PIERRE LE BOULEZ DOMAINE

MUSICAL I956…I967 PIERRE BOULEZ LE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

VOL 1. LE CONCERT DU 10E ANNIVERSAIRE [68’20] VOL 2. LES RÉFÉRENCES FRANÇAISES [62’32]

Karlheinz Stockhausen[1928-2007] Claude Debussy [1862-1918] 1. Kontra-punkte [Contrepoints] pour 10 instruments, opus 1 [1952-53] [11’26] 1. Syrinx pour flûte seule [1912] [03’34] Solistes du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction Severino GAZZELLONI, flûte Luciano Berio [1925-2003] Edgar Varèse [1883-1965] 2. Serenata I pour flûte et 14 instruments [1957] [10’24] 2. Densité 21,5 pour flûte seule [1936/1946] [05’50] Severino GAZZELLONI, flûte Severino GAZZELLONI, flûte Solistes du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction 3. Hyperprism pour petit orchestre et percussion [1922-1923] [04’40] Pierre Boulez [né en 1925] Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction Le Marteau sans maître pour voix d’alto et 6 instruments [1953-1955/1957] [32’16] Octandre pour petit ensemble orchestral [1923] [06’34] 3. 1. Avant “L’artisanat furieux” 1’29 4. 1. Assez lent 2’46 4. 2. Commentaire I de “Bourreaux de solitude” 3’40 5. 2. Très vif et nerveux 1’31 5. 3. “L’artisanat furieux” 2’03 6. 3. Grave 2’17 6. 4. Commentaire II de “Bourreaux de solitude” 4’11 Jacques CASTAGNER, flûte ; Claude MAISONNEUVE, hautbois ; Guy DEPLUS, clarinette 7. 5. “Bel édifice et les pressentiments”, version première 3‘23 Marcel NAULAIS, petite clarinette ; André RABOT, basson ; André FOURNIER, cor 8. 6. “Bourreaux de solitude” 3’19 Roger DELMOTTE, trompette ; René ALLAIN, trombone ; Jacques CAZAURAN, contrebasse 9. 7. Après “L’artisanat furieux” 1’04 Pierre BOULEZ, direction 10. 8. Commentaire III de “Bourreaux de solitude” 5’47 7. Intégrales pour petit orchestre et percussion [1923-1925] [11’10] 11. 9. “Bel édifice et les pressentiments”, double 7’20 Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction Jeanne DEROUBAIX, contralto Olivier Messiaen [1908-1992] Severino GAZZELLONI, flûte ; Georges VAN GUCHT, xylorimba ; Claude RICOU, vibraphone Jean BATIGNE, percussion ; Anton STINGL, guitare ; Serge COLLOT, alto ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction 8. Cantéyodjayâ pour piano [1948] [12’01] Olivier Messiaen [1908-1992] Sept Haïkaï esquisses japonaises pour piano solo, xylophone et marimba soli, deux clarinettes, trompette et petit ensemble [1962] [18’43] 12. Oiseaux exotiques [1955-1956] [13’52] 9. 1. Introduction 1’50 Yvonne LORIOD, piano 10. 2. Le parc de Nara et les lanternes de pierre 1’30 Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Rudolf ALBERT, direction Enregistrement public de la création. Transfert numérique du 33 tours original : Studio Parélies, www.parelies.com 11. 3. Yamanaka-cadenza 3’40 Remerciements à Monsieur Nigel Simeone 12. 4. Gagaku 2’56 Éditeurs graphiques : Universal Edition, Wien (BOULEZ, STOCKHAUSEN) ; Edizioni Suvini Zerboni (BERIO, MESSIAEN) ൿ 1956 (BERIO, STOCKHAUSEN, MESSIAEN) ; 1964 (BOULEZ) Universal Music Classics & Jazz France PIERRE BOULEZ LE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

VOL 2. LES RÉFÉRENCES FRANÇAISES VOL 4. LES COMPAGNONS DE ROUTE [73’15]

13. 5. Miyajima et le Torii dans la mer 1’22 Maurizio Kagel [1931-2008] 14. 6. Les oiseaux de Karuizawa 5’35 1. Sextuor à cordes pour 2 violons, 2 altos, 2 violoncelles [1953, révisé en 1957] [07’34] 15. 7. Coda 1’50 Solistes du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction Yvonne LORIOD, piano ; Les Percussions de Strasbourg Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction Luigi Nono [1924-1990]

Éditeurs graphiques : Jobert (DEBUSSY) ; Ricordi (VARESE [2-6]) ; Salabert (VARESE [7]) ; Durand (MESSIAEN [8]) ; Leduc (MESSIAEN [9-15]) 2. Incontri [Rencontres] pour 24 instruments [1955] [06’01] ൿ 1958 (VARÈSE [1,2], (MESSIAEN [8]) ; 1964 (VARÈSE [3-7]) ; 1964 (MESSIAEN [9-15]) Universal Music Classics & Jazz France Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction Hans Werner Henze [1926-2012] VOL 3. LE COMPOSITEUR PIERRE BOULEZ [59’46] 3. Concerto per il Marigny pour piano et orchestre [1956] [06’35] Yvonne LORIOD, piano Pierre Boulez [né en 1925] Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Rudolf ALBERT, direction Structures, Livre I pour 2 pianos [1951-1952] [14’21] Henri Pousseur [1929-2009] 1. 1. 3’07 4. Madrigal III pour clarinette, violon, violoncelle, percussions et piano [1962] [12’01] 2. 2. 8’48 Guy DEPLUS, clarinette ; Gérard JARRY, violon ; Michel TOURNUS, violoncelle 3. 3. 2’11 Diego MASSON, Jean-Charles FRANÇOIS, percussions ; Fabienne BOURY, piano Alfons et Aloys KONTARSKY, pianos 5. Mobile pour deux pianos [1958] [10’11] 4. Sonatine pour flûte et piano [1946] [11’44] Alfons et Aloys KONTARSKY, pianos Severino GAZZELLONI, flûte ; David TUDOR, piano Karlheinz Stockhausen [1928-2007] Sonate n°2 pour piano [1948] [33’36] 6. [Mesures du temps] pour flûte, hautbois, cor anglais, 5. Extrêmement rapide 7’06 Zeitmasse clarinette et basson, opus 5 [1956] [13’38] 6. Lent 11’10 7. Modéré, presque vif 2’41 Jacques CASTAGNER, flûte ; Claude MAISONNEUVE, hautbois ; Paul TAILLEFER, cor anglais clarinette basson 8. Vif 11’38 Guy DEPLUS, ; André RABOT, Yvonne LORIOD, piano 7. Klavierstück VI [Pièce pour piano VI] opus 4/II [1956] [17’03] Éditeurs graphiques : Universal Edition, Wien (Structures) ; Amphion (Sonatine) ; Heugel (Sonate n°2) David TUDOR, piano ൿ 1958 (Sonatine) ; 1960 (Structures) ; 1961 (Sonate n°2) Universal Music Classics & Jazz France Éditeurs graphiques : Universal Edition, Wien (KAGEL, POUSSEUR [4] ; STOCKHAUSEN [6]) ; Edizioni Suvini Zerboni (POUSSEUR [5]) ; Schott (HENZE); Ars Viva Verlag (NONO) ; Stockhausen Verlag (STOCKHAUSEN [7]) ൿ 1956 (NONO, HENZE) ; 1957 (STOCKHAUSEN [6]) ; 1960 (KAGEL, POUSSEUR [5], STOCKHAUSEN [7]) Universal Music Classics & Jazz France PIERRE BOULEZ LE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

VOL 5. IGOR STRAVINSKY [62’14] VOL 5. IGOR STRAVINSKY

Igor Stravinsky [1882-1971] 12. Triple Pas-de-Quatre 0’59 13. Prélude 0’50 1. Concertino pour douze instruments 14. First Pas-de-Trois : Saraband-Step 1’14 arrangement du “Concertino pour quatuor à cordes” [1920/1952] [05’45] 15. Gaillarde 1’12 Jacques PARRENIN, violon ; Pierre PENASSOU, violoncelle ; Jacques CASTAGNER, flûte 16. Coda 1’16 Claude MAISONNEUVE, hautbois ; Paul TAILLEFER, cor anglais ; Guy DEPLUS, clarinette André RABOT, Jean-Pierre LAROQUE, bassons ; Pierre POLLIN, Jacques LECOINTRE, trompettes 17. Interlude 0’49 René ALLAIN, trombone ténor ; Maurice SUZAN, trombone basse 18. Second Pas-de-Trois 0’56 Pierre BOULEZ, direction 19. Bransle Gay 0’51 Trois pièces pour clarinette seule [1919] [04’10] 20. Bransle Double 1’20 21. 2. 1. 1’47 Interlude 0’50 22. 3. 2. 1’04 Pas-de-Deux – Coda 5’37 23. 4. 3. 1’14 Four Duos 0’35 24. Four Trios - Coda 2’21 Guy DEPLUS, clarinette Orchestre du Südwestfunk de Baden-Baden ; Hans ROSBAUD, direction Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes [1914] [06’27] Éditeurs graphiques : Chester Music (Renard ; 3 pièces pour clarinette seule) ; Boosey & Hawkes (Symphonies d’instruments à vent 5. 1. 0’56 3 pièces pour quatuor à cordes ; Agon) ; Wilhelm Hansen (Concertino pour 12 instruments) 6. 2. 1’54 ൿ 1962 et 1958 (Agon) Universal Music Classics & Jazz France 7. 3. 3’31 Quatuor PARRENIN : Jacques PARRENIN, violon I VOL 6. L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE I. DE 1899 À 1912 [65’04] Jacques GHESTEM, violon II ; Michel WALES, alto ; Pierre PENASSOU, violoncelle 8. Symphonies d’instruments à vent Arnold Schoenberg [1874-1951] à la mémoire de Claude Debussy [1920, version 1947] [08’33] Verklärte Nacht [La Nuit transfigurée] pour sextuor à cordes, opus 4 [1899/1917] [31’12] Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction 1. Sehr langsam [très lent] 3’18 9. Renard histoire burlesque chantée et jouée [1915-16] [15’01] 2. Etwas bewegter [un peu plus animé] 9’14 Jean GIRAUDEAU, Louis DEVOS, ténors ; Louis-Jacques RONDELEUX, Xavier DEPRAZ, basses 3. Schwer betont [pesant] 2’22 Elemer KISS, cymbalum ; Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction 4. Sehr breit und langsam [très large et lent] 9’18 Agon ballet pour 12 danseurs [1953-57] [21’52] 5. Sehr ruhig [très calme] 4’20 10. Pas-de-Quatre 1’35 Jacques PARRENIN, violon I ; Marcel CHARPENTIER, violon II ; Denes MARTON, alto I ; 11. Double Pas-de-Quatre 1’27 Serge COLLOT, alto II ; Pierre PENASSOU, violoncelle I ; Michel TOURNUS, violoncelle II PIERRE BOULEZ LE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

