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21. Escritura del Gesto; Conversaciones
 
22. Anhaltspunkte: Essays (German
$47.58
23. Leitlinien. Gedankengänge eines
 
24. THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA - STAGEBILL
25. L'Ecriture du geste
 
26. Orientations: Collected Writings
$17.76
27. Musikdenken heute 2 (Schott)
 
28. Boulez (Oxford Study of Composers)
 
29. Wagner
$100.00
30. Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship
 
$105.96
31. Boulez and Mallarme: A Study in
 
32. Tetralogies, Wagner, Boulez, Chereau:
$43.88
33. Dialogues with Boulez
$75.24
34. La transcription dans Boulez et
$26.75
35. To Boulez and Beyond
 
36. Boulez
$28.95
37. Pierre Boulez: Webster's Timeline
$24.93
38. Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM,
 
39. Pierre Boulez: A Symposium
$34.95
40. Le Marteau sans maitre

21. Escritura del Gesto; Conversaciones Con Cecile Gilly (Spanish Edition)
by Pierre Boulez
 Paperback: 176 Pages (2004-08)
list price: US$24.65
Isbn: 8474329590
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22. Anhaltspunkte: Essays (German Edition)
by Pierre Boulez
 Perfect Paperback: 414 Pages (1979)

Isbn: 3761806124
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23. Leitlinien. Gedankengänge eines Komponisten.
by Pierre Boulez
Hardcover: 450 Pages (2000-11-01)
-- used & new: US$47.58
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Asin: 3476018059
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24. THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA - STAGEBILL - MAY 6, 1999 1998-99 SEASON
by CHRISTOPH (MUSIC DIRECTOR) - PIERRE BOULEZ (CONDUCTOR) von DOHNANYI
 Paperback: Pages (1999)

Asin: B003YE0QYE
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25. L'Ecriture du geste
by Pierre Boulez
Paperback: 169 Pages (2002-11-05)

Isbn: 2267016443
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26. Orientations: Collected Writings
by Pierre; Cooper, Martin (trans.) Boulez
 Paperback: Pages (1986)

Asin: B003ORPO8Y
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27. Musikdenken heute 2 (Schott)
Paperback: 80 Pages (1985-04-01)
list price: US$27.95 -- used & new: US$17.76
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Asin: 3795715636
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German text.

... Read more


28. Boulez (Oxford Study of Composers)
by Paul Griffiths
 Paperback: 64 Pages (1979-04-26)
list price: US$14.95
Isbn: 0193154420
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars
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Customer Reviews (1)

4-0 out of 5 stars Only goes up to the late 70s, but a suprisingly good intro in a concise format
Paul Griffith's overview of Boulez's music, an entry in the Oxford Studies of Composers series, covers the great French composer's work up to 1978. Though only 60 pages on, it packs in a lot of musicological analysis and lots of cool quotations from scores.

The book is divided into five chapters, covering Boulez's early work, the era of total serialization, "Le Marteau sans maitre", his chance works, and finally "works in progress." I found the fourth chapter (titled "Alea") the most eye-expanding, as it elucidates the serial writing of "Constellation"/"Constellation-Miroir" and "Pli selon pli". The works then in progress discussed in the last chapter include "Messagequisse", "Rituel", "...explosante-fixe...", and "Eclat"/"Eclat-Multiples".

It's a pity that the book has not been updated to cover Boulez's big comeback in the late 1980s, when "Repons" was completed and "...explosante-fixe..." dramatically reworked. The book's age shows in its discounting of "Notations"; the author could hardly be aware that Boulez would return to this early music to orchestrate it. Still, the work is useful for those interested in Boulez's early music. Also check out Jarmeux's biography-cum-analysis published by Oxford in 1991. ... Read more


29. Wagner
by Herbert Barth, etc.
 Paperback: 256 Pages (1986-02-24)

Isbn: 0500273995
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30. Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship
by Pierre Boulez
Hardcover: 352 Pages (1991-09-26)
list price: US$125.00 -- used & new: US$100.00
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Asin: 0193112108
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Editorial Review

