Pierre Boulez
(Conductors)
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
Pierre Boulez
(Conductors) Biography:
Born in 1925 Pierre Boulez can look back on nearly six decades of activity in making music an essential part of the contemporary world. His first compositions date back to the mid-1940s after he had emerged from his studies with Olivier Messiaen in Paris. Messiaen encouraged the development of his technical facility, his intense musicality and his curiosity about Asian and African as well as European music. Studies with René Leibowitz, a Schoenberg and Webern scholar, introduced him to twelve-note composition which he immediately adapted to his own purposes. His Second Piano Sonata (1947-48), a work of Beethovenian range and power, marked his creative coming of age. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw a reduction in the scale of Boulez’s works as the result of an exhaustive examination of the basic elements of music in an attempt to make rhythmic values, dynamics and nuances of touch obey serial principles. An example of this is the first section of his Structures I for two pianos (1951-52). With the knowledge gained he returned to a larger scale in the latter part of this work and in Le marteau sans maître for contralto and mixed sextet (1953-55) whose combination of attractiveness and stringency has made it a classic of modern music. A further expansion produced the brilliant Pli selon Pli (1957-62), a portrait of the poet Mallarmé in music for soprano and an orchestra rich in percussion. After this Boulez’s compositional output decreased partly due to the increase in his activities as a conductor. At first he specialised in conducting twentieth-century music, notably in his work with Domaine Musical an organisation he had founded in Paris. By the end of the 1960s, however, he had conducted Wagner in Bayreuth, Beethoven in London and Machaut in Los Angeles. In 1971 he was appointed Principal Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, posts he held until 1975 and 1977 respectively. In 1976 he conducted the ground-breaking centenary production by Patrice Chereau of Wagner’s The Ring of the Niebelungen. The few but important works from this period resulted from the experience he had gained from his contact with the symphony orchestra and his increasing involvement in the art of conducting: notably his Eclat/Multiples (begun in 1965 and, as yet, unfinished) and Rituel (1974-75). In the mid-1970s Boulez decided drastically to reduce his conducting commitments in order to concentrate on his work at IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic/Music which he founded at the request of President Georges Pompidou. There his contacts with computer technicians and a new group of musicians inspired the composition of Répons, followed by another electronic project, ...explosante-fixe... for Midi-flute, two solo-flutes, ensemble and electronics. Pierre Boulez left his position as Director of IRCAM at the end of 1991maintaining his ties with the institute, however, by accepting the title of Honorary Director. Since the early 1990s Boulez resumed conducting on a regular basis and has created a close relationship with several outstanding American and European orchestras. He conducted the inaugural concert of the Cité de la Musique at La Villette in Paris, a four orchestra Boulez-Festival in Tokyo, prestigious worldwide tours with the London Symphony Orchestra celebrating his 70th, 75th and 80th birthdays and new productions of Schoenberg's Moses and Aron with Peter Stein, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle with Pina Bausch, a De Falla-Stravinsky-Schönberg production staged by Klaus Michael Grüber. He returned to Bayreuth in 2004 and 2005 to conduct Parsifal in a staging by Christoph Schlingensief. 2007 saw his renewed and highly acclaimed collaboration with Patrice Chéreau in a staging of Janaceks' opera From the House of the Dead in Vienna, Amsterdam and Aix-en-Provence. After being the "Grand invité" of the Louvre Museum in November 2008, he is now Composer in Residence at the Mozartwoche in Salzburg. In May 2009, together with Daniel Barenboim, he took part in the performances of the complete symphonic works of Mahler at Carnegie Hall in New York. His 85th birthday year brings him together with, amongst others, the orchestras of Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. In 1992 Boulez signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and devoted a considerable amount of his time to the recording of important works of the 20th century. His recordings have won more than 25 Grammys as well as the European Gramophone, Echo and Deutscher Schallplatten-Awards. Boulez has continued his work as a composer writing Incises, sur Incises, Anthèmes 2, Notations VII and Dérive 2. He has assumed the Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall and is Conductor Emeritus of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Amongst the numerous prizes awarded to him and honorary doctorates conferred upon him are the Siemens Music Prize (Germany), Léonie Sonning Music Prize (Denmark), Praemium Imperiale and Kyoto Prize (Japan), Polar Music Prize (Sweden), Wolf Prize (Israel) and the Grawemeyer Award (USA). This biography is for website use only. For a full and updated biography please email info@ingpen.co.uk Contact Details: Territories: |
 |
