Orientations: Collected Writings, Volume 0

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Harvard University Press, 1990 - Music - 541 pages

Pierre Boulez is one of the most influential--and controversial--figures in the world of contemporary music. As composer, conductor, and critic, his challenging views of modern developments are lent a special authority by his high standing as an interpreter of classic composers. Orientations will enhance his reputation as a lucid expositor of the modern composer's world.

When writing about composing and analysis Boulez forges a new way of thinking about music. He is immensely illuminating about his own compositions. He offers special insight on composers with whom he has been particularly associated as a conductor--including Berlioz, Debussy, Wagner, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Messiaen. And he writes about performance and orchestras, tackling the question of how to make new music more familiar for the concert-goer. This rich and wide-ranging volume is truly a special resource for everyone wanting to learn more about twentieth-century music.

 

Contents

Translators Note
9
Aesthetics and the Fetishists
31
The Spectacles Worn by Reason?
44
Putting the Phantoms to Flight
63
Time Notation and Coding
84
Form
90
Towards a Conclusion
97
Seeing and Knowing
106
Das klagende Lied
304
Reflections on Pelléas et Mélisande
306
Orchestral Works
318
Chien flasque
323
Schoenberg the Unloved?
325
Speaking Playing Singing
330
Kandinsky and Schoenberg
344
Music for strings percussion and celesta
346

Frenzy and Organization
129
Sonate que me veuxtu
143
Constructing an Improvisation
155
Pli selon pli
174
Sound Word Synthesis
177
Poetry Centre and Absence Music
183
An Interview with Dominique Jameux
199
Exemplars
203
Tell Me
205
Berlioz and the Realm of the Imaginary
212
Symphonie fantastique and Lélio
220
The Man and the Works
223
R is Working
231
The First Encounter
237
Here Space Becomes Time
240
Approaches to Parsifal
245
The Ring
260
A Performers Notebook
278
Why Biography?
292
Our Contemporary
295
Style or Idea? In Praise of Amnesia
349
The Firebird
360
The Rite of Spring
362
The StravinskyWebern Conjunction
364
Hyperprisme Octandre Intégrales
370
The Chamber Concerto
372
Lulu
380
Olivier Messiaen
404
A Lost Paradise?
421
The Domaine musical
427
Ten Years On
434
Point of Departure
441
The Bauhaus Model
464
Arousing Interest in New Music
471
Whats New?
477
Technology and the Composer
486
Tributes
495
Hans Rosbaud
513
Index
529
Copyright

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About the author (1990)

As a child, Pierre Boulez sang in his church choir. His sister taught him to play the piano at an early age. He received additional training in music from private teachers. Despite his musical aptitude, his parents directed him toward a career in engineering; however, his interest and talent in music eventually won out. After he graduated from the Paris Conservatory in 1945, Boulez continued to study with Olivier Messiaen, one of his teachers at the conservatory. That same year, Boulez completed his first composition, Three Psalmodies, for piano, which exhibits an influence of Messiaen's intricate rhythms. Boulez believed that twentieth-century composers were meant to create a new musical language free from romantic associations. The 12-tone system of Arnold Schoenberg dominated his writing and thinking. In 1946 he wrote a sonata for piano and a sonata for two pianos that used a strict 12-tone row. Although the 12-tone system greatly influenced Boulez's compositions, he took his music one step further. In 1948 Boulez wrote a second piano sonata that broke the bounds of the 12-tone system. Boulez aimed for the application of the 12-tone technique not only to pitch, as had been previously done, but also to durations, dynamics, and articulation. During the 1950s Boulez continued to experiment with music and sounds, incorporating concrete music. Polyphonie x Polyphonie x, for 18 instruments (1951), exemplifies this technique. In later years, Boulez also experimented with rearranging the stage of the traditional symphony orchestra. In 1966 Boulez again became the center of controversy when he announced he was severing all connections with the French government and disassociating himself from all its music organizations.

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