Boulez, Pierre

Boulez, Pierre (pyĕr blĕz`), 1925–, French composer and conductor. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Olivier Messiaen (1944–45) and studied twelve-tone technique with René Leibowitz (1946). Boulez has been a leader of the avant-garde. In his compositions he has applied the techniques of serial music not only to pitch, but also to duration (rhythm), dynamics, and attack.

Among his compositions are Le Soleil des eaux (1948), for voice and orchestra; "Structures," Book 1 and Book 2 (1952, 1961), for two pianos; Le Marteau sans maître (1954), for voice and chamber ensemble; Pli selon pli (1957–62,) for voice and orchestra: the Piano Sonata No. 3 (1957, unfinished), in which aleatory processes are explored (see aleatory music); and Éclat (1965), for 15-piece chamber orchestra. His later work includes Memoriales (1973–75), Dérive I (1984), and Dérive II (1988). Since the early 1960s many of his works have been revisions of earlier compositions.

Boulez was director of music for Jean-Louis Barrault's theater in Paris, and there he founded the Concerts Marigny and the Domaine Musical to present avant-garde works. He has conducted throughout the world and has published several works in French. He was music director and conductor (1971–77) of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra. He founded the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), part of the Beaubourg in Paris, serving as its director from its opening in 1977 until 1992. That year Boulez was appointed composer in residence at the Salzburg Festival.

In recent years he has devoted much time to the development of sophisticated electronic equipment for the production, generation, and modification of musical sound. This work is exemplified by his ongoing composition Répons, for orchestra, ensembles, and electronic devices. He has continued to conduct a modernist repertoire of his own and other 20th-century works, leading several orchestras, notably his own Ensemble InterContemporain and the London Symphony Orchestra. Boulez has also been involved with the design of a new performance space and media center at the Cité de La Musique in Paris.

Bibliography

See his Boulez on Music Today (tr. 1971), Relevés d'Apprenti (tr. 1968), and his correspondence with John Cage, ed. by R. Samuels (1993); biography by D. Jameaux (1990); studies by A. Goléa (1958) and P. Griffiths (1978).

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Boulez, Pierre

(born March 26, 1925, Montbrison, France) French composer and conductor. Originally a student of mathematics, he later studied with the composer and organist Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory. Inspired by the works of Anton Webern, in the 1950s he began to experiment with total serialism; his serialist music is marked by a sensitivity to the nuances of instrumental texture and colour. In 1954 he founded a series of avant-garde concerts, the Domaine Musicale. His important works include Structures I and II (1952, 1961), Le Marteau sans maître (1957), Pli selon pli (1962), “…explosante-fixe…” (1972–93), and three piano sonatas. By the 1960s he had gained an international reputation not only as a composer but also as a conductor, particularly of the 20th-century repertoire. He was chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1971–74) and the New York Philharmonic (1971–78) and guest conductor of symphonies and opera companies around the world. In 1974 he founded the French national experimental studio IRCAM. With his greatly varied activities, including his often iconoclastic writings, he was the principal figure of the postwar international musical avant-garde.