Pierre Boulez

Was born in Montbrison, southern France, in 1925. At first he divided his attention between music and mathematics. He sang in
a choir and took piano lessons. On leaving school in 1941, he attended a preparatory mathematics course in Lyon with a view to entering the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He decided, however, to pursue
a career in music and enrolled at the city1s Conservatory, where he studied composition with Olivier Messiaen, René Leibowitz and Andrée Vaurabourg, the wife of Arthur Honegger. In 1946 he was appointed musical director of the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault and, supported by the Compagnie, he initiated the ODomaine Musical1 series of concerts. The first performance of Le Marteau sans Maître at the iscm Festival in Baden-Baden in 1955 made him famous as a composer. He also began to be in considerable demand as a teacher of composition. In 1955, and for many years thereafter, he lectured at the Darmstadt Courses (his Sonata No.3 was premiered there in 1957). 1958 saw the premiere, in Hamburg, of his Deux Improvisations sur Mallarmé. In later years, he devoted much time to teaching and conducting. Between 1960 and 1963 he was professor of composition at the Musikakademie in Basel. In 1963 he was visiting lecturer at Harvard University. In 1966 he was entrusted with Parsifal at the Baureuth Festival and a year later became a guest conductor with the Cleveland Orchestra. In 1971­75 he was principal conductor of the bbc Symphony Orchestra and in 1971­77 also led the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1975 he founded Ensemble InterContemporaine. Two years later he established ircam and remained its director until 1991.
Boulez1s honours include the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (1979), the French National Award of Merit (1980), the Ring of Honour of the City of Vienna (1989), doctorates from the University of Frankfurt (1991) and Connecticut College (1998), the Theodor
W. Adorno Prize of the City of Frankfurt (1992), a Grammy in the category of classical contemporary music for Répons, (2002), as well as the Israeli Wolf Prize for the Arts (2000).
Boulez1s 75th birthday in 2000 was marked with a wide range of concerts featuring his music in major centres, including London, New York, Paris and Vienna. In 2001 Boulez inaugurated the Hungarian Year in France with a series of performances of Bartók1s works, with the participation of Maurizio Pollini, Gil Shaham and Ensemble InterContemporain. He also conducted workshops on his Le Marteau sans maître at New York1s Carnegie Hall. In 2002 he was composer-in-residence at Lucerne Festival, giving workshops for conductors and concerts with the bbc Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic and Ensemble InterContemporain.
Selected works: Le Marteau sans Maître for alto and six instrumets (1953­55); Piano Sonata No. 3 (1955­57); Pli selon pli - portrait de Mallarmé for soprano and orchestra (1958­62); Poésie pour pouvoir for mixed choir, chamber orchestra, large orchestra and electronic devices (1958, new version 1982­83); Figures­Doubles­Prismes for orchestra (1964); Éclat for orchestra (1965); Domaines for clarinet and 21 instruments (1968­69); ...Explosante-Fixe... for ensemble and live electronics (1972­74); Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna (1975); Messagesquisses for cello principale and six cellos (1976­77); Notations I­IV for orchestra (1978); Réponse for six soloists, chamber orchestra, computer sounds and live electronics (1981); Notations V­XII for orchestra (1984); Mémoriale (...explosante-fixe...Originel) for solo flute and chamber ensemble (1985); Dérive 2 for 11 performers (1992), Derive 2 for
11 instruments (1988/2001), Anthemes 1 for violin (1991­92), ...explosante-fixe... for flutes (midi), ensemble and live electronics (1991/93), Incises for piano (1994/2001), sur Incises for three pianos, three harps and three percussionists (1996/98), Anthemes 2 for violin and live electronics (1997).

Dérive 1
If Boulez had been a different kind of composer, he might have called this work Prelude and Fugue. But then it would have been a different work. Indeed this proportional, seven- or eight-minute miniature provides no basis for any clear identification with traditional models, even if we can see a distinct division into a first movement, with ornamented chords, and a second movement, led by the piano and full of contrapuntal invention. If the work recalls anything at all from the past, it is rather another composition by Boulez himself ­ Eclat, since there too we find ornamented static harmonies, with trills and unstable embellishments. The difference lies in the fact that the first part of Dérive proceeds at the same slow tempo through 26 bars, while the second part gradually reduces the tempo, until it returns to that of the opening. The characteristic suppleness of Boulez1s music is revealed here not through constant movement, but rather through an unexpected bandying of ideas in the instruments ­ in the flute and clarinet, the violin and cello, and the vibraphone and piano.
The works was dedicated to Sir William Glock on the occasion of his departure as director of the Bath Festival in 1984. A very personal dedication, then, since it was Glock in fact who engaged Boulez to conduct the bbc Symphony Orchestra, and who persuaded him to remain as its chief conductor for the next seven years. As usual with Boulez, the title is difficult to translate: in French, as opposed to English, the word retains its Latin connotations with drifting, being adrift. We are thus invited to listen, and perhaps to drift in the direction of new meanings.
Paul Griffiths
(Note from the programme book of the 1987 OWarsaw Autumn1 )