À Pierre
The French composer and conductor, born in 1925, was one of the most important voices of the musical avant-garde in the second half of the 20th century.
Celebrating Pierre Boulez‘ 100th birthday.
Only when Pierre Boulez died early in 2016, the musical 20th century had truly ended: the Frenchman can be considered its most important, influential figure – as a trailblazer, initiator and organizer perhaps even more than as a composer and conductor. In the late stage of his career, Boulez returned to the Salzburg Festival regularly between 1992 and 2011 – a wise, experienced and careful advocate for his own scores and those by others. At that point, the fact had basically been forgotten that he had begun as an enfant terrible: a brilliant mind with a sharp tongue, and an unconditional, relentless advocate of innovation.
In his music, Pierre Boulez always strove to combine sense and sensibility – with fascinating results, which have lost none of their intimidating technical challenges nor their mesmerizing, colourful expressivity, even 100 years after the composer’s birth. A perfectionist, he kept polishing his works until he was satisfied with the results, or he continued to illuminate the same musical material in different works.
“À Pierre” is the title of the concert series which the Salzburg Festival dedicates to this luminary, and for which it has assembled outstanding forces – including Le Balcon under Maxime Pascal (Aug. 19) and Sylvain Cambreling with the extended Klangforum Wien (Aug. 23). The series takes its name, with its intimate sound, from a piece by Luigi Nono, an old friend and companion and also a sparring partner of Boulez: A Pierre. Dell’azzurro silenzio, inquietum – 60 measures for his 60th birthday in 1985, purposefully constructed as a confusing game, in which even old hands of New Music have to endure being tricked again and again. Everything that is played returns in two live-electronics loops of 12 and 24 seconds’ delay within the space, until the ear can no longer distinguish the layers. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Boulez’ other avant-garde comrade, also wrote a piece for his 60th birthday: Klavierstück XIV. At the time, it was premiered by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who now offers a memorable double bill, showing how Boulez emerged from the French tradition of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel just as much as from the studio of his direct teacher Olivier Messiaen – and, late at night, also from Johann Sebastian Bach himself (Aug. 22). The clarinettist Jörg Widmann will enter into the Dialogue de l’ombre double; the pianist Tamara Stefanovich performs the hefty Piano Sonata No. 2 and, together with her duo partner Nenad Lečić, juxtaposes it with Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky (Aug. 20). A befitting homage to a great, indefatigable artist: “For Pierre. From blue silence, restless”.
Walter Weidringer
First published in the Festival insert of Salzburger Nachrichten