Product Description
In these essays, the leading French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez explains many of his most significant ideas about music. The essays are divided into four parts, the first three concerned with common preoccupations (aesthetic, technical, and polemical) and the last a collection of entries intended for a music encyclopedia. Boulez offers penetrating and provocative analyses of the music of the major figures of twentieth-century music including Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Debussy, Messiaen, and Ravel.His illuminating comments arise from intimate knowledge of the music, and the resulting collection is an essential document of post-war modern music. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

5-0 out of 5 stars documentary in value:essaysof a young innovator
While riding on the Paris Metro in the early Forties,during the War, a young Frenchmen had turned to his mentor and exclaimed that culture was at an end point , who will reorganize music, "You will,Pierre", saidMessiaen.This collections of essays has now fascinating documentaryvalue,for Boulez has moved on we all know, to larger realms in bothuniverses of conducting and composition, and unpretenciously has kept thevision Messiaen had of his young student. Yet Boulez's aesthetic has notundergone a metamorphosis that is unrelated not totally unrecognizable fromhis youth.And all these essays are reflections and position papers,analyses,technical points like Sprechgesang and encyclopedic like entries.All were a means toward a comprehension of the situation in music at theend of the Second World War.The analytical essay "Stravinskyremains" is perhaps the most valuable item here . This is a dissectionof his Rite of Spring, how the rhythm works like cells being placedtogether into mosaic-like patterns,creating textures,but truncating therhythmic identities. "To the farthest reach of the fertilecountry" is an essay here inspired by a quote from Paul Klee, who hasremained an enduring inspiration to Boulez to this day. This essay is onthe implications of electronic composition, which in the early Fiftiesrepresented a new universe of sound and its conception. It was alsodangerous, for how will it enter the realm of culture and creativity, howwill electronics interface with the expressive concerns of form andcontent, and sonic manipulation. Recall that Boulez in his youth was afiery activist for the cause of serial composition. Anyone who didn't follwthis cause was useless and unimportant.He, for instance called for allopera houses to be burned to the ground, and loathed the likes of Verdi orPuccini exclaiming the vulgarity of their music. He also led jeeringsections at concerts. But all this soon, to use his words, stopped,Boulezstopped barking like a dog outside. The infamous and misunderstood article"Schoenberg is Dead" is included here. Boulez never meant thistitle in a derogatory way, simply a ubiquitous use of the French phrase,the "king is dead", referring to the French Revolution. AllBoulez meant was indeed modest, that Schoenberg's conception of thedodecaphonic language simply didn't extend itself into all the parametersof music.This is true of form in particular, where Schoenberg hadretrogressed utilizing Baroque forms situated within atonal means. All ofthe grande auteurs that Boulez later conducted for the next thirty yearsare discussed in essay form: Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy,Stravinsky and Schoenberg. There is also an essay on "Alea", theindeterminate aleatoric idea which fascinated Boulezat this time theFifties, and triggered his lifelong interest in Mallarme. His Third PianoSonata was the focus of this concept of introducing performative freedomsinto a work, much like encountering the mobiles of Alexander Calder, wherefixed shapes rotates and interrelate in forever newer configurations.HereBoulez gives indications why he intends to embark on this creativeexcursion citing points in history without introducing much technicaldetail.The original of the work entitled "Notes of anApprenticeship" was published by Alfred A Knopf in 1968and has beenunavailable. ... Read more


31. Boulez and Mallarme: A Study in Poetic Influence
by Mary Breatnach
 Hardcover: 160 Pages (1996-04)
list price: US$110.00 -- used & new: US$105.96
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Asin: 1859281206
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This is a study of one of the most distinguished artistic encounters of our age. Through a study of an undisputed highpoint in post-war music, Boulez's "Pli Selon Pli", the author demonstrates the importance of this relationship in the context of contemporary European culture and argues that the originality and significance of the piece itself are inseparable, not only from the poetry, but, more particularly, from the literary thinking which inspired it. ... Read more