VOL 6. L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE I. DE 1899 À 1912 VOL 6. L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE I. DE 1899 À 1912

Anton Webern [1883-1945] 24. 10. Raub 1’03 Sechs Stücke für Orchester 25. 11 Rote Messe 1’48 26. 12. Galgenlied 0’17 [Six pièces pour orchestre], opus 6 [1909, révisé en 1928] [10’17] 27. 13. Enthauptung 2’01 6. 1. Etwas bewegt [assez animé] 1’06 28. 14. Die Kreuze 2’16 7. 2. Bewegt [animé] 1’17 Troisième partie 8. 3. Zart bewegt [doucement animé] 0’52 29. 15. Heimweh 1’59 9. 4. Langsam, marcia funebre [lent, marche funèbre] 4’18 30. 16. Gemeinheit! 1’11 10. 5. Sehr langsam [très lent] 2’44 31. 17. Parodie 0’59 11. 6. Zart bewegt [doucement animé] 1’33 32. 18. Der Mondfleck 1’04 Orchestre du Südwestfunk de Baden-Baden ; Hans ROSBAUD, direction 33. 19. Serenade 1’55 Arnold Schoenberg [1874-1951] 34. 20.Heimfahrt 1’41 Trois pièces pour 12 instruments [1910] [02’02] 35. 21. O alter Duft 1’34 12. I. Rasch [rapide] 0’45 Helga PILARCZYK, récitante ; Maria BERGMANN, piano ; Jacques CASTAGNER, flûte et piccolo 13. II. Mäßig [modéré] 0’37 Guy DEPLUS, clarinette ; Louis MONTAIGNE, clarinette basse ; Luben YORDANOFF, violon 14. III. Gehend [allant] 0’40 Serge COLLOT, alto ; Jean HUCHOT, violoncelle Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction Éditeurs graphiques : Universal Edition, Wien ; Belmont (SCHOENBERG : Trois pièces) ൿ 1958 (WEBERN) ; 1962 (Pierrot lunaire) ; 1964 (Trois pièces pour ensemble) ; 1966 (La Nuit transfigurée) Universal Music Classics & Jazz France Pierrot lunaire pour voix parlée et 5 instrumentistes opus 21 [1912] [31’50] Première partie VOL 7. 15. 1. Mondestrunken 1’47 L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE II. DE 1906 À 1943 [74’30] 16. 2. Colombine 1’32 17. 3. Der Dandy 1’09 Alban Berg [1885-1935] 18. 4. Eine blasse Wäscherin 1’27 1. Sonate en si mineur pour piano opus 1 [1908] [08’27] 19. 5. Valse de Chopin 1’09 Yvonne LORIOD, piano 20. 6. Madonna 1’47 21. 7. Der kranke Mond 2’09 Drei Stücke für Orchester [Trois pièces pour orchestre] opus 6 [1915] [05’02] Deuxième partie 2. 1. Präludium : Langsam 4’58 22. 8. Nacht 2’09 3. 2. Reigen : Anfangs etwas zögernd - Leicht beschwingt 5’29 23. 9. Gebet an Pierrot 0’53 4. 3. Marsch : Mäßiges Marschtempo 8’25 Orchestre du Südwestfunk de Baden-Baden ; Hans ROSBAUD, direction PIERRE BOULEZ LE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

VOL 7. L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE II. DE 1906 À 1943 VOL 7. L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE II. DE 1906 À 1943

Arnold Schoenberg[1874-1951] Cantate n°2 pour soprano et basse soli, chœur mixte à 16 voix et ensemble instrumental 5. Kammersymphonie [Symphonie de chambre] n°1, pour flûte/piccolo, hautbois, (2 flûtes, 2 piccolos, 2 hautbois, 2 cors anglais, 2 clarinettes, 2 clarinettes basse, 2 bassons, cor anglais, clarinette en mi bémol, clarinette en la, clarinette basse, basson, saxophone alto, cor, trompette, trombone, tuba basse, célesta, glockenspiel à clavier, contrebasson, 2 cors, 2 violons, alto, violoncelle, contrebasse, opus 9 [1906] [17’15] harpe, 6 premiers violons, 6 seconds violons, 4 altos, 2 violoncelles, contrebasse) opus 31 [1943] [12’30] Solistes du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction 15. 1. “Schweigt auch die Welt” - Sehr lebhaft / Ruhig [très passionné/calme] 1’42 Anton Webern [1883-1945] 16. 2. “Sehr tief verhalten innerst Leben” - Sehr verhalten [très retenu] 2’46 Zwei Lieder [Deux Lieder] pour voix de soprano et ensemble instrumental 17. 3. “Schöpfen aus Brunnen des Himmels” - Sehr bewegt [très animé] 2’05 (clarinette basse, cor, trompette, piano, harpe, violon, alto, violoncelle), 18. 4. “Leichteste Bürden der Bäume” - Sehr lebhaft [très passionné] 1’08 opus 8 [1910-1925] [02’00] 19. 5. “Freundselig ist das Wort” - Sehr mäßig [très modéré] 3’23 6. 1. "Du, der ich’s nicht sage" 0’58 20. 6. “Gelockert aus dem Schoße” - Sehr fließend [très fluide] 1’26 7. 2. "Du machst mich allein" 1’05 Ilona STEINGRUBER, soprano ; Xavier DEPRAZ, basse ; Chorale Elisabeth Brasseur Vier Lieder [Quatre Lieder] pour voix de soprano et ensemble instrumental Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction (flûte, clarinette, clarinette basse, cor, trompette, trombone, percussions, Éditeurs graphiques : Universal Edition, Wien ; Belmont (SCHOENBERG : Trois pièces) ൿ piano, harpe, violon, alto, violoncelle, contrebasse), opus 13 [1914-1922] [06’19] 1956 (WEBERN Cantates et Lieder) ; 1958 (BERG opus 6) ; 1961 (BERG opus 1) ; 1964 (SCHOENBERG) Universal Music Classics & Jazz France 8. 1. "Wiese im Park" ["Wie wird mir zeitlos"] [1917] 2’04 9. 2. "Die Einsame" ["An dunkelblauem Himmel"] [1914] 1’16 VOL 8. L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE III. LE SÉRIALISME [70’04] 10. 3. "In der Fremde" ["In Fremdem Lande"] [1917] 1’08 11. 4. "Ein Winterabend" ["Wenn der Schnee"] [1918] 1’56 Arnold Schoenberg [1874-1951] Jeanne HERICARD, soprano Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction Sérénade pour clarinette, clarinette basse, mandoline, guitare, violon, Cantate n°1 pour soprano solo, chœur mixte à 16 voix et ensemble instrumental alto, violoncelle et voix de baryton, opus 24 [1920-1923] [30’46] (flûte, clarinette, clarinette basse, cor, trompette, trombone, 2 percussions, 1. 1. Marsch [Marche] 4’15 2. 2. 6’31 piano, harpe, mandoline, 2 violons, 2 altos, 2 violoncelles) opus 29 [1939] [08’28] Menuett [Menuet]. Trio 3. 3. Variationen [Variations]. Thema [Thème] 3’36 12. 1. “Zündender Lichtblitz des Lebens” - Getragen / Lebhaft [passionné] 2’13 4. 4. Sonnett Nr. 217 von Petrarca [Sonnet 217 de Pétrarque] 2’49 13. 2. “Kleiner Flügel Ahornsamen” - Leicht bewegt [légèrement animé] 2’01 5. 5. Tanzscene [Scène de danse] 6’28 14. 3. “Tönen die seligen Saiten Apolis” - Ruhig [calme] 4’15 6. 6. Lied ohne Worte [Mélodie sans paroles] 2’14 7. 7. Finale 4’56 PIERRE BOULEZ LE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

VOL 8. L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE III. LE SÉRIALISME VOL 9. BONUS [105’57]

