinating work with multiphonics, where a soloist, say a flutist or trombonist, sings and plays simultaneously. The result varies in an out-of-tune (at least to the traditional Beethoven ear) chord, quite arresting in its effectation. All these materials have been amply indexed, the composer merely chooses, from a table,and can hear the result from an in-house musician,vigorously versed in all the extended techniques. Ms.Born also reveals the dirty laundry at IRCAM the lack of a stable agenda at times, in the beginning years the politics, jettisoning founding members as Vinko Globokar, an equally gifted composer/trombonist. And Boulez the ultimate composer. He does stand well above anyone in Europe today. I should say did ,the Seventies and Eighties were the Boulez years of high power. Now he has retired, not even conducting as much the Ensemble Intercontemporain, a select ensemble of virtuosi,who have toured the world with IRCAM's message. And what might that be? Ms Born it's quite bizarre, she doesn't mentioned specific names in her wonderful profile. She was told not to, or perhaps the insights she received might result in retributions at higher levels, a guillotine might fall unexpectedly. So as you read through this book, composers and personnel are encripted in code. Quite mysteriously haunting. Foucualt in an interview with Boulez in the early Eighties said that music (and Foucault was not one to speak of music) that music of all the arts has certainly kept pace with technology. And that's wonderful except that IRCAM seems to be an elitist endeavor. It received the lion's share of all funding for all the arts in France. And when you consider that Paris houses 70% of French composers, yet only a handfull actually receive the knighted honor to work at IRCAM, it seems the avant-garde wastes no time in acquiring the kings robes to encript its content. Of all the music I've heard from IRCAM, I can't say I can ! distinguish one composer from another. All seem magnetized toward the use of metal instruments, percussion, very cold gestures. Peter Eotvos, Boulez first conductor-successor was the first to realize the severity at IRCAM didn't make interesting music. SO Mr.Eotvos turned an ear toward the accessible yet not obviously so. His "Chinese Opera" for the Ensemble is quite powerful and evocative. It seems the avant-garde cannot cope with the real world, Just like the wood the ancestors of Venice once brought in 550 AD to buttress their city which is now Venice. The wood will not rot as long as it remains submerged,as oxygen hits it, the real social world, it rots. Ms Born in one chapter the "Social Problems of Production" draws light on IRCAM's social problems. Also there is a generous accompaniment of photographs of the instruments and computer systems used. As for the future of music and IRCAM well it will persist as long as it remains submerged ,cloistered away from the vagaries of the real world.

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Pierre Boulez
Dominique Jameux
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 057113744X

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humble orientations

Notes of an Apprenticeship
Pierre Boulez
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0394438671

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humble orientations.......2005-02-22

reading through these essays and analyses,was the young Boulez coming to terms with modernity, the value here is his analysis of the cell-rhythmic distribution in Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" something he did with Messiaen, and the concept simply stayed with Boulez. There is also encyclpedic like entries on the Grand Auteurs of modernity, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, and Messiaen. These are general like descriptions but now and then Boulez let's go with some flash, some bursting, (eclatante) of illumination on some structural principle or one of balance, or the materials developed within a work, and we get the for the times typical diatribes of the Masters here not allowing themselves to go far enough into the realms of the unknowns.Still these materials here are worth a good read,to see the excitement one did find with the potentialities of modernity.

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wonderful sets of questions,more on point than previous

Boulez on Conducting
Pierre Boulez
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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wonderful sets of questions,more on point than previous.......2005-08-08

