The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez
Writings and Compositions

A fresh look at the musical universe of arguably one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century.

Jonathan Goldman (Author)

9780521514903, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 February 2011

270 pages, 65 b/w illus. 75 music examples
24.4 x 17 x 1.6 cm, 0.63 kg

'The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez … is chock-full of examples … There are also necessarily ample quotations from Boulez'[s] writings. It's produced to Cambridge University Press's usual high standards and can be recommended for anyone even vaguely interested in modern music … The job Goldman sets out to do he succeeds at credibly and impressively.' Mark Sealey, Classical Net (classical.net)

Pierre Boulez is arguably the most influential composer of the second half of the twentieth century. Here, Jonathan Goldman provides a fresh appraisal of the composer's music, demonstrating how understanding the evolution of Boulez's ideas on musical form is an important step towards evaluating his musical thought generally. The theme of form arising from a grammar of oppositions - the legacy of structuralism - serves as a common thread in Boulez's output, and testifies to the constancy of Boulez's thought over and above his several notable aesthetic and stylistic changes. This book lends a voice to the musical works by using the writings - particularly the mostly untranslated collected Collège de France lectures (1976–95) - to comment on them. It also uses five musical works from the post-1975 period to exemplify concepts developed in Boulez's writings, presenting a vivid portrait of Boulez's extremely varied production.

1. Introduction
Part I. Form as Opposition in the Writings of Pierre Boulez: 2. Writings from the first period: serialist doctrine, the open work, and strategies of rhetorical displacement
3. A portrait of Webern, a self-portrait of Boulez
4. Form, thematicism and perceptual categories in the writings from the 1970s to the present
Part II. Form as Opposition in Selected Works by Pierre Boulez: 5. Introduction to Part II: analysis by, of, in and according to Boulez
6. Rituel and the architecture of antiphony
7. Dérive 1 and harmonic control
8. Mémoriale and polar mechanics
9. Anthèmes and virtual thematics
10. Incises and the play of recognition and surprise
11. Boulezian form in theory and practice
Writings by Boulez
Chronological list of works and bibliography of writings classified by work
Selected recordings of works studied.

Subject Areas: 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6], Music reviews & criticism [AVC]