Guy DEPLUS, clarinette ; Louis MONTAIGNE, clarinette basse ; Paul GRUND, mandoline “Une histoire d’amitiés…” Paul STINGL, guitare ; Luben YORDANOFF, violon ; Serge COLLOT, alto Jean HUCHOT, violoncelle ; Louis-Jacques RONDELEUX, baryton Interview exclusive réalisée à l’Ircam par Claude Samuel le 14 septembre 2005 [48’49] 1. La genèse / The genesis 6’55 Suite pour sept instruments (clarinette, clarinette en mi bémol, 2. Domaine musical : année zéro / Year zero 4’46 clarinette basse, piano, violon, alto et violoncelle) opus 29 [1925-1926] [24’31] 3. Le répertoire / The repertoire 6’48 8. 1. Ouverture. Allegretto. Sehr flott [très vif] 7’01 4. Les références / The references 13’19 9. 2. Tanzschritte [Pas de danse]. Moderato 6’11 5. Les compagnons de route / The fellow travellers 6’21 10. 3. Thema mit Variationen [Thème avec variations] 5’03 6. Les interprètes / The interpreters 10’39 11. 4. Gigue 6’16 Yvonne LORIOD, piano ; Marcel NAULAIS, petite clarinette ; Guy DEPLUS, clarinette Louis MONTAIGNE, clarinette basse ; Jacques GHESTEM, violon ; Serge COLLOT, alto Le tout premier enregistrement du Marteau sans maître Jean HUCHOT, violoncelle ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction de Pierre Boulez réalisé en 1956 Anton Webern [1883-1945] Pierre Boulez (né en 1925) Variationen für Klavier [Variations pour piano] opus 27 [1936] [05’18] Le Marteau sans maître pour voix d’alto et 6 instruments (1953-1955/1957) [30’44] 12. 1. Sehr mäßig [très modéré] 1’37 7. 1. Avant “L’artisanat furieux” 1’30 13. 2. Sehr schnell [très vite] 0’39 8. 2. Commentaire I de “Bourreaux de solitude” 3’52 14. 3. Ruhig fließend [souple et calme] 3’00 9. 3. “L’artisanat furieux” 2’06 Yvonne LORIOD, piano 10. 4. Commentaire II de “Bourreaux de solitude” 3’14 Symphonie pour clarinette, clarinette basse, 2 cors, harpe, 2 violons, 11. 5. “Bel édifice et les pressentiments”, version première 3‘10 alto, violoncelle, opus 21 [1928] [09’33] 12. 6. “Bourreaux de solitude” 3’09 15. 1 Ruhig schreitend [allant avec calme] 6’50 13. 7. Après “L’artisanat furieux” 1’01 16. 2. Variationen [Variations] 2’43 14. 8. Commentaire III de “Bourreaux de solitude” 5’41 Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction 15. 9. “Bel édifice et les pressentiments”, double 6’58

Éditeur graphique : Universal Edition, Wien Marie-Thérèse CAHN, contralto ൿ 1956 (Symphonie opus 21) ; 1959 (Suite opus 29) ; 1961 (Variations opus 27) ; 1962 (Sérénade opus 24) Universal Music Classics & Jazz France Solistes du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction PIERRE BOULEZ LE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

VOL 89. BONUS

Giovanni Gabrieli (1554/1557-1612) Canzone dalle “Sacrae Symphoniae” (1597) [8’17] 16. N° 5 - Canzon duodecimi toni a 8 C174 4’58 17. N° 3 - Canzon septimi toni a 8 C172 3’19 Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Rudolf ALBERT, direction Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) 18. Symphonies d’instruments à vent à la mémoire de Claude Debussy (1920, version 1947) [9’34] Orchestre du Domaine musical ; Rudolf ALBERT, direction Jean-Claude Éloy (né en 1938) 19. Équivalences pour dix-huit instrumentistes (1963) [8’37] Les Percussions de Strasbourg Solistes du Domaine musical ; Pierre BOULEZ, direction

Enregistrement technique : Ircam (1-5) / Enregistrement public (1-3) P 1956 (7-18), 1964 (19), 2006 (1-6), Universal Music Classics & Jazz France Éditeurs graphiques : Boosey & Hawkes (STRAVINSKY); Heugel, Paris (ÉLOY) L’AVENTURE DU DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

L’AVENTURE DU DOMAINE Sonates pour piano, Le Visage nuptial, Le Soleil car ouvert à toutes les prises de risques, défa- des eaux, le Livre pour quatuor, le premier livre vorable car à contre-courant du climat de MUSICAL des Structures pour deux pianos, et il a entre- l’époque, que va naître le Domaine musical. pris la composition du Marteau sans maître sur Quelques échanges d’idées préfigurent le projet, les poèmes de René Char, dont il a fait la notamment avec Hermann Scherchen dès 1953, connaissance dès 1947 ; l’enseignement d’Olivier puis avec Pierre Souvtchinsky, ce grand ami L’aventure du Domaine musical : avec le Messiaen et les cours de René Leibowitz sont d’Igor Stravinsky, ce témoin actif des créations recul du temps, on peut considérer qu’elle déjà, si l’on peut dire, de l’histoire ancienne, il musicales les plus avancées, dont le réseau de fut une nécessité. Encore fallait-il qu’un s’est familiarisé avec les aspects les plus relations est précieux. Pour lancer une série de homme s’en charge, qu’au-delà de la concrets de la pratique instrumentale dans ses concerts, il faut un lieu, il faut disposer de conscience de cette nécessité, il trace les fonctions de directeur musical de la Compagnie moyens matériels, il faut définir les principes contours de l’action nouvelle et mette tout Renaud-Barrault et il est déjà repéré comme d’une programmation. autant d’énergie que de conviction pour que l’un des animateurs les plus actifs et les plus les idées s’incarnent dans des réalisations intransigeants de l’avant-garde européenne. Ne Le lieu, c’est Jean-Louis Barrault et Made- clairement identifiables. Pierre Boulez était vient-il d’ailleurs pas de participer aux cours leine Renaud, si proches de Boulez depuis désigné, ou s’auto-désigna, pour cette mis- d’été de Darmstadt, passage obligé de la nou- plusieurs années, qui le mettent à disposition : sion. Quoique les manifestations se soient velle école ? la nouvelle petite salle du Théâtre Marigny, où poursuivies après son départ, il est évident la Compagnie Renaud-Barrault est installée. Le que les choix et les exigences du Domaine Mais le climat est morose à Paris où, du “Petit Marigny” (250 places) doit justement musical correspondaient très précisément Conservatoire national supérieur de musique à recevoir son premier spectacle, la Soirée des aux choix et aux exigences de son fondateur, la Radiodiffusion française, les académiques Proverbes de Georges Schéhadé, mais c’est le avec une remarquable constance pendant règnent à tous les niveaux de l’activité musicale premier concert du Domaine qui en sera l’évé- les douze années d’un inébranlable militan- et supportent d’autant moins l’avant-garde nement inaugural, le 13 janvier 1954. Les tisme. qu’elle apporte prioritairement dans ses valises concerts ont lieu le samedi, en fin d’après-midi, les partitions des musiciens de l’École de et seront bientôt doublés le dimanche matin. Pierre Boulez n’a pas trente ans lorsqu’il Vienne, auxquels le milieu parisien bien-pensant Quand Jean-Louis Barrault quittera Marigny, le établit les bases de l’entreprise, mais il est est, pour des raisons autant esthétiques que Domaine musical émigrera pour deux saisons Théâtre de l’Odéon déjà l’auteur d’œuvres significatives : la Sona- Paris 1938 politiques, mais aussi d’inculture notoire, réso- Salle Gaveau ; quand Barrault se fixera pour une © Roger-Viollet tine pour flûte et piano, les deux premières lument allergique. C’est sur ce terrain, favorable petite décennie à l’Odéon, Boulez le rejoindra. L’AVENTURE DU DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