"I began composing the works, and then found the technique to conduct them"
Boulez's activism, his affinity for modernity always had a content, an aspect of directedness, of finding/locating the shortest distance between two points. And Cecile Gilly's questions here seem commonplace yet they excite quite provocative answers. Of course one must see a work in rehearsal with Boulez in order to find this "sortest distance" ourselves, as those available with his own"Notations" being prepared. But short of that. . .
Here the interviews have a chronology,and we learn for Boulez with his youthful beginnings in the Fifties it engaged the presentation of the best possible performance of the products of modernity,of activism as well for the cause of the new.He speaks here of his learning processes acquired/formulated quite directly in attendance of rehearsals of Hans Rosbaud and Roger Desormiere, later Otto Klemperer in his last years in London. Klemperer actually phoned Boulez requesting permission to attend a Boulez rehearsal of his works.Boulez's humanism is wonderful to think about that he openly admits he had no orchestral technique of writing effectively for the orchestra during the earlier part of this career. Now he has the maturity,experience and retrospection to re-vise these works, as the "Le Visage Nuptial" and "Les Soliel Des Eaux". These were works that had an "overdetermined" polyphony.
We encounter these problems today in learning the modernist language for there still is a shortage of interpreters of the New.The last part here is "Transmitting knowledge" which is really the content of conducting and learning music as well. There is a section on young conductors where the skills during a Master Class become readily apparent. Boulez says, young conductors are first and foremost are concerned with themselves, not the work, their own means and work habits. Go after the problems of the work,appreciate the timbre and the structure, Why is it unique and interesting? not how one will interpret it.
For conducting we know that there was no work within the modernist repertoire that Boulez did not dare to try.This is how he claimed territory,and acquired technique. No others cared to have this affinity for the new for the Star-System of conductors was in place throughout the Fifties and Sixties...at least in the USA.But there is a modest appraisal of time and place that emerges here in these interviews, that of problems of performance,the technique of it, of balance of orchestral forces and timbre. Boulez says here that most conductors don't have a deep appreciation for the timbre of things, of the music, more the gesture,its effect on the populace,and music is finding solutions of interpretation of projecting timbre, sound colours , and finding them takes time and emerges only within a process of change and contemplation. The first performances of Alban Berg's "Wozzeck" for example in Paris, where some 31 rehearsals were requested by Boulez, or Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande",the repertoire of Webern, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky.On Schoenberg and the problems there Boulez says(to paraphrase) yes Schoenberg had known the effects of timbre, but in his music it is more a function of the motive, where it goes and its demise within the orchestra. Whereas Stravinsky loved sound, just to hear it,regardless of where it went.
Other high points discussed here was Wagner's "Parsifal", then the "Ring" itself with Patrick Chereau in the Mid-Seventies. Boulez relates a story of Klemperer asked Boulez(referring to Parsifal)"How do you deal with all this religiousness? and Boulez's response was "He(I) ignore it, and deal with pure technique, the long sheaths of time,slow tempi,and the most mature work within Wagner's oeuvre.Here Cecile Gilly requests basic necessities, but these interviews are more squarely on target, more technical in content on conducting than ones I've read previously. "Should a conductor be a composer?", she asks, and where,who have been successful composer-conductors?. or "What were your artistic aims at that time? What sort of programmes did you wish to conduct?, and a little later, "Were these concerts well attended?
There are also a traversing over quite traditional materials, as Berlioz the great orchestrator,19th Century music, the evolution of the orcehstra and Wagner as composer and conductor himself. But Boulez has wonderful things to say as " Orchestral imagination is a particular gift."Again the simplicity is misleading,for there are those genius composers who really could not orchestrate as Brahms,Chopin, Mussorgsky,Schumann,Scriabin.However Berlioz, had other shortcomings, ones of viable structure, of form in music becoming completely dependant on a narrative,yet still relatively naive in his approach, he founded the modern sounding orchestra with "Symphonie fantastique". The "voicings" of chords for example are all conmmonplace root position triads, yet when the contrabasses pluck these"commonplace" chords they are more percussive and brilliant sounding within the "acoustical illusion" of the orchestra.

Boulez in his terse, yet expansive when needed answers, always places the materials, the "musical text" as he refers to it, within a context. One example was the largesse of amplitude of the growing Romantic orchestra, the sound of the overbearing augmentation of the orchestra, due to larger halls, where Beethoven's philosophy(in the last years of the 19th Century) needed Tubas in order to not make flimsy and miniturize the content of his explosive 'Symphonies', Even Mahler got in on this aesthetic of filling the stage with persona,to no great end actually. For the music,not its conception does not change only those who perform and listen to it,they have needs and requirements for realizations that changes.