32. Tetralogies, Wagner, Boulez, Chereau: Essai sur l'infidelite (Collection Musique/Passe/Present) (French Edition)
by Jean Jacques Nattiez
 Paperback: 286 Pages (1983)

Isbn: 2267003236
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33. Dialogues with Boulez
by Rocco Di Pietro
Hardcover: 128 Pages (2000-12-26)
list price: US$46.20 -- used & new: US$43.88
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Asin: 0810839326
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Editorial Review

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Pierre Boulez is arguably classical music's most important living composer and conductor. His most famous compositions, the widely-performed "Le marteau sans ma"tre, Pli selon pli," and "Le visage nuptial", have earned him the reputation as a musical provocateur, while his current role as principle guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has established him as patriarch and elder statesman of today's classical music scene. In this book of dialogues with author Rocco Di Pietro, Mr. Boulez reveals delightful ideas and insights on composition and imagination, listening and teaching, and muses on the nature of youth, communication, and fame. Di Pietro's unusual writing format allows the reader to more easily understand the complexities of Boulez's thinking. A firm believer in accidents, he reveals how his career took shape through a combination of coincidence and talent. Essential for recent Boulez converts and long time devotees alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

5-0 out of 5 stars modest recent Boulez
Although quite slim,this set of interviews is modest in proportions,yet it's always fascinating to read Maitre Boulez and his thoughts on composition. His "Jalons"a series of lectures he gave at the College de France from 1980 to 1990 available only in French, still reamins the definitive place for Boulez's thoughts on creativity. But here he talks of his recent works, 'Sur Incises', 'Anthemes' in some detail,as well as his conducting experiences in Chicago, doing Mahler. Also references to early thoughts, indeterminacy,aleatoric gesturing,and John Cage. And Di Pietro is quite versed in fashionable intellectual trajectories as the pessimism of Jean Baudrillard who Boulez comments on. The only disappointment here is there wasn't more. I read this in one sitting,one single train ride,you may as well. ... Read more


34. La transcription dans Boulez et Murail: De l'oreille a l'eveil (Collection Univers musical) (French Edition)
by Eric Humbertclaude
Paperback: 93 Pages (1999)
-- used & new: US$75.24
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Asin: 273848042X
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35. To Boulez and Beyond
by Joan Peyser
Paperback: 388 Pages (2007-11-09)
list price: US$44.00 -- used & new: US$26.75
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Asin: 0810858770
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To Boulez and Beyond describes music in the 20th century through the lives and works of its creators, from Mahler and Wagner through the Second Viennese School, from Var_se to Boulez and his colleagues. ... Read more


36. Boulez
by Joan Peyser
 Hardcover: 303 Pages (1977-07-28)

Isbn: 0304299014
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Customer Reviews (1)

5-0 out of 5 stars the only biography you will ever find
This remains the only book on Boulez's life. He was not one to give-up personal details on his life, he said so to a reviewer arrongantly when he was newly appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic. Peyser hadaccess to rehearsals,dinners,lunches and insider trades and gossip, and allthat is here, but also we find Boulez at work, the conductor and composer,a rehearsal schedule in included here ;when he looked for an apartment oran eye doctor appointment. Peyser is not a creative person so the sorryside of the book is that it remains as an outsider looking in, for Boulez'screative secrets are not revealed simply from hanging around him as shedid. No you need to have studied the Boulez aesthetic, where it comes from,from the roots of modernity, Mallarme, Paul Klee, Schoenberg and recentlyFrancis Bacon.Those books do exist and excellent one by Dominic Jameux, andthere are a few on specific aspects of the Boulez aesthetic, (harmony LevKoblyakov, one on Mallarme,another on conducting,Jean Vermeil) I stillenjoy re-reading this work, Peyser knows how to tell a good story, how topick at details of the everyday, the excitement of creating and conversing. ... Read more


37. Pierre Boulez: Webster's Timeline History, 1919 - 2007
by Icon Group International
Paperback: 28 Pages (2009-06-06)
list price: US$28.95 -- used & new: US$28.95
(price subject to change: see help)
Asin: 0546892949
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Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Pierre Boulez," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Pierre Boulez in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Pierre Boulez when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Pierre Boulez, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. ... Read more


38. Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde
by Georgina Born
Paperback: 392 Pages (1995-09-08)
list price: US$37.95 -- used & new: US$24.93
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Asin: 0520202163
Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars
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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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

1-0 out of 5 stars Not a serious work - a terrible mess


Really rather a shame. Might have been quite an interesting work if it hadn't taken the by now utterly tired "it's an elitist institution of my god I hate it" track. Everyone knows that modernism is polemical and complex. This makes it extraordinarily interesting and exciting, but like every other form of modernism, its complexity opens it up to the rage of the slaves who scream the empty phrase "elitist" while failing to evaluate judicially the object under consideration (here a state funded institute for new music and musical research). One can only consider this work: a failure.

3-0 out of 5 stars Informative but constantly deprecates contemporary music
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.

2-0 out of 5 stars the 'Slamming' of the Avant Garde by the Next Regime
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...

5-0 out of 5 stars the avant-garde is no longer outside barking like a dog. . .
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 yetnot 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. ... Read more


39. Pierre Boulez: A Symposium
by William (ed.) GLOCK
 Paperback: 254 Pages (1986)

Isbn: 0306873125
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars
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Customer Reviews (2)

4-0 out of 5 stars A thoroughly enjoyable collection of essays, but poor music typesetting
PIERRE BOULEZ: A Symposium, edited by William Glock, is a mid-1980s collection of seven essays about the great French composer, conductor, and theorist. The work appeared too early to cover many of Boulez's recent exciting works like the two "Derive" pieces and "Sur Incises", and some of the essays were finished years before the 1986 publishing of the book, but for any Boulez fan there is a lot of interesting information here.

The collection opens with Peter Heyworth's "The first fifty years", a 40-page biography of the composer which originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1973. It was updated with a mere two new pages to cover Boulez's controversial appearance at Beyreuth in 1976 and the 1978 opening of IRCAM. While the biography is unobjectionable, it covers no ground that other portrayals of the composer have.

The next several essays are musicological. They abound in quotations from scores, and require some knowledge of music theory to appreciate. Gerald Bennet's "The early works" describes a number of pieces Boulez wrote while still at the conservatory, the great majority long since withdrawn from his catalogue. Here one can track Boulez's growth from a somewhat traditional student of Messiaen, to his discovery of Webern which changed everything, to the confidence of such pieces as "Le visage nuptial" and "Le soleil des eaux". Charles Rosen's following "The piano music" is a short description of the three piano sonatas, with especialy enlightening coverage of the hitherto-published movements of the third sonata. It is, however, a pity that Rosen doesn't write about that notable piano work of Boulez' youth, the 12 Notations.

"The convergence of two poetic systems" by Celestin Deliege is an argument at Boulez's compositional technique, especially where harmony is concerned, is highly influenced by the poetic stylings of Mallarme. It is a bold claim, and often convincing, but one might also argue that Boulez' found Mallarme's poetry so pleasing because he had already arrived at such an aesthetic philosophy himself. Susan Bradshaw's "The instrumental and vocal music", the longest of the essays here, was for me the most useful. It is a description of the theory behind all of Boulez's mature non-piano work up to the early version of "Repons". Many of the works described here, such as "...explosante-fixe..." and "Pli selon pli" have been subsequently revised and expanded, but the main points of Bradshaw's analysis still hold true.

Glock's "With Boulez at the BBC" is a short personal perspective of Boulez's tenure as conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, describing the strategy behind his programming and what he wanted to share with the London audiences. The last piece present is Johnathan Harvey's "IRCAM", a brief history and description of the French institute for musical and acoustic research founded by Boulez' initiative. While it can't compare with Georgina Born's book-length work RATIONALIZING CULTURE, it is still a useful piece and its favourable tone balances the scepticism and dislike of Boulez in Born's thesis.