L’Odéon, haut lieu de la confrontation, accueille permanent, Suzanne Tézenas, l’amie des pendant les saisons dirigées par Pierre Boulez, d’“influences disparates”) avec le Concerto per alors un public ardent où se côtoient des artistes, toujours à l’écoute des demandes de 155 ont concerné ce que l’on appelle les “clas- il Marigny, créé le 10 mars 1956. Quant à Boulez artistes et des étudiants. Les fidèles du Pierre Boulez, même lorsque celui-ci travaillait siques contemporains”, dont 58 pour le seul compositeur, Boulez directeur du Domaine le Domaine musical s’appellent Henri Michaux, au bout du monde, fut d’un dévouement et Webern. programma à quinze reprises – mais pas pour René Char, Eugène Ionesco, André Masson, d’une efficacité remarquables. une création mondiale, privilège réservé à des Vieira Da Silva, Serge Poliakoff et… Olivier Troisième volet : “le plan de recherche” manifestations telles que le Festival de Donaue- Messiaen. Confidences d’Olivier Messiaen : “Le Enfin, les principes de la programmation, (“nous n’osons dire de découverte”). Il s’agit des schingen. Enfin, Iannis Xenakis, quoique Domaine musical fut le lieu où l’on pouvait exposés par avance par le fondateur de l’entre- “œuvres récentes des compositeurs dont au n’appartenant pas à la famille sérielle et ayant entendre les œuvres nouvelles qui venaient du prise dès 1953. Trois volets bien caractérisés : un moins l’honnêteté – sinon les dons manifestes combattu les principes du sérialisme dans un monde entier. Et cette entreprise fut d’autant “plan de référence”, pour lequel Boulez évoque et le métier sûrement acquis – garantira l’indis- texte fameux (publié par… Hermann Scherchen), plus extraordinaire qu’elle était le fait d’un les noms de Machaut, Dufay, Gesualdo, Bach pensable création”. Pierre Boulez commence il ne fut que deux fois à l’affiche : avec Herma, artiste isolé, dont le courage et la lucidité se (l’Offrande musicale, inscrite au programme du par programmer les musiciens de sa génération, créé au Domaine le 24 avril 1963 par Georges sont alliés à une merveilleuse technique et ont premier concert) – mais, c’est Boulez qui parle, ceux qu’il a connus notamment à Darmstadt et Pludermacher et immédiatement bissé, et proposé, d’un seul coup, des solutions à nos pro- “la référence aux œuvres anciennes, nous avons qui assument le même héritage, celui du séria- Eonta, une commande du Domaine créée en blèmes”. Sans doute, dans ce large public y dû l’abandonner, faute de moyens efficaces lisme viennois – sans préjuger des évolutions 1964. avait-il des “mondains”, pointés du doigt par pour la poursuivre avec l’ampleur désirable”. Un ultérieures : les noms de Luigi Nono et de Karl- quelques grincheux – leur présence témoignait “plan de connaissance” où, aux côtés de heinz Stockhausen sont inscrits au programme La génération suivante était encore bien aussi de la réussite de l’entreprise et n’était pas Debussy et Ravel (très fugitivement), de Stra- du concert inaugural, dirigé par Hermann jeune à la fin des années cinquante, mais Pierre négligeable pour conforter un noyau d’abonnés vinsky (avec une évidente impasse sur la Scherchen, grand schoenbergien devant l’Eter- Boulez fut particulièrement attentif aux pre- et le cercle de généreux bienfaiteurs. Quant à la période néo-classique), Bartók, Varèse, ce sont nel. Viendront ensuite Luciano Berio, Bruno miers travaux de ces nouveaux compositeurs, polémique, Boulez ne la déplora jamais, très les musiciens de l’École de Vienne qui règnent Maderna, Henri Pousseur (joué douze fois au pour certains encore sur les bancs du Conserva- expert en la matière. pratiquement sans partage, parce qu’ils consti- cours de la période considérée), Mauricio Kagel toire, en particulier dans la classe d’Olivier tuent des modèles pour la nouvelle école, parce (dont le geste provocateur effaroucha un public Messiaen : en premier lieu, Gilbert Amy, pré- Les moyens matériels : d’origine privée, donc que leurs œuvres, et particulièrement celles pourtant prêt à tout…), György Ligeti, Heinz Hol- senté d’emblée comme “l’héritier”, et qui, en difficiles à rassembler dans un pays où le d’Anton Webern, n’ont jusqu’alors que très liger, Sylvano Bussotti, André Boucourechliev, effet, succèdera à Boulez à la tête du Domaine mécénat culturel n’était pas – et n’est toujours rarement figuré aux programmes des concerts Jean Barraqué (dont la Séquence fut créée dès musical et maintiendra le cap pendant sept pas – entré dans les mœurs. La présidente de parisiens. Comme le note Jésus Aguila dans son 1956) et quelques musiciens, dont le passage par nouvelles saisons ; mais aussi les Français Jean- l’“Association des Concerts du Domaine Musical” ouvrage sur le Domaine musical (E. Fayard, le sérialisme fut plus qu’éphémère, tel Krzysztof Claude Éloy, dont les Équivalences eurent s’y employa et, dans cette fonction de soutien 1992), parmi les 360 œuvres jouées au Domaine Penderecki ou Hans Werner Henze (Boulez parla l’honneur d’un enregistrement discographique, L’AVENTURE DU DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

Paul Méfano et Jean-Pierre Guézec, l’Anglais ouvrit les portes de la création contemporaine Richard Rodney Bennett, le Canadien Gilles à plusieurs générations de jeunes compositeurs. Tremblay, le Suédois Bo Nilsson, les Suisses Jacques Guyonnet et Hans Ulrich Lehmann. D’autres auteurs du Domaine musical n’ont pas tenu leurs promesses, et c’est la loi du Enfin, à mi-chemin entre le plan de connaissance genre pour une manifestation dont la vertu pre- et le plan de découverte, s’impose la personna- mière consiste à prendre des risques. En lité d’Olivier Messiaen, déjà pédagogue très revanche, là où la réussite fut exemplaire, c’est respecté, seul Français de sa génération admis dans l’exécution de partitions, alors si souvent – et, parfois, “sous réserve d’inventaire” – aux malmenées, qui demandaient à la fois une mise concerts du Domaine musical ; ce n’était natu- en point particulièrement attentive et une com- rellement pas le Messiaen de la Turangalîla- préhension d’emblée pas évidente dans une Symphonie qui intéressait Pierre Boulez – et esthétique de rupture. Dès le départ, Pierre d’ailleurs, les moyens matériels n’auraient pu Boulez fut sensible à cette exigence, et, sans être réunis pour l’exécution d’un tel monument, encore disposer à l’époque d’une véritable mais le Messiaen du Mode de valeurs et d’inten- expérience, le prouva par l’exemple. Il mobilisa sités ou du Livre d’orgue, dont la création des énergies et, hors cadre institutionnel, parisienne eut lieu le 21 mars 1955 dans l’église constitua un ensemble instrumental dont, (glaciale) de La Trinité, cependant dans le cadre grâce aux micros de la firme discographique de la saison du Domaine; la création parisienne Vega et de son directeur artistique Lucien Adès, des Oiseaux exotiques (10 mars 1956), la création on peut, après plus de quatre décennies, juger mondiale du Catalogue d’oiseaux (15 avril 1959) des résultats. et des Sept Haïkaï (30 octobre 1963), la première française des Couleurs de la cité céleste (16 Ainsi a été préservé ce qui représente un bref décembre 1964), la première audition “publique” moment, mais un moment particulièrement d’Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (12 fort, sujet aux enthousiasmes et aux polémiques, janvier 1966) furent d’autres événements nota- de la création musicale au siècle dernier. bles, témoignages de reconnaissance envers un Claude Samuel musicien qui, au-delà de ses propres options, THE ADVENTURE OF THE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DOMAINE the first book of Structures for two pianos, and Domaine musical would come into being. A few he had begun the composition of Le Marteau exchanges of ideas prefigured the project, in MUSICAL sans maître on poems by René Char, whom he particular with Hermann Scherchen beginning met in 1947. The teaching of Olivier Messiaen in 1953, then with Pierre Suvchinsky, a great and classes of René Leibowitz were already, if friend of Igor Stravinsky and active witness to we might say so, ancient history. He had famil- the most advanced musical creations, whose With the passing of time, one can con- iarised himself with the most concrete aspects network of relations was valuable. Launching a sider the adventure of the Domaine musical of instrumental playing in his duties as musical concert series requires a place and material a necessity. Even then, there had to be director of the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault, means, and entails defining the principles of someone to take charge of it and, beyond and he had already been noticed as one of the programming. the awareness of this necessity, outline the most active and uncompromising driving forces new action and devote as much energy as of the European avant-garde. Had he not, It was Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine conviction in order for the ideas to be moreover, just participated in the Darmstadt Renaud, so close to Boulez for several years, embodied in clearly identifiable realisations. summer sessions, a prerequisite of the new who provided the place, putting at his disposal Pierre Boulez was designated, or self-desig- school? the new small auditorium of the Théâtre nated, for this mission. Even though activity Marigny, where the Renaud-Barrault Company continued after his departure, it is obvious However, the climate was morose in Paris was in residence. The ‘Petit Marigny’ (250 seats) that the choices and standards of the where, from the Conservatoire to the ORTF, the was in fact about to receive its opening show, Domaine musical corresponded quite pre- French Radio, academics reigned at every level Georges Schéhadé’s Soirée des Proverbes, but it cisely to the choices and standards of its of musical activity and tolerated all the less that was the first concert by the Domaine that founder, with a remarkable constancy for a the avant-garde brought first and foremost in turned out to be the inaugural event, on 13 Jan- dozen years of unshakeable militancy. its valises scores by musicians of the Second uary 1954. Concerts took place on Saturday, in Vienna School. For reasons that are aesthetic as late afternoon, and would soon be doubled on Pierre Boulez was not yet thirty when he much as political—not to mention a notorious Sunday mornings. When Jean-Louis Barrault laid the foundations for the undertaking, lack of cultivation—, the right-thinking Parisian left Marigny, the Domaine musical emigrated to but he already had some significant works milieu was resolutely allergic to all that. It was Salle Gaveau for two seasons; then Barrault to his credit: the Sonatina for flute and on this terrain—favourable in that it was open moved to the Odéon for nearly a decade, and piano, the first two piano sonatas, Le Visage to all risk-taking, unfavourable because it went Boulez joined him. At the time, the Odéon, a nuptial, Le Soleil des eaux, Livre pour quatuor, against the current of the era’s mood—that the Mecca of confrontation, welcomed an ardent THE ADVENTURE OF THE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

