Search - Pierre Boulez, Swf So, Rosbaud :: Boulez: Orchestral Works & Chamber Music

Not just a curiosity...

09/12/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The items on this disc are all recorded from their world premieres during the 50s and early 60s. Most have only rarely been heard since. "Polyphonie X" and "Poésie pour pouvoir," in fact, were quickly withdrawn from Boulez' catalog. As such, this disc should be of immediate import to die-hard Boulez fans simply for its historical value.But there is more to this recording than just that. There is, after all, music to be heard (lest we forget). "Polyphonie X" (1950-51) is the earliest of the works presented here. It represents Boulez' so-called "total serialism" at its most extreme, yet, in its quieter moments--if only there were more--it presages the lucidity of his subsequent music. The performance is clearly inadequate, and the recorded sound boxed-in, but what virtues the piece does have are able--if only just barely--to shine through. An important note: col legno has segmented "Polyphonie X" into three separate tracks, and the editors have unfortunately cut from the original tape--highly inappropriate for a live performance--to do so."Poésie pour pouvoir" (1958) was Boulez' earliest foray into working electronics into a concert setting. The tape part is interwoven with the orchestra. At first, they alternate; later on, they overlap (or, at least, try to). Despite the vintage 50s material on the tape, it comes off as more reserved in its resrvoir of sound than similar works by some of Boulez' contemporaries. What really impresses me, however, is the utterly *gorgeous* orchestral writing, akin to that in "Pli selon pli" but livelier and freer in form. If only the recorded sound weren't so limited in its ability to pick up on the detail. A revision for Ircam technology would be very much appreciated; this music simply cannot afford to waste away in this (so far) one and only performance."Tombeau" (1959) should already be familiar to Boulez fans. To them I point out that this is the original version, which consists roughly of the first four minutes and last three minutes of the version in "Pli selon pli." To the newbie--who, nevertheless, probably shouldn't be starting out with this recording--I point out that "Tombeau" is a slowly-building crescendo, one of the most beautiful works (IMO) in the entire orchestral repertory (which I hope it will soon join). The performance and recorded sound are much better than those for the prior works."Structures II" (1956-61) is perhaps the most-often heard of the works on this disc. The pianists--here Yvonne Loriod and Boulez himself--provide a vituosic display of impressionistic colors running up and down the two keyboards. In a unique twist, the aleatoric second chapter is presented in two alternate treatments.Given that there is something new (and good) to find in each of the works on this disc, Boulez fans the world over should be pulling out their credit cards to give thanks to col legno for putting it together."

Documentary value

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 06/16/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Book Two of "structures" is the reason to get this, Loriod and Pierre are remarkable together(They had toured with this repertoire for two pianos)and Loriod simply plays the hell out of this music, understands the young Pierre as no other and in some respects are good together although you can hear the date of the recording, the timbre is not as brilliant as if you had experienced this live. Book 2 is more a one-dimensional work,although loosely conceived compared to the deterministic strict serial Book One. Book Two has more texture to survey,not so concerned with how the pitches move and become transformed at every moment; lots of high filigree passages,continusouly running;i.e. thousand note cascades as the piano solo repertoire was to exploit as Finnissy, Sciarrino, Ferneyhoug, the complexity; the two pianos sound muffled, not too resonant. Book One was more straighforward, more transparent moments, more 12 tone faithful, Book 2 is overdetermined, lots of details in the scoring,to free up the interpretation with elliptical passages, indeterminate,something Boulez had learned from the Mallarme works and the Third Sonata. Pierre certainly had a deep affinity for the piano, anything he wrote was "touched" inspired with a resonant power combined simultaneously with a deep poetry,or suggestive of something else even the "surreal" crops up to the surface at times.Although it is difficult to argue along those lines in this highly abstract piece. But Book 2 has unrelenting moments,impenetrable really and you sense the post-electronic thinking of flipping a switch to turn on some autonomous dimension, there is hardly moments where for example the music "breathes" with slowing, diminutions of tempi, of durational lengths and you really cannot sort out the divisions where one pianist stops and the other continues. Loriod plays fairly impassioned, with a strong trumpet like tone,resonant whereas Boulez pulls back from the sound.



The other works, all of them simply have a documentary value. The:Polyphonic X: Boulez largely abandoned and recalled this work not satisfied with the results, and the instrumental writing is nowhere as interesting as the earlier "Livre for String Quartet" (later done for string orchestra)and the young Pierre simply did not have the same affinity or experience for writing for instruments as he later in life learned from conducting. A text tends to help his sensibility, his creativity to open the imagination; then things can happen as the Mallarme work and those settings after Rene Char. Boulez openly admits this in conversations which is why he succeeds much of the time, for he knows full well when he doesn't, something young and old composers can learn(or refuse to learn). As the "Poesie pour pouvoir" the electronics is largely uninteresting,it is mixed with the orchestra like a "milk-shake"; perhaps it was the cutting edge when prepared, but if you heard Stockhausen from the same period, or some years later it has far more sophistication,concept, depth and brilliance than this.The merger of both timbres(orchestra and electronics) simply doesn't work on a recording.But this is a genre Boulez certainly did not give up as his latter "repons" so powerfully does.

You need to experience this music, this CD live. The dedication to Furstenburg was I suspect commissioned, and again has documentary value with the Domaine Musicale the group that made history playing the entire repertoire of the Fifties avant-garde. The work has a nice transparent premise/ concept to it, all is clear"