There are also many questions on the founding of IRCAM and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, and the administrative problems encountered. Boulez usually had resolved one problem with the experience(s) from another place. Like the "teaching" aspect of IRCAM came from his early experiences with Georg Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, where Szell rendered a highly professional ensemble from what was rather mediocre in performance abilities as an ensemble. And Boulez says here you need to get an ensemble to think the same,explain things to them, each musician is quite accomplished on their own, they know their instrument, but then that means very little when placed within the context of learning a new work for example, or the problems of balance and listening as in Berg's "Three Pieces for Orchestra".
Boulez's creative work is discussed as well and we learn is founded in certain aspects on tradition,(something he would never have admitted in the Fifties,again the Boulez aesthetic is/was formulated in process of acquistion) as Wagner and the projection of "acoustical illusion" this in relation to Boulez's orchestral realizations of "Notations" 12 youthful piano solos,use as "seeds" for really ;etudes; for orchestra.
My favorite moments here are those under "Illusions and kaleidoscopes",Gilly askes, "In explosante-fixe/. . . . you tried in particualr to develop instrumental transformations of sound", and Boulez's response was "Yes, it is a kind of puzzle with musical segments that alternates more or less rapidly and ina more or less predicatable manner." Then another question." You attempt to short-circuit perception". Quite interesting set of interviews here. Those prior seemed too general much of the time, although those with Rocco di Petri those where on composition more than conducting, and those with Jean Vermeil from the Seventies was of a general traversing over points in Boulez entire career,less on technical sets of problematics.Those of Celestine Deliege were from the Sixties, although quite more on compositions.

Points de repere (Collection Musique/Passe/Present)

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Points de repere (Collection Musique/Passe/Present)
Pierre Boulez
Manufacturer: C. Bourgois
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 2267012863

The New Grove Twentieth-Century French Masters: Faure, Debussy, Satie, Ravel, Poulenc, Messiaen, Boulez (Composer Biography Series)

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The New Grove Twentieth-Century French Masters: Faure, Debussy, Satie, Ravel, Poulenc, Messiaen, Boulez (Composer Biography Series)
Jean-Michel Nectoux , Roger Nichols , Patrick Govers , Gary W. Hopkins , and Grif
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Destined for Obscurity
modernist compendium of a composer/conductor
The essential tome of the modernist musical dialectic.
An essential insight into the cutting edge of composition
A difficult, though highly rewarding look at music.

Orientations: Collected Writings
Pierre Boulez
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0674643763

Customer Reviews:

Destined for Obscurity.......2001-06-18

This book is an interesting collection of writings and speeches by conductor and erstwhile composer Pierre Boulez.

It has three parts. The first (200 pages) consists of pieces that deal with Boulez' attitudes and philosophy about composing and music. His theories are intellectually interesting, but devoid of musical inspiration. It seems that his low reputation as composer is well deserved.

The second part (also 200 pages) is the most edifying. He displays a deep understanding of the intricacies of the orchestra, and the interpretation of other composer's works. It demonstrates why he is such a reliable conductor.

The third part (100 pages) is the least interesting. It is a collection of personal memories and reminisces.

As a writer, one admires his courage in tackling subjects (like artistic taste) that so obviously open him up to ridicule. Few composers have explained their thought processes in a way so clearly understandable to the layman better than Boulez.

In summary, one comes to the conclusion that Boulez will be remembered, if he is remembered at all, as a conductor who produced some top notch recordings of Stravinsky and Debussy, and some mediocre Wagner operas.

modernist compendium of a composer/conductor.......2000-04-07

I cannot add much to the other reviews, this is the full weight of Boulez from both worlds as conductor and creator of theory and music. Boulez always found inroads into the theory of his works, like the indeterminate, aleatoric Third Piano Sonata which includes an analysis here, great reading from tis documentary value. Also reflections on Debussy's Jeux, a seminal work for the post-war generation of composers, the epiphanic, the slow introduction of materials and their appraisal. The problem is that Boulez writes quite tersivily, in short bursts, much like the sonic poet he is. Also the work on Wagner's Ring is discussed quite well, the approach to faster tempi, and Wagner's free form almost leitmotiv, where these musical ideas float through. There is also much on administration, on creating IRCAM, and reflections on where Booulez came from, profiles of Desormiere,Hans Rosbaud, Hermann Scherchen. Boulez would frequent their rehearsals, a hands-on non credit education.

The essential tome of the modernist musical dialectic........1999-08-07

For anyone even remotely interested in the world of contemporary music and the volcanic changes that Pierre Boulez spearheaded in that conservative world from the 50's to the present, this is the essential book--a manifesto outlining the hopes, ideals, problems and successes that we face in the modern musical world. Every subject is covered here; from extensive essays and polemics to recording sleeve notes to interviews and tributes to musical colleagues and friends, Boulez leaves no subject untouched. What may seem at first dry and forbidding turns out to be, upon powerful and deep immersion, an inspiring and even moving text and 'calling' for the modern musician.

