In memoriam Pierre Boulez

Sad, but not completely unexpected news yesterday of the death of Pierre Boulez.  He had been too ill to attend any of the 90th birthday celebrations last year and had not conducted for several years.

In the days when I was a student he was a rather terrifying figure because of his absolute disdain for all but a tiny fragment of the western musical tradition and the complexity of his theoretical writings. I am not sure I ever got through all of "Boulez on music today" which was required reading.  Recordings of his music itself were still quite rare and it was obvious that the performers were struggling to keep up with his demands.  Everything seemed hard edged and cold.  You could tell that there was some real creativity there, but it was hard to find anything to enjoy rather than admire.

Now with the benefit of what must be nearly 40 more years of musical experience Boulez's music does seem to be part of the tradition of Debussy and Ravel.  There is a sensuousness about much of it which was I suppose there all of the time, but a generation ago very few people could hear it.    But it is a sobering though that Le marteau sans maître (1953) is closer in time to La Mer (1905) than it is to us today.

I suppose that what is happening here is what has happened throughout musical history.  What seemed impossibly difficult a generation ago gradually becomes accepted and part of the normal musical experience.  You only have to look at reactions to late Beethoven, Wagner or Mahler to see this.  While I don't suppose that Boulez will ever become last night of the Proms material I think that we will see that he does retain a place in the repertory.  Boulez of course never did conduct the last night of the proms while he was musical director of the BBC symphony orchestra.  What a pity he didn't do it once - that would really have been something to savour.  He could be very charming and he might - might! - just have had the audience eating out of his hand.  We will never know.

I suspect that, just as Stravinsky has come to be seen as the dominant musical force of the first half of the 20th century, Boulez will come to be seen as his equivalent for the second half. It is hard to see anybody else who could command that place.