LA Phil aims to sell 3 nights of Boulez
OrchestrasNext year markss the centenary of the ultra-modernist’s birth and E-P Salonen is putting on a show in LA,
Here’s the prog:
Thursday, May 8, at 8:00 PM
Saturday, May 10, at 8:00 PM
Sunday, May 11, at 2:00 PM
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
L.A. Dance Project
Benjamin Millepied, choreographer
BOULEZ Notations IV, for solo piano
Notations IV, for orchestra
Notations VII, for solo piano
Notations VII, for orchestra
Notations II, for solo piano
Notations II, for orchestra
BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3 in E Major
Intermission
DEBUSSY La mer
BOULEZ Rituel (with L.A. Dance Project)
Salonen says, ‘It can be complex without ever losing its clarity, it can be aggressive or delicate, hypnotic or kaleidoscopically flickering, ritualistic or virtuosic. But most importantly, it is often hauntingly beautiful.’
Boulez’s first and last conducting appearances in the US were both in LA. The first was on March 18 1957, with the Monday Evening Concert. He conducted the US premiere of Le Marteau sans maître. Stravinsky was there. The last was on March 29 2011, in a memorial concert for his friend Ernest Fleischmann at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. He conducted the LA Phil in his Sur Incises. The ensemble Boulez founded, Ensemble intercontemporain, also made its debut in LA in 1986. In addition to regular appearances with the LA Phil from 1980s to the early 2000s, Boulez served as the music director for the nearby Ojai Festival seven times between 1967 and 2003. All of this is to say Boulez had a long and fruitful collaboration with the various musical institutions and personalities in LA and it is only right that the LA Phil devotes a concert this season to his music for his centenary.
Correction: Ensemble intercontemporain also made its *US debut in LA in 1986
Robert Craft conducted the American premiere of Boulez’ Polyphonic X in LA way back in 1952.
I want to hear from John Borstlap on this.
I don’t. He writes paragraphs and paragraphs on this site and genuinely believes that other people care.
A favourite is when he uses obituary articles to criticise that person’s music.
You should pay more attention, so that you may add a bit to the level of your education. You will see, it really helps understanding music.
John, you literally wrote your own Wikipedia article because nobody else made one for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Fodya&target=Fodya&offset=&limit=500
Hilarious he wrote his own Wikipedia article but not surprising.
His insufferable behaviour on this website is clear. Remember what he wrote after the death of David Lumsdaine a few months ago?
https://slippedisc.com/2024/01/death-of-uk-australian-composer-92/
Not only was it grossly offensive, it was completely wrong because Borstlap had not done even the most basic of checks before he went to attack a man who just died.
That is nonsense.
How is it nonsense John? Your comments are right there in the article after David’s death… Don’t treat us as stupid.
The nonsense was about the wiki page. And if I wrote something ignoring someone’s passing, that was because the subject was in itself worth a comment. I don’t think that if someone dies, suddenly all subjects change in nature. But I admit I may have been thoughtless about the human side of things, which is quite natural given the nature of so many ignorant comments on this site.
And all in all, I sincerely want to express my regret if I have offended anyone unintentionally.
The objection is that you offended someone intentionally.
John Bortslap. Never has a man who has achieved so little in a career dedicated so much energy to criticising more successful people.
Burp from the usual type of ignorati.
I know, it is all very difficult… keep trying!
He actually has achieved something, like actual performances and recordings, and I find that baffling. Getting your pieces programmed by musicians requires a lot of hustling with normal human social skills. It’s hard to imagine the insufferable commentator of SD (and numerous other classical-music venues on the internet with a comment box) not being equally insufferable in real life.
I can only agree….. Imagine having to work for someone like that!
Sally
Now my dear Christopher…… how did you get the idea that someone like me would lack normal human social skills? Were you so deeply offended by my professional, and often educational bits of information, freely offered to any music lover? Was some of the information so deeply offensive to your self-image? If that was so insufferable, why not come-up with something better, maybe some comment with actual content? And then, I never write any comment on any other music website than SD, for the simple reason it amuses me, and I find Norman’s idea of democratically opening the doors to ANY people who think they are a classical music lover, admirable. In this way we, the professionals, get a glimpse of what kind of ideas may circle among audiences, apart from the rare listener who comes-up after a performance not to thank the musician but to inform him/her how awful the experience was and how glad he/she was it was all over.
To get commissions and premieres on a high level in the current climate of the classical music world, and getting your books published, is only possible if you are good, and having both professional and social skills. So, I can reassure you that you have nothing to worry about…. Instead of getting worked-up, I advise you to buy my books, they are really very instructive.
He has locked himself up in the library and I hear grumbling sounds and the click of the opening and closing of the liquor cabinet.
Sally
Sally, please don’t let your boss post anything before he is sober.
Yes, but what about Borstlap; we’re not just talking about Boulez now!!!
…stimulant/difficile? Hors de question! (This “selection” at least…)
I might go down to L.A. to hear and see this.
Don’t bother. Just go and sit next to a building site for a couple of hours.
There’s hardly any of Boulez’s music in that programme, notwithstanding your facile quip.
Half of the program is of great music, the other half Boulez.
Contemporary music like that of Boulez does resemble automation and the sounds of engineering; more sound design and Foley Artist than composer.
I’d go if there were some young women in Hawaiian garb to look at. Otherwise, thanks, but no thanks.