An essential insight into the cutting edge of composition.......1999-04-20

Orientations provides unique and fascinating insight into the ideas of Pierre Boulez over 4 decades. With the recent release of Repons on Deutsche Grammophon, listeners will be delighted to examine the thought behind the highly beautiful, shimmering sound of his recent works. We learn here that Boulez has set out to break down the barrier between the composer and the audience, a crusade which he continues to fulfill in a characteristically exemplary manner. It is particularly interesting to observe the persistance of particular problems and solutions in the composer's work (such as spatialisation, the setting of texts, the integration of technology), and to bear in mind how these ideas have developed, from works such as Poesie pour pouvoir, to the 1993 version of explosante-fixe.

A sort of modernist bible, Orientations deserves to be re-printed. Indeed, it is to be hoped that the composer will produce a new volume in the near future which will include discussion of Repons, explosante/fixe, and Sur incise, and perhaps take stock of the whole gamut of postmodernism, the minimalists and the like.

A difficult, though highly rewarding look at music........1998-07-19

Boulez's Orientations is a substantial collection of essays, liner notes, and reviews written over several decades. His prose is clear and concise (much like his conducting) and his topics cover a wide range. He discusses topics from Beethoven to Stockhausen and even "the elliptical geometry of utopia." Though frequently a tad verbose and difficult to comprehend, this book provides hours of stimulation and intellectual challenge for the hardcore musician and the layman alike.

A Concise History of Avant-Garde Music: From Debussy to Boulez

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A Concise History of Avant-Garde Music: From Debussy to Boulez
Paul Griffiths
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0195200454

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the early seeds of modernity discussed in brief letters.

The Boulez-Cage Correspondence

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521485584

Book Description

Between May 1949 and August 1954 the composers Pierre Boulez and John Cage exchanged a series of remarkable letters which reflect on their own music and the culture of the time. This correspondence, together with other relevant documents, has been edited by Jean-Jacques Nattiez and appears here for the first time completely in English. Professor Nattiez has written a full introduction to this collection of documents and the meticulous annotation of every letter makes this a volume of extraordinary value.

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the early seeds of modernity discussed in brief letters........2000-04-28

John Cage was the first to introduce Pierre Boulez to the United States. In New York he took Boulez around visiting painters and musicians, this was the early Fifties. David Tudor(long a Cage friend) was performing Boulez's Second Piano Sonata for the first time. Bookstores were frequent stops and Boulez( we learn) never heard of the poet e.e.cummings, and bought a modest book of his poetry. Some thirty years later Boulez set a text of cummings for 22 unaccompanied voices. This correspondence was between two innovators coming from radically different places yet stopping at the same conceptual places. And it is a shame that this friendship fell out quickly,each going into radically different venues. Boulez although fascinated with chance procedures(which Cage had been working with the I Ching, Book of Changes at that time) Boulez was arrongantly fascinated by the aesthetic object,its history and attenuation, and has remained so since. This correspondence has frequent entries on the concept of indeterminacy, again Boulez comes to it via Mallarme, and aleatoric thinking, the throwing of the dice.Boulez sought a musical structure that contained the element of chance as in his Third Piano Sonata in the latter Fifties. Both however were at a creative place in modernity when the Western canon of structure and comprehensibility was falling itself.However it is odd for Boulez to this day thinks of his work as moments containing a "freedom" of something, when he conducts Mahler, he thinks of those passages that are freer than others,like a symphony is a dialogue between the two. Mahler's Sixth Symphony is the case in point. There are letters of Boulez to Cage, while in South America with the Barrault Theatre Company, one entry includes a description from Boulez that he is having a good time "milhauding" around, referring to Darius Milhaud the composer who frequently utilized folk elelments in his music by collecting them in volumes.Nattiez is a very sympathetic observer to this cause of modernity and the roots of things.

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Boulez on Music Today

Boulez on Music Today
Pierre Boulez
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0674080068

Customer Reviews:

Boulez on Music Today.......2001-02-05

This must be the most faithful representation of Boulez' thinking processes but is very hard to come to terms with due to much use of now defunct 1950's terminology and the abstract nature of his theoretical approach. However it is a must for anyone with a keen interest in post-war serialism and remains one of the most important treatises in the theoretical archives. It must come back into print!

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