public wherein artists and students rubbed when he was working on the other side of the Third part: ‘the research plan’ (‘we dare not reserved for events such as the Donaueschingen shoulders. The faithful of the Domaine musical world, was remarkably devoted and efficient. speak of discovery’). This concerned ‘recent Festival. Finally, Iannis Xenakis, although not included such names as Henri Michaux, René works by composers whose honesty at least—if belonging to the serial family and having fought Char, Eugène Ionesco, André Masson, Vieira Da Finally, the principles of programming, laid not manifest gifts and surely-acquired skills— the principles of serialism in a famous text (pub- Silva, Serge Poliakoff and… Olivier Messiaen. out in advance by the founder of the undertak- would guarantee indispensable creation’. Pierre lished by… Hermann Scherchen), was performed Confidences of the latter: ‘The Domaine musical ing, in 1953. There were three straightforward Boulez began by programming musicians of his only twice: Herma, premiered at the Domaine was the place where one could hear new works parts, the first being a ‘reference plan’, for generation, those he had known in particular at on 24 April 1963 by Georges Pludermacher and from the world over. And this undertaking was which Boulez evoked the names of Machaut, Darmstadt and who were taking up the same immediately encored, and Eonta, a commission all the more extraordinary in that it was the Dufay, Gesualdo and Bach (the Musical Offering heritage of Viennese serialism. This did not pre- from the Domaine and first performed in 1964. doing of an isolated artist whose courage and was featured on the programme of the inaugu- judge later evolutions: the names of Luigi Nono lucidity were combined with marvellous tech- ral concert). But, and here it is Boulez who and Karlheinz Stockhausen were on the pro- The following generation was still quite nique and offered, all at once, solutions to our speaks: ‘we had to abandon the reference to gramme of the inaugural concert, conducted by young at the end of the Fifties, but Pierre problems’. In this broad audience there were ancient works for lack of effective means for Hermann Scherchen, a great, inveterate Boulez was particularly attentive to the works doubtless some ‘socialites’, pointed at by a few pursuing it with desirable scope’. Secondly, a Schoenbergian. Then would come Luciano of these new composers, some of them still grumps, but their presence also attested to the ‘knowledge plan’ in which, alongside Debussy Berio, Bruno Maderna, Henri Pousseur (played attending the Conservatoire, especially in success of the venture and was not negligible in and Ravel (quite fleetingly), Stravinsky (but obvi- twelve times during the period under consider- Olivier Messiaen’s class: first of all, Gilbert Amy, reinforcing a core of subscribers and the circle ously choosing to overlook the neo-classical ation), Mauricio Kagel (whose provocative presented straightaway as the ‘heir’ and who, of generous benefactors. As for polemics, period), Bartók and Varèse, it was the musicians gesture would frighten even an audience ready in fact, would succeed Boulez at the head of the Boulez was never one to deplore them, being of the Vienna School who practically ruled for anything…), György Ligeti, Heinz Holliger, Syl- Domaine musical and stay the course for seven quite expert in that field. supreme. They constituted models for the new vano Bussotti, André Boucourechliev, Jean new seasons; as well as Frenchmen Jean-Claude school, and their works, especially those of Barraqué (whose Séquence was first performed Éloy, whose Équivalences had the honours of a Material means: of private origin, thus diffi- Anton Webern, had only very rarely made their in 1956) and a few others whose serialist phases commercial recording, Paul Méfano and Jean- cult to collect in a country where cultural way onto Parisian concert programmes. As were more ephemeral, such as Krzysztof Pen- Pierre Guézec, the Englishman Richard Rodney patronage had not—and still has not—become Jésus Aguila pointed out in his book, Le derecki and Hans Werner Henze (Boulez spoke Bennett, the Canadian Gilles Tremblay, the normal practice. The president of the ‘Associa- Domaine musical (1992), of the 360 works of ‘disparate influences’) with the Concerto per Swede Bo Nilsson, and the Swiss Jacques Guy- tion des Concerts du Domaine Musical’, Suzanne played by the Domaine during the seasons il Marigny, premiered on 10 March 1956. As for onnet and Hans Ulrich Lehmann. Tézenas, devoted herself to this, in this function directed by Pierre Boulez, 155 were what are Boulez the composer, he was programmed on of permanent support. This friend of artists, called ‘contemporary classics’, including 58 by Finally, midway between the knowledge and fifteen occasions by Boulez the director of the discovery plans, the personality of Olivier Messiaen always listening to Pierre Boulez’s demands even Webern alone. Domaine—but not for world premieres, a privilege THE ADVENTURE OF THE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

stands out in the concerts of the Domaine of the genre for an event whose primary virtue musical. Already a highly-respected teacher and consists of taking risks. On the other hand, the sole Frenchman of his generation admitted, there was exemplary success in the execution his presence was sometimes ‘subject to inven- of works, so often given a rough handling at the tory’. Naturally, it was not the Messiaen of the time, requiring both a particularly attentive Turangalîla-Symphonie who interested Pierre organisation and an understanding that was Boulez—and, moreover, the material means not immediately obvious in an aesthetic of could never have been brought together for the breaking. From the outset, Pierre Boulez was performance of such a monument—but the sensitive to this demand and, without having Messiaen of the Mode de valeurs et d’intensités yet developed true experience in that era, or the Livre d’orgue, whose first Paris perform- proved it by example. He mobilised energies ance took place on 21 March 1955 in the and, outside the institutional framework, put (freezing) church of La Trinité, within the frame- together an instrumental ensemble whose work of the Domaine’s season. The Paris results can be judged, more than four decades premiere of Oiseaux exotiques (10 March 1956), later, thanks to the microphones of the Vega the world premieres of Catalogue d’oiseaux (15 record company and its artistic director, Lucien April 1959) and the Sept Haïkaï (30 October 1963), Adès. the first French performance of Couleurs de la cité céleste (16 December 1964), and the first Thus has been preserved what represents a ‘public’ performance of Et exspecto resurrectio- brief moment, but a particularly powerful one, nem mortuorum (12 January 1966) were other subject to enthusiasms and polemics, in musical notable events, expressions of gratitude creation from the previous century. towards a musician who, beyond his own Claude Samuel options, opened the doors of contemporary Translated by John Tyler Tuttle creation to several generations of young com- posers. Other composers of the Domaine musical did not live up to their promise, and that is the law PIERRE BOULEZ LE DOMAINE MUSICAL I956…I967

Théâtre Marigny, Paris ©Roger-Viollet VOL 1.