One major complaint I have about the book is that the vast majority of musical examples are not properly engraved, but rather are written by hand with often illegible results. To make full use of the musicological essays, the reader might want to separately obtain the scores to the works discussed. Nonetheless, PIERRE BOULEZ: A Symposium is a work sure to delight fans of Boulez, and I learned a lot here.

4-0 out of 5 stars A thoroughly enjoyable collection of essays, but poor music typesetting
PIERRE BOULEZ: A Symposium, edited by William Glock, is a mid-1980s collection of seven essays about the great French composer, conductor, and theorist. The work appeared too early to cover many of Boulez's recent exciting works like the two "Derive" pieces and "Sur Incises", and some of the essays were finished years before the 1986 publishing of the book, but for any Boulez fan there is a lot of interesting information here.

The collection opens with Peter Heyworth's "The first fifty years", a 40-page biography of the composer which originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1973. It was updated with a mere two new pages to cover Boulez's controversial appearance at Beyreuth in 1976 and the 1978 opening of IRCAM. While the biography is unobjectionable, it covers no ground that other portrayals of the composer have.

The next several essays are musicological. They abound in quotations from scores, and require some knowledge of music theory to appreciate. Gerald Bennet's "The early works" describes a number of pieces Boulez wrote while still at the conservatory, the great majority long since withdrawn from his catalogue. Here one can track Boulez's growth from a somewhat traditional student of Messiaen, to his discovery of Webern which changed everything, to the confidence of such pieces as "Le visage nuptial" and "Le soleil des eaux". Charles Rosen's following "The piano music" is a short description of the three piano sonatas, with especialy enlightening coverage of the hitherto-published movements of the third sonata. It is, however, a pity that Rosen doesn't write about that notable piano work of Boulez' youth, the 12 Notations.

"The convergence of two poetic systems" by Celestin Deliege is an argument at Boulez's compositional technique, especially where harmony is concerned, is highly influenced by the poetic stylings of Mallarme. It is a bold claim, and often convincing, but one might also argue that Boulez' found Mallarme's poetry so pleasing because he had already arrived at such an aesthetic philosophy himself. Susan Bradshaw's "The instrumental and vocal music", the longest of the essays here, was for me the most useful. It is a description of the theory behind all of Boulez's mature non-piano work up to the early version of "Repons". Many of the works described here, such as "...explosante-fixe..." and "Pli selon pli" have been subsequently revised and expanded, but the main points of Bradshaw's analysis still hold true.

Glock's "With Boulez at the BBC" is a short personal perspective of Boulez's tenure as conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, describing the strategy behind his programming and what he wanted to share with the London audiences. The last piece present is Johnathan Harvey's "IRCAM", a brief history and description of the French institute for musical and acoustic research founded by Boulez' initiative. While it can't compare with Georgina Born's book-length work RATIONALIZING CULTURE, it is still a useful piece and its favourable tone balances the scepticism and dislike of Boulez in Born's thesis.

One major complaint I have about the book is that the vast majority of musical examples are not properly engraved, but rather are written by hand with often illegible results. To make full use of the musicological essays, the reader might want to separately obtain the scores to the works discussed. Nonetheless, PIERRE BOULEZ: A Symposium is a work sure to delight fans of Boulez, and I learned a lot here. ... Read more


40. Le Marteau sans maitre
by Pierre Boulez
Sheet music: 1 Pages (2009-08-14)
list price: US$34.95 -- used & new: US$34.95
(price subject to change: see help)
Asin: 3702466533
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Editorial Review

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Universal Edition introduces a new study score standardThese completely redesigned scores offer an unparalleled insight into the music of the last hundred years. Great care has been taken to select the best available content for this journey through music history, and every score has been edited according to the latest quality standards. The new study score series combines historic masterpieces with first-class editorial content, prefaces, and a highly legible, clean notation, in new large-format editions (24 cm x 17 cm), all in the trusted Universal Edition quality. Further titles will be added continuously to this collector s library of the musical history of the 20th and 21st century.The perfect companion to the music of the 20th and 21st century a must for every music lover. ... Read more


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