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Pierre Boulez, to paraphrase Walt Whitman, contained multitudes. As an avowed iconoclast, he held controversial opinions about some of the most beloved composers of the classical canon.\u00a0As a conductor\u2014including as New York Philharmonic Music Director, 1971\u201377\u2014he elevated the presence of early-20th-century modernists in the concert repertoire. As a composer, he was a leading figure of the avant-garde. As an innovator, he created IRCAM (Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique \/ musique), the Paris-based institute dedicated to research in cutting-edge and electro-acoustical art music, to foster experimentation in composition. As a visionary educator, he founded the prestigious Lucerne Festival Academy, helping to foster the next generation of music-makers.<\/p>\n
This month Esa-Pekka Salonen \u2014 one of today\u2019s preeminent composers and conductors, who was recently named the Los Angeles Philharmonic\u2019s Creative Director (beginning in the 2026\u201327 season), and the Philharmonie de Paris\u2019s Creativity and Innovation Chair and the Orchestre de Paris\u2019s Principal Conductor (both beginning in 2027\u201328) \u2014 is on the Philharmonic podium for back-to-back programs spotlighting Boulez\u2019s music, part of a yearlong celebration of the late French master\u2019s centennial.\u00a0As a student at Helsinki\u2019s Sibelius Academy, Salonen idolized Boulez. Years later the two struck up a friendship that would last until Boulez\u2019s death in 2016. The month before his appearances with the Orchestra, Salonen reflected on the programs and on the man and his legacy.<\/p>\n
The October 3\u20135 concerts include several of Boulez\u2019s solo-piano Notations<\/em>, performed by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Boulez\u2019s former student. Originally composed in the 1940s as a series of 12 short pieces that call upon the twelve-tone techniques of the Second Viennese School, many of the Notations would assume a much larger dimension. As Salonen explains: \u201cDecades later Boulez takes one of these pieces and expands it for massive orchestra. It\u2019s amazing to see that the DNA of the piece doesn\u2019t change and is able to produce that kind of monster.\u201d The three performed in these concerts include No. 7<\/em>, which, says Salonen, is Boulez \u201cat his most Debussy-esque, full of very serious beauty and a lot of ripples on the surface of an otherwise calm sea.\u201d (It\u2019s no coincidence that three Debussy works also appear on the program; Boulez saw himself as occupying the same French tradition.) Boulez never completed his Notations project, but then, as Salonen recalls, \u201che never considered a work of his to be a closed unit. He felt the notion of a perfect, final work of art to be a very bourgeois, old-fashioned idea.\u201d<\/p>\nThe next week, October 9\u201311, Salonen conducts Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna, Boulez\u2019s tribute to his mentor and fellow composer. \u201cMaderna was like a father figure to Boulez,\u201d Salonen says, \u201cso when he passed away [in 1973] Boulez was devastated.\u201d Perhaps because of this grief, Salonen believes, Boulez distanced himself from the emotional center of the piece, resulting in an unusually minimal role for the conductor: \u201cIn Rituel the conductor is more like a master of ceremonies, a priest.\u201d Adding to this distance, Boulez divides the orchestra into eight groups, each playing independently of the others, with tempos set by percussionists rather than the conductor. Rounding out the program are works by Stravinsky and Bart\u00f3k \u2014 another deliberate choice. \u201cTo put Boulez in this context is very natural. That was his home, and he has now been added to that canon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consistent with Boulez\u2019s view that his works are never complete, these performances of Rituel feature a novel production element: dance created by acclaimed French choreographer Benjamin Millepied, performed by L.A. Dance Project, which the Philharmonic co-commissioned with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and l\u2019Orchestre de Paris. Salonen, who earlier this year conducted the project with these other two orchestras, declares: \u201cI am sure Boulez would have been delighted. He loved when someone was trying to figure out something new about his music, an interpretive angle or a new context.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salonen is quick to note that Boulez\u2019s multitudes \u2014 beyond composer, the role that takes center stage in the Philharmonic\u2019s concerts this month \u2014 are \u201chard to compartmentalize because they were always interlinked.\u201d He says that Boulez founded IRCAM, for instance, \u201cto create a new type of art form combining all the elements he found important: science, philosophy, and music itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Further, Salonen notes, while Boulez articulated strict aesthetic ideas, as a friend he was \u201cfriendly, not arrogant, and quite funny,\u201d a man whose opinions softened over time. \u201cTowards the end of his life he became a lot more open and less categorical, more curious,\u201d Salonen remembers. \u201cHe once told me over dinner of having heard Barenboim conduct a Brahms symphony. Knowing that Boulez had been quite dismissive of Brahms earlier in life, I asked, \u2018How was the Brahms?\u2019 He said, \u2018It was quite wonderful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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