I’m going! I always wanted to hear al these notations live. Finally a composer who honestly admits his piece is, in fact, something that is notated! I also make notes regularly when I can’t get through a spelling problem and then I always arrive at the best option. Boulez does that in sound!
Sally
Pretty feeble. I like the Notations but they are not exactly major works in the Boulez pantheon.
They are also doing Rituel in the second half.
People who like Boulez’ pieces and think he is a ‘great composer’, have no idea what he stood for and what his works mean. They cannot be taken seriously. It’s not audiences who long to hear his works, it’s the programmers who think it’s ‘important’ and try to make audiences of classical music love something that never was meant to be loved, at least not as music.
If in any doubt, just read what he said himself:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pierre-Boulez-Orientations-Collected-Writings/dp/0571143474
What happens when Boulez’s current surviving generation of accolades die?
Boulez may get a centennial, he won’t get a bi-centennial.
Already, Barenboim’s absence from the stage means the absence of Boulez in Berlin. And Chicago and Cleveland, where Boulez reigned for a while, nothing there either.
San Francisco should count its lucky stars, that progam Salonen is inflicting on LA, he was going to inflict on SF had he stayed.
How on earth can we know what will be listened to in 100 years. Maybe people will love the music of Boulez in 100 years…or it might be forgotten.
This program should not be a hard sell. It is not what I would call “hardcore” Boulez. That, and the fact that it will be accompanied by choreography, will make the experience actually more visual than anything, and therefore much more accessible. Pierre-Laurent Aimard is definitely one of the very best Boulez interpreters in the world — he has integrated this music to such a degree that the result is a form of mastery of a separate caliber altogether from even the most accomplished of performers, and you can hear this in his playing. He understands this music as only a handful of musicians in the entire world can. Not that I’m a huge fan of Boulez’s music, but this is something I would actually attend if I lived in the area. Rituel is a very accessible work as well. If they had been more daring, they could have programmed Eclat/Multiples or …explosante-fixe…, but I guess they are risk-averse — as most US companies tend to be, which is why you will find truly adventurous programming only in Europe, where of course national subsidies allow for companies not to have to worry about financials as much.
It’s not being risk-averse so much as exercising some common sense. This is the type of music that drove listeners away from concert halls for decades, and from which modern composers are still trying to disassociate themselves with. Why bring it back now? It’s the same reason why Schoenberg’s 150th was barely celebrated this year. Yes, it might be theoretically interesting and engaging music, and a period piece of sorts, but it’s proven box office poison.
Concert music cannot exist as an isolated exercise, it is part of the triangle of musical culture: composer – performer – audience. With the critic and musicologist standing politely at the side and trying to make sense of it all in terms of language. This does not mean the box office decides all, but that the audience is part of the whole. It also does not mean that composers have to write what audiences like, but that they realize that the whole triangle rests upon something like a common musical communication structure: a ‘common practice’, without which music cannot come across. Another word for this basic structure is ‘tradition’ which is often entirely misunderstood as a narrow collection of rules. Modernism relocated artistic interest into the musical language itself, in an effort to get rid of concepts like ‘expression’, which was seen as outdated romanticism. The rest is history.
Lots of Schoenberg’s music is played regularly in concerts. It is actually quite mainstream.
Here is Eclat/Multiples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ggRDq8SWnw&t=102s
For the innocent music lovers: what is it? What does it ‘say’? What are your associations, in a psychological sense?
And for the (very few) musicians occasionally visiting this site: what does the score wants to convey?
It has nothing to do with music as an art form, it is sonic art, and related to environments like La Défense, the progressive, modern quarter that stands as a threat at the end of the Champs Elysées.
https://www.marmomac.com/en/the-arch-de-la-defense-in-paris-an-imponent-modern-building-made-of-carrara-marble/
It all forms part of ‘The Bave New World’ which has done away with humanism, the artistic spirit of the past, and narrows itself to pure matter and pure sound – because there is nothing else left.
Lets face it : as a composer Boulez is worthless.
Duration-wise, the program is between 1/3 and 1/2 Boulez, but then there could be talking, and certainly time needed to reset the stage after La Mer. The dancing might add value or might just be a distraction. I’d definitely go if I lived there.
Bring your sleeping bag and a pill!
Why do certain creative forms in music, art or literature have to be so esoteric or inscrutable in order to be rated as relevant or deserving of praise?
Yea, okay, everyone has different tastes. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Or tedious is just tedious.
This is one of my most-anticipated LAPhil programs this season. Piano Boulez is my favorite Boulez. Perhaps I’ll go to more than one of the performances now that you mention it.
But there are no parallel fifths to be heard, in contrary.
John Borstlap: “Here is Eclat/Multiples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ggRDq8SWnw&t=102s
For the innocent music lovers: what is it? What does it ‘say’? What are your associations, in a psychological sense?”
———–
A lot of newer work in the so-called classical genre is written by composers who must want to do scores for horror-paranormal-type movies:
https://youtu.be/gwGfTn0CQcA?si=kpfShQMOnZJz0BJQ
https://youtu.be/71y5BnQG8Ik?si=N5QAWRQhpDUbINAO
The Seattle Symphony programmed a Boulez string piece (“Livre pour cordes”) as the opening piece on the opening concert of the season. One can hardly imagine a less festive overture. Dereliction of duty. Whoever approved that decision should be fired.