Karlheinz Stockhausen : embryonnaire, de la sérialisation des tempi, ici externe et immuable. Un métier caché qui tante que l’auteur entend faire assumer par Kontra-Punkte présentés sous une forme de progression, un constitue des proportions apparentées : une l’instrument soliste. Deux cadences soulignent élément externe déterminant de la forme, structure. Non la même forme dans un éclai- ce rôle de virtuose : une cadence introductive Les Kontra-Punkte de Karlheinz Stockhausen donné par l’effacement progressif de chaque rage changeant, mais plus opportunément, des de l’œuvre elle-même, et une cadence avant la qui, à l’encre encore fraîche, ont été créés le 14 soliste, le piano, comme dans le Concerto de formes changeantes dans un même éclairage conclusion des autres instruments, introduite janvier 1954, sous la direction d’Hermann Scher- Webern, jouant le rôle d’instrument principal, qui les pénètre.” presque à la manière classique sur un accord chen, au cours de la soirée inaugurale des une première substitution du groupe au point…” longuement soutenu. Les développements se Concerts du Petit Marigny, appartiennent à la Les Kontra-Punkte ont été rejoués au Luciano Berio : Serenata I pour flûte succèdent alternant tutti et soli dans une instru- période radicale du jeune compositeur. En effet, Domaine musical en avril 1956, et inscrits au et 14 instruments mentation déliée ; on remarquera le caractère au début des années cinquante, les représen- programme de la soirée du dixième anniver- gai, exubérant, de cette Serenata, œuvre pour tants les plus actifs de la jeune génération saire, le 31 octobre 1962. Ils restent une pièce Les œuvres de Luciano Berio ont été réguliè- ainsi dire improvisée.” européenne ont choisi leurs modèles : les musi- d’époque significative – significatifs aussi les rement jouées au Domaine musical, et il est Quant à Severino Gazzelloni, disparu en 1992, ciens de l’École de Vienne et, très particu- premiers commentaires du jeune compositeur inutile d’insister sur la proximité musicale et per- il fut le soliste auquel Berio destina sa Serenata, lièrement, Anton Webern ; comme l’a proclamé sur son œuvre : sonnelle établie de longue date entre Berio et et qui la créa – Gazzelloni, musicien fabuleux, Stockhausen, ils veulent faire table rase du “Le contrepoint porte sur les dimensions Pierre Boulez – nés l’un et l’autre en 1925 – mais grand technicien, esprit prospectif, qui contri- passé et organiser l’œuvre musicale selon les sonores (…) transposées dans un espace à qua- les deux premières œuvres de Berio qui eurent bua largement à l’éclosion d’un nouveau principes nouveaux de la “série généralisée”. tre dimensions (…) Pas de répétition, pas de droit à une exécution publique avaient été spé- répertoire pour son instrument et participa à cialement écrites pour le Domaine musical : la Certains d’entre eux ont travaillé avec Olivier variation, pas de développement, pas de plusieurs reprises aux concerts du Domaine contraste. Tous ces éléments de la forme – Serenata I pour flûte et quatorze instruments et musical. Messiaen, dont ils ont moins retenu les élans Différences. La première de ces partitions fut Turangalîla-Symphonie thème, motif, objet – ce qui est d’avance colorés de la que les dédiée à Pierre Boulez, qui en dirigea la création Mode de valeurs et répété, varié, développé, contrasté ; ce qui est Pierre Boulez : structures abstraites du le 30 mars 1957, au cours de la quatrième saison d’intensités. Les Kontra-Punkte représentent démembré, retravaillé, augmenté, diminué, Le Marteau sans maître modulé, transposé, disposé en miroir ou en du Domaine. La composition avait été très un pur témoignage de cette démarche ; la par- rapide : quatorze jours, entre février et mars – tition, très proche du Concerto op. 24 de écrevisse ; tout cela est abandonné depuis les C’est à Baden-Baden, dans le cadre du festival premiers travaux ponctuels, notre monde, notre Berio ne confiera-t-il pas plus tard à Rossana Dal- de la SIMC (Société internationale de musique Webern qui, en la matière, indiquait déjà des monte : “Les temps ne sont pas faits aujourd’hui pistes très précises, propose, comme l’a noté langage, notre grammaire. Pas néo ! Mais alors contemporaine) qu’eût lieu (malgré l’obstruction quoi ? Kontra-Punkte: une série et les change- pour les tailleurs de diamants. Il y a de l’orage de la section française!) la première exécution Célestin Deliège, sept caractéristiques qui vont dans l’air, il faut faire vite et bien” ? dans ce sens : “l’organisation des timbres en ments et renouvellements les plus cachés et les mondiale du Marteau sans maître, le 18 juin cinq couples, un nombre réduit de durées et plus subtils ; pas de fin marquée. On n’entend “Le titre exact de l’œuvre : Serenata I pour 1955. Heinrich Strobel avait été l’initiateur de d’intensités, une même économie dans le choix jamais le même. On pressent clairement de ne flûte et quatorze instruments, a noté Pierre cette création historique, prévue initialement des intervalles, un premier état, encore pas s’abandonner à un ensemble unitaire Boulez, indique expressément la partie concer- au Festival de Donaueschingen en octobre pré- VOL 1. cédent. Les musiciens de l’Orchestre du Süd- (enchevêtrés) de trois pièces. Cette combinai- Char, en un accord plus profond que textuel. que les rythmes, plus que les timbres, il faut westfunk étaient dirigés par Hans Rosbaud son, ainsi que le choix de l’effectif instrumental entendre et voir dans mon œuvre des sons-cou- (“Rosbaud a vraiment été merveilleux”, écrira (six instruments : flûte, vibraphone, xylorimba, Olivier Messiaen : Oiseaux exotiques leurs. Il y a dans les parties de cors du deuxième l’auteur) et la partie vocale avait été confiée à alto, guitare et percussion) renvoie naturelle- Pour piano solo, petit orchestre à vent, tutti de l’orangé mêlé d’or et de rouge ; dans la Sybilla Plate. Les Parisiens attendirent moins ment au Pierre lunaire de Schoenberg (trois xylophone, glockenspiel et percussion. première et la dernière cadenza du piano, du d’un an pour découvrir cette œuvre-culte, que cycles de sept pièces chacun), mais dans un cli- vert et de l’or. Le tutti central mélange en spi- le compositeur dirigea lui-même, avec la colla- mat stylistique radicalement différent. La période de composition est précisément rales colorées, en tournoiements d’arcs-en-ciel boration de Marie-Thérèse Cahn pour la partie Référence “voulue et directe”, note le composi- datée par l’auteur : du 5 octobre 1955 au 23 jan- entremêlés : des bleus, des rouges, des orangés, vocale, au concert du Domaine musical (Petit teur ; quant à l’analyste, il a relevé la citation de vier 1956. Epoque de passion ornithologique des verts, des violets et des pourpres”. Il n’en Marigny) du 21 mars 1956. la septième pièce du Pierrot (“Der kranke entre toutes : en 1951, Olivier Messiaen a composé fallait pas moins pour mettre à l’honneur de Œuvre-culte, en effet, qui allait faire le tour Mund”) dans la troisième pièce du Marteau. le bref Merle noir, parallèlement au très savant “merveilleux plumages colorés”. du monde (occidental) et l’objet de plusieurs Le Pierrot lunaire avait imposé le “Sprechge- travail d’élaboration du Livre d’orgue ; en 1953, il Les Oiseaux exotiques comportent treize enregistrements discographiques, dont quatre sang”, que l’on retrouve ici, mais seulement dans écrit le Réveil des oiseaux, pour piano et orches- sections enchaînées, dont cinq cadences réser- sous la direction du compositeur : avec Marie- le double du Bel Edifice ; autres modes de voca- tre et, ayant terminé les Oiseaux exotiques, il va vées au piano. La percussion (à laquelle sont Thérèse Cahn, Jeanne Deroubaix (retenu dans le lité (cités par Dominique Jameux) : le chant entreprendre, au cours de cette même année confiés des rythmes hindous et grecs) y est présent coffret), Yvonne Minton et Elizabeth mélismatique, le chant syllabique, le parlando, 1956, la composition de son grand cycle pianis- abondante : trois temple-blocks, un wood-block, Laurence. Œuvre de référence pour toute une mais aussi la profération bouche fermée. A cette tique, le Catalogue d’oiseaux, treize pièces une caisse claire, trois gongs et un tam-tam, et génération, cible de vives polémiques qui ont variété du chant répond la variété des combinai- dédiées aux “oiseaux des provinces de France”. il n’y a pas de cordes, comme dans les Couleurs considérablement enrichi le sottisier de la cri- sons instrumentales, lesquelles évoquent parfois De leur côté, les Oiseaux exotiques témoi- de la cité céleste, de sept ans postérieures. tique musicale. les “musiques exotiques”, le xylophone, le vibra- gnent de la curiosité du compositeur qui, à Les Oiseaux exotiques ont été créés au Petit C’est après avoir expérimenté la “série géné- phone et la guitare renvoyant respectivement l’occasion de ses voyages mais aussi des infor- Marigny, dans la cadre du concert du Domaine ralisée”, que Boulez entreprend en 1952 la au balaphon africain, au gamelan balinais et au mations recueillies par ailleurs, a désiré rendre musical du 10 mars 1956, avec Yvonne Loriod en composition du Marteau, et après Le Visage koto japonais, mais “ni la stylistique, ni l’emploi hommage aux oiseaux dits “exotiques”. Le résul- soliste, sous la direction de Rudolf Albert. nuptial et Le Soleil des eaux, revient à l’utilisa- même des instruments ne se rattachent en quoi tat est, comme le note Harry Halbreich, “un I tion de la voix, mais toujours fidèle à la poésie que ce soit aux traditions de ces différentes montage arbitraire des chants de quarante-huit de René Char. Le choix de Boulez se porte sur civilisations musicales” (Pierre Boulez). oiseaux différents : trente-huit de l’Amérique du trois (brefs) poèmes choisis dans Le Marteau L’œuvre a suscité d’abondants commen- Nord, quatre de l’Inde, deux de l’Amérique du sans maître : L’Artisanat furieux, Bourreaux de taires ; on notera que le compositeur poursuit, Sud, un de la Chine, de la Malaisie et des Iles solitude et Bel Edifice et les pressentiments, le en la dépassant, sa démarche sur le sérialisme, Canaries” – des oiseaux, souligne Messiaen… qui compositeur faisant alterner les parties vocales et qu’il traduit avec des combinaisons instrumen- ne se rencontreront jamais ! et instrumentales et constituant trois cycles tales très raffinées la force des images de René “Plus que la forme, note aussi l’auteur, plus VOL 2.

Claude Debussy : Syrinx quand Louis Fleury la rejoua, au Festival de Salz- les vingt années qui séparent Ecuatorial de Mais ça m’est égal. Je m’en fous complètement bourg, le 8 août 1922. Elle devait très vite être Déserts, Densité 21,5 est très remarquable pour qu’on n’aime pas ma musique. Mais que l’on Au début de 1909, l’auteur dramatique inscrite au répertoire de tous les flûtistes. la combinaison des différents registres de la donne aux musiciens le droit de respirer, c’est- Gabriel Mourey demande à Claude Debussy de flûte avec les attaques et les intensités, à-dire d’aller jusqu’au bout.” L’année suivante, composer une musique de scène pour sa pièce, Edgar Varèse : Densité 21,5 constamment changeante et, comme le à Londres, la critique dénonça “le bolchevisme en trois actes et en vers, Psyché. Réponse iro- remarque Odile Vivier, aboutissant à une étrange en musique”, le “rugissement de lion”, ce qui nique du compositeur : “Votre idée est très Titre énigmatique, que le compositeur a “sensation d’espace et de relief”. L’œuvre est déjà est mieux vu. Varèse : “L’artiste créateur bonne, je la sentais d’ailleurs en vous ; seule- commenté : “Il ne faut lui prêter aucun sens construite sur deux courtes idées mélodiques : est, d’une manière particulière, le témoin de ment voilà que vous faites la part trop belle à la occulte ou symbolique, mais ne voir en lui qu’un la première, de rythme binaire modal, au début son époque. Or c’est parce que le public, par ses musique… Il ne faut pas de chanteurs prenant rapport d’actualité : la densité du platine, en et à la fin de la pièce ; la seconde, de rythme ter- dispositions et son expérience, est en retard de directement part à l’action, d’abord ces gens-là quoi est faite la nouvelle flûte de M. Barrère, naire et atonal, “prêtant son élasticité aux courts cinquante ans, qu’il y a un désaccord entre ce jouent comme des pieds de table, puis le vers étant 21,5, la première œuvre écrite pour cet développements qui se placent entre les réité- public et le compositeur.” récité accouplé au vers chanté sont (sic) à hurler instrument a été placée par son auteur sous ce rations de la première idée”. L’œuvre avait tout pour surprendre, et de douleur (..) Quant au sujet de Psyché, il est signe caractéristique.” Et Varèse poursuit : “Mal- “Un chant-cri”, selon le biographe varésien d’abord par son effectif instrumental (flûte naturel qu’il vous plaise puisque vous êtes en ce gré le caractère monodique de Densité 21,5, la Fernand Ouellette. alternant avec le piccolo, clarinette, trois cors, rigidité de sa structure est franchement définie moment plein de votre sujet… est-ce bien ce Conseil de l’auteur (si souvent accablé par de deux trompettes, trombone ténor et trombone qu’il nous faut ? Pensez-vous à ce qu’il faudrait par le plan harmonique que le déroulement basse ainsi qu’une sirène et un ensemble de mélodique a soin de préciser et d’accuser”. mauvaises exécutions) aux interprètes : “S’il de génie pour rajeunir ce vieux mythe déjà tant vous plait, respectez les dynamiques !” seize “instruments de batterie”) ; mais aussi par exploité qu’il me semble que les plumes des C’est dans le cadre d’un gala donné au Car- les heurts violents provoqués par la confronta- ailes de l’Amour en sont toutes arrachées ?..” negie Hall de New York, le 16 février 1936, en Edgar Varèse : Hyperprism tion des vents avec les percussions, l’absence de Pourtant, quatre ans plus tard, Debussy l’honneur du flûtiste français Georges Barrère tout thématisme perceptible, la répétition composa une brève partition qui fut jouée (dans et au bénéfice du Lycée français de New York Une œuvre brève (sept minutes !) mais qui obsédante d’une note-pivot, ce do dièse que les coulisses) par le flûtiste Louis Fleury, dans la que fut créée, dans une indifférence totale, la s’inscrit fortement dans l’histoire de la moder- Varèse rapprochait de la sirène d’un bateau résidence de Louis Mors où eut lieu, le 1er brève pièce d’Edgar Varèse – brève mais ins- nité musicale et fit scandale lorsqu’elle fut perçu à New York pendant la composition, – do décembre 1913, la représentation de la pièce de crite aujourd’hui au répertoire de tous les créée, le 4 mars 1923 à New York, sous la direc- dièse qui évoquait le sifflement d’un train au Gabriel Mourey. Le manuscrit, conservé par flûtistes. À l’issue de la soirée, Varèse a noté tion du compositeur. Varèse évoque cette soirée Villars, entendu une nuit de son enfance. Enfin, Louis Fleury, portait la mention : “Psyché. Acte avec son ironie habituelle : “Public d’ambassa- tumultueuse : “Quand on a donné en première nouveauté marquante : la circulation des sons III. Scène première : Mais voici que Pan de sa deurs – millionnaires – et autres importantes audition Hyperprism, il y eut une bataille formi- qui a permis de reconnaître dans cet Hyper- flûte recommence à jouer”. Et c’est seulement grosses légumes farineuses de la Phynance et dable dans la salle. Et, en Amérique, on ne se prism la première œuvre de musique spatiale. en 1927 que la partition fut éditée, sous le titre toute chochiété comme dirait le comte Laval”… donne pas de petites gifles : on cogne les poings Varèse, visionnaire. Quant au titre… Odile Vivier : de Syrinx. Elle s’appelait encore La Flûte de Pan Seule partition que Varèse acheva pendant fermés (…) la bataille a continué dans la rue. “Varèse était fasciné par la décomposition de la VOL 2. lumière dans les prismes ; il chercha à écrire l’œuvre à Mexico dès 1925 : “Voici l’or pur de la certain public, le pionnier poursuivait sa voie. engendrant des supernovae”… une musique prismatique, où les sonorités musique. Sa technique est l’essence de sa L’œuvre a été créée le 1er mars 1925 à seraient comme soumises à des décomposi- nature. Varèse crée de la musique, il ne com- l’Aeolian Hall de New York sous la direction de Olivier Messiaen : Cantéyodjayâ tions sonores, à des éparpillements, des pose pas de mélodie harmonieuse (…) Sa Leopold Stokowski, et c’est à cette occasion que éclatements pour obtenir des fulgurances qui conception embrasse tous les moyens matériels Varèse écrivit pour le programme de la soirée C’est pendant l’été 1949, quelques mois se trouveraient libérées des parallélismes et des possibles, phénomène qu’on retrouve chez tous un texte particulièrement éclairant sur sa avant la création, à Boston, de la Turangalîla- symétries traditionnelles”… “Le point de départ, les musiciens de génie”… démarche : “La musique n’est ni une histoire, ni Symphonie qu’Olivier Messiaen, invité par Serge c’est la quatrième dimension, le côté prisma- C’est Robert Schmitz, dédicataire de la par- un tableau, ni une abstraction psychologique ou Koussevitzky aux cours de Tanglewood, profita tique” (Varèse). Le public, certes, n’était pas prêt tition, qui a dirigé la création mondiale philosophique. Elle est tout simplement la des quelques libertés que lui laissait son propre à entrer dans cet univers. d’Octandre, le 13 janvier 1924, à New York, dans musique. Elle a une structure bien déterminée enseignement pour composer le Cantéyodjayâ. le cadre des concerts de l’International Compo- qui peut être appréhendée d’une façon bien Une œuvre d’une douzaine de minutes dont les Edgar Varèse : Octandre sers’ Guild, une institution aux programmes plus juste en l’écoutant qu’en essayant de l’ana- recherches rythmiques annoncent les très pro- particulièrement inventifs qu’en compagnie du lyser. Je répète ce que j’ai déjà écrit : l’analyse chaines Quatre études de rythme. Même période de composition qu’Hyperprism harpiste Carlos Salzedo, Varèse avait lui-même est stérile (…) J’avoue que j’éprouve un grand Précision de l’auteur : “On trouve dans cette (1923), même famille instrumentale (flûte alter- fondée trois ans auparavant. plaisir à choisir mes titres : c’est une sorte de œuvre plusieurs deçi-tâlas de l’Inde antique nant avec la petite flûte, clarinette en si bémol passe-temps parental, comme on baptise un (rythmes hindous) : notamment “lakskmîça” (la alternant avec une clarinette en mi bémol, haut- Edgar Varèse : Intégrales nouveau-né, très différent de l’activité intense paix qui descend de Lashmi) et “simhavikrama” bois, basson, cor anglais en fa, trompette en ut, qui consiste à créer (…) J’emprunte souvent mes (la force du lion et aussi la force de Shiva). On y trombone ténor, contrebasse à cordes descen- En mars 1924, Varèse s’embarque sur le Suf- titres aux mathématiques ou à l’astronomie trouve encore des gammes chromatiques de dant jusqu’au do grave), même concision, même fren : il a décidé de passer quelques mois à Paris. parce que ces sciences stimulent mon imagina- durées : droite, par accélération progressive des invention formelle. Comme dans Hyperprism Des retrouvailles, mais aussi un nouveau travail : tion et me donnent une impression de durées – rétrograde, par ralentissement progres- (mais là, hors de tout instrument de percussion), la composition d’une œuvre, qu’il nomme Inté- mouvement, de rythme. Je trouve plus d’inspi- sif des durées – les deux sens étant superposés. Varèse joue sur les chocs de sonorités, sur la dif- grales, et qu’il destine à l’un de ces effectifs chers ration musicale dans la contemplation des Enfin, vers le deuxième tiers de l’œuvre, on férenciation des timbres. On a évoqué certaines à son cœur : onze vents (deux petites flûtes, un étoiles – surtout à travers un téléscope – et entend un mode de durées, de hauteurs, et d’in- filiations : Schoenberg, Webern, Debussy – elles hautbois, deux clarinettes, un cor en fa, deux dans la haute poésie d’une démonstration tensités, distribué en trois étages de tempi, où sont lointaines, tant la musique de Varèse répond trompettes, trois trombones) et dix-sept percussions. mathématique que dans le récit le plus sublime chaque son possède sa durée et son intensité à une esthétique de rupture. Varèse y teste des effets acoustiques parti- des passions humaines.” propres. L’unité de la pièce est assurée par un Trois mouvements enchaînés, chacun d’eux culièrement insolites, et y introduit aussi l’idée C’est à propos d’Intégrales, que le composi- très court refrain qui revient à différentes places.” étant introduit par un solo instrumental (1 : assez de la spatialisation sonore, malgré l’absence de teur François-Bernard Mâche évoqua “une sorte Le Cantéyodjayâ, trop rarement joué, a été lent ; 2 : très vif ; 3 : grave). moyens qui, dira-t-il plus tard, n’existaient pas de réacteur nucléaire en surchauffe, un objet créé au concert du Domaine musical du 23 Commentaire de Carlos Chávez, qui dirigea encore. Malgré la résistance de la critique et d’un céleste nouveau qui serait une sorte de pulsar février 1954 par Yvonne Loriod. VOL 2.

Olivier Messiaen : Sept Haïkaï bien dans la troisième pièce (“Yamanaka- cadenza”) – oiseaux entendus en forêt, près du Esquisses japonaises pour piano solo, xylophone et marimba soli, deux clarinettes, lac Yamanaka, au pied du Mont Fujii, note Mes- une trompette et petit orchestre. siaen – que dans la sixième pièce (“Les oiseaux de Karuizawa”), véritable festin ornithologique, avec l’Uiguisu (Bouscarle du Japon), l’Hototo- C’est une véritable fascination que le Japon guisu (petit coucou à tête grise), le Kibitaki a exercé sur Olivier Messiaen, dès son premier (Gobe-mouches Narcisse), et tant d’autres. voyage vers ce très lointain Orient. Après un nouveau séjour en 1962, il entreprit de compo- Enfin, la cinquième pièce (“Miyajima et le ser ces Sept Haïkaï, dont le titre indique, par Torii dans la mer”) où affleurent les couleurs, où analogie avec les poèmes japonais, la brièveté circulent le rites et les symboles : “Peut-être le de chacune des pièces ; quant à la partition, elle plus beau paysage du Japon. Une île, une mon- renvoie à quelques thèmes chers à l’auteur de tagne couverte de pins japonais vert foncé et la Turangalîla : les recherches rythmiques, en d’érables (rouges en automne). Un temple particulier avec la présence des rythmes de Shinto, blanc et rouge. Dans la mer bleue, l’Inde “dédiés aux trois Shakti” dans les deux ouvrant sur l’invisible (c’est-à-dire sur le vrai pièces extrêmes ; la beauté des paysages – c’est temple), un grand portique rouge ou torii”… dans la deuxième pièce qu’Olivier Messiaen Les Sept Haïkaï ont été créés au Domaine évoque le parc de Nara, ce parc où “les cerfs et musical, à l’époque installé à l’Odéon-Théâtre les biches circulent en liberté (…), où le soleil se de France, le 30 octobre 1963, avec la participa- joue entre les cryptomérias, où trois mille lan- tion d’Yvonne Loriod pour la partie concertante ternes se serrent à perte de vue” ; la tradition et sous la direction de Pierre Boulez. japonaise qu’impose le Gagaku (quatrième I pièce), Messiaen transposant les sonorités de cette musique noble du VIIème siècle – un ensemble de huit violons représentant le “Shô” (ou orgue à bouche) et la trompette remplacée par l’”Hichiriki” (hautbois primitif). Les oiseaux, comme dans tant d’œuvres de Messiaen, conservent la meilleure part, aussi VOL 3.

Pierre Boulez : Structures nées de départ qui avaient servi à Messiaen, Pierre Boulez : Sonatine carrière ; mais Rampal ne joua jamais l’œuvre, pour deux pianos, premier Livre dont il avait la “clef”, mais qui étaient très faciles pour flûte et piano dont le modernisme, en particulier l’utilisation à déduire du texte lui-même”. Boulez, à ce sujet, particulière de l’écriture instrumentale, n’en- Le premier Livre des Structures pour deux parle à plusieurs reprises d’”expérience” – expé- Quoique précédée, mais de peu, par les trait pas dans son univers musical. C’est le pianos constitue une étape particulièrement rience, en effet, pour étendre la série des Douze Notations pour piano et les Trois Psal- flûtiste Jan van Boterdael, en compagnie de la significative dans la démarche boulézienne. En hauteurs à tous les paramètres de la composi- modies, la Sonatine pour flûte et piano est pianiste Marcelle Mercenier, qui créa l’œuvre à effet, en 1951, au moment où il entreprend la tion : les durées, les intensités, les attaques ; officiellement considérée comme la première Bruxelles, en 1947, devant un public assez peu composition de sa nouvelle œuvre, Pierre Bou- perspective d’une série généralisée, une idée œuvre du compositeur qui, à vingt ans, affirme réceptif ; en revanche, dès octobre 1946, sans lez prend connaissance du Mode de valeurs et qui allait faire son chemin… Chemin dont Boulez son adhésion au langage dodécaphonique et, doute après consultation de la partition, le com- d’intensités d’Olivier Messiaen, auquel il désire détecta lui-même les limites : “D’aucuns pour- prenant pour précédent la Symphonie de positeur (et critique musical) Virgil Thomson, rendre hommage – après quelques velléités ront penser qu’il s’agissait d’une camisole de chambre de 1906, sa filiation schoenbergienne. signalait à ses lecteurs américains l’importance contestataires – et dont il tient à prolonger les force et que, pour obliger le langage à s’épa- Non pas le Schoenberg post-romantique – “cet de la Sonatine, et la présence de l’auteur “bril- recherches. Donc, ayant opté pour les sonorités nouir dans une direction nouvelle, point n’était aspect ne m’intéressait pas du tout” – mais le lant jeune homme dans le paysage musical neutres et flexibles du piano, il aborde un travail besoin de méthodes si contraignantes ; je per- Schoenberg inventeur d’une forme. “Dans la parisien”. à la forte résonance théorique, une “épure”, siste à croire que cette expérience ne fut Symphonie de chambre, note Boulez, sont réu- dira-t-il, et même une “épuration”. Un temps, réellement fondamentale que dans la mesure nis les quatre mouvements d’une sonate, mais Pierre Boulez : Deuxième Sonate n’avait-il pas placé en épigraphe le titre d’un où elle atteignit directement les frontières de en même temps, ces quatre mouvements pour piano tableau de Paul Klee : “Monument à la limite du l’absurdité logique.” L’unité de tous les élé- constituent les quatre versets, les quatre déve- pays fertile” ? ments du langage était à ce prix. loppements d’un seul mouvement” ; et dans la 1948 : Pierre Boulez compose sa Deuxième Le premier Livre des Structures pour deux Sonatine “comme dans Schoenberg, les quatre Sonate pour piano. 1950 : l’œuvre est créée à Boulez s’empare donc de la série fondamen- Paris, le 29 avril, par Yvette Grimaud. 1948-1950 : Mode de valeurs et d’intensité pianos comporte trois parties : 1a, 1b, 1c. La mouvements traditionnels sont respectés : l’al- tale du s – de la période capitale dans la vie du jeune Boulez. Il série, si l’on peut dire, avant utilisation. Com- Structure 1a, très brève mais très embléma- legro initial précédé d’une introduction, le tique, a été créée à Paris, le 4 mai 1952, par mouvement lent, le scherzo avec trio et reprise, est, depuis deux ans, directeur musical de la mentaire du compositeur : “Indépendamment Compagnie Renaud-Barrault. Il vient de rencon- de toutes les raisons personnelles qui m’ont Olivier Messiaen et l’auteur ; le 13 novembre enfin le presto final avec une coda (…) Ce qui 1953, Yvette Grimaud et Yvonne Loriod assurè- m’intéressait, c’était les métamorphoses d’un trer René Char ; il a découvert les œuvres de amené à l’emprunt de cette thématique – car Klee, Kandinsky, Mondrian, il lit Joyce, Kafka, il s’agit bien d’un emprunt thématique – je vou- rent à Cologne la création intégrale de la seul thème et, de ce point de vue, l’œuvre est partition. Huit ans plus tard, Pierre Boulez com- plus unitaire même que la Symphonie de cham- Dostoïevski, Mallarmé ; il va connaître John drais souligner que la saisie du matériel offert Cage, Heinrich Strobel qui, en sa qualité de par Messiaen ne s’est pas effectuée sur le maté- posera son deuxième Livre des Structures pour bre de Schoenberg parce que le matériau de deux pianos. base est plus réduit”. directeur des services musicaux du Südwest- riel achevé, c’est-à-dire sur un extrait de la pièce funk de Baden-Baden, contribuera de façon Sonatine elle-même telle qu’elle est écrite, telle qu’elle La avait été commandée par Jean- décisive à l’orientation de ses futures activités, se joue, mais sur le matériau brut, sur les don- Pierre Rampal, alors au tout début de sa VOL 3. ainsi que Suzanne Tézenas, future présidente de “Construit sur le principe du trope : de la grande l’association du Domaine musical. variation (…) pas une variation mécanique, mais Cette période est non moins essentielle sur une variation véritablement organique.” Troi- le plan de la composition. En effet, Pierre Bou- sième mouvement : “Un des derniers restes de lez, auteur déjà d’une Première Sonate pour classicisme que je pouvais éprouver dans le piano, de la Sonatine pour flûte et piano et du monde de la forme.” Quatrième mouvement : Visage nuptial “rompt simplement, comme il le “Au contraire, extrêmement libre.” Et l’auteur dit à Célestin Deliège, avec le “concept” de la commente : “Probablement influencé par toute série schoenbergienne”. Précision apportée à l’école viennoise qui voulait essayer de récupé- Antoine Goléa : “Cette sonate renonce carré- rer les forces anciennes, j’ai tenté l’expérience ment au point de départ dodécaphonique et de les détruire complètement ; j’entends par là aux formulations qui en découlent. On n’y un essai de destruction de ce qu’était la forme- trouve pas de séries initiales, ni sur le plan sonate d’un premier mouvement, de dissolution sonore, ni sur le plan du rythme ; des cellules de la forme du mouvement lent par le trope et sonores assez brèves y servent de support à de de dissolution de la forme-scherzo répétitive véritables thèmes rythmiques, travaillés et par la forme-variation, de destruction, enfin, développés selon les principes exposés par dans le quatrième mouvement, de la forme Messiaen.” fuguée et de la forme canonique.” Celui qui avait été, en sa vingtième année, Au-delà des problèmes spécifiques de lan- l’un des initiateurs du dodécaphonisme post- gage, on dira avec Dominique Jameux, que la schoenbergien, lui tourne le dos ou, plutôt, Deuxième Sonate est, avec son agressivité, sa décide de le dépasser. Il est vrai qu’il venait rage et son délire, son ultra-sensibilité, sa d’écrire, en 1951, dans les deux sens du terme : pudeur et sa séduction, “le portrait du jeune “Schoenberg est mort.” Boulez de vingt-deux ans”. Le compositeur a donné lui-même de pré- I cieuses indications sur le contenu de chacun des quatre mouvements de la Sonate. Premier mouvement : “Contraste entre des motifs très précis et une dissolution de ces motifs dans des intervalles imprécis.” Deuxième mouvement : VOL 4.

Mauricio Kagel : Sextuor à cordes La composition du Sextuor avait été déjà Luigi Nono : Incontri “Écrits” rassemblés aux Éditions Christian Bour- entreprise en Argentine, dès 1953, sous le titre gois en 1993 : En 1957, alors qu’il quitte Buenos Aires où il de Sexteto de cuerdas ; c’est en 1957 que la par- Luigi Nono fut très présent au cours des trois “Les Incontri sont des rencontres. Dans est répétiteur et chef d’orchestre au Théâtre tition sera reprise et terminée, mais l’œuvre, premières saison du Domaine musical ; en effet, Incontri, composition pour 24 instruments, deux Colon, Mauricio Kagel a vingt-cinq ans ; bénéfi- créée à Darmstadt le 7 septembre 1958, ne sera une de ses toutes premières œuvres datée de structures se rencontrent. Chacune des deux ciaire d’une bourse d’un an du “Deutscher donnée qu’ensuite à Paris, au cours de la 1951, Polifonica-Monodia-Ritmica, fut exécutée structures est indépendante en soi et se diffé- Akademischer Auslandsdienst”, il décide de sixième saison du Domaine musical. Le nom de en première française le 13 janvier 1954, sous la rencie de l’autre par sa construction rythmique, s’installer provisoirement, puis définitivement, Kagel sera inscrit à plusieurs reprises aux direction de Hermann Scherchen au concert par son timbre (timbre et instrumentation) ainsi en Allemagne fédérale ; il a choisi Cologne où il concerts du Domaine, notamment avec Sonant inaugural de la série encore nommée “Concerts que par la dynamique de sa projection harmo- va bientôt participer aux travaux du Studio de (dont l’exécution provoqua un grand scandale), du Petit