Pierre Boulez Rituel

PROGRAM NOTES by Phillip Huscher

Pierre Boulez Born March 26, 1925, Montbrison, France. Currently resides in Paris, France.

Rituel (In memoriam Bruno Maderna)

Boulez composed this work in 1974 and 1975, and conducted the first performance on April 2, 1975, in London. The score calls for three flutes and two alto flutes, three oboes and english horn, three clarinets, E- flat clarinet and bass clarinet, alto saxophone, four bassoons, six horns, four trumpets, four trombones, six violins, two violas, two cellos, and a percussion battery consisting of tablas, japanese bells, woodblocks, japanese woodblock, maracas, tambourine, sizzle cymbal, turkish cymbal, chinese cymbal, cow bells, snare drums (with and without snares), guiros, bongo, claves, maracas-tubes, triangles, hand drums, castanets, temple blocks, tom-toms, log drum, conga, gongs, and tam-tams. Performance time is approximately twenty- five minutes.

Bruno Maderna died on November 13, 1973. For many years he had been a close friend of Pierre Boulez (and a true friend of all those involved in new music activities) and a treasured colleague; like Boulez, he had made his mark both as a composer and as a conductor. “In fact, to get any real idea of what he was like as a person,” Boulez wrote at the time of his death, “the conductor and the composer must be taken together; for Maderna was a practical person, equally close to music whether he was performing or composing.” In 1974 Boulez began Rituel as a memorial piece in honor of Maderna. (In the catalog of his works, Rituel follows . . . explosante-fixe . . ., composed in 1971 as a homage to Stravinsky.) The score was completed and performed in 1975.

In Rituel, Boulez reseats the instruments of the orchestra to reflect the design of his music: placed in different positions all around the conductor (both on stage and throughout the hall) are seven distinct groups (ranging in size from one to seven players), each with its own percussionist, who also acts as the group’s conductor. One additional ensemble of fourteen brass players, supported by two percussionists, holds down center stage. The makeup of the groups is as follows:

oboe two clarinets three flutes four violins wind quintet (oboe, clarinet, saxophone, two bassoons) string sextet (two violins, two violas, two cellos) wind septet (alto flute, oboe, english horn, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons) brass ensemble (four trumpets, six horns, four trombones)

The formal plan of Rituel is a carefully organized arrangement of fifteen sections, alternating between two contrasting kinds of music—blocks of sustained chords and more fluid, quickly moving passages. The sections gradually increase in duration; the last is by far the longest, taking up more than one-third of the piece. In the first of the odd-numbered sections, there is one chord; in the next, two; and so on to seven chords. Similarly, the even-numbered sections grow in length, complexity, and in the number of performers involved.

The chordal sections—each introduced by a gong stroke and concluded with a unison E-flat—are synchronized by the conductor. In the even-numbered sections, however, the conductor only cues each group of instruments to begin playing; the groups then continue independently, so that each appears to be going its own way. (The percussionist attached to every group maintains the tempo for his or her players, but no one coordinates all the performers.) There is freedom and flexibility in these sections—the exact course of the music will be slightly different in each performance.

Of the first fourteen sections, no two involve exactly the same combination of performers. The seven even- numbered sections are played by anywhere from one to seven ensembles. All of the odd-numbered chordal sections are performed by the large brass band, joined, in each section, by whichever groups played in the previous section. In this way, the music gradually builds until all the performers finally join together near the middle of the piece. In the extended final (fifteenth) section, the process reverses itself, and one by one each of the groups, beginning with the smallest, stops playing. The two largest ensembles, of winds and brass, are left to intone the final chord and the last unison E-flat.

The number seven plays a central role in the organization of Rituel. Seven odd-numbered and seven even- numbered sections alternate before the large concluding paragraph; there are seven ensembles plus the brass group (of fourteen, or two times seven); seven gongs and seven tam-tams (positioned at the rear center of the stage) play an important role; a single seven-note chord permeates the score from the very opening. This rigidly schematic aspect of Rituel, however, is offset and complemented by the fluidity and freedom of the unconducted passages, and by the sheer sonorous beauty and eloquence of the music.

The formal arrangement of the score, with its solemn chordal refrains and the sound of tolling bells, recalls the traditions of funeral music. The incantatory quality of the piece suggests the dignity of familiar rituals. Here are the words with which Boulez prefaces the score:

Perpetual alternation:

Litany for an imaginary ceremony.

Ceremony of remembrance—whence these recurrent patterns, changing in profile and perspective.

Ceremony of death, ritual of the ephemeral and the eternal: thus the images engraved on the musical memory— present/absent, in uncertainty.

Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

These notes appear in galley files and may contain typographical or other errors. Programs subject to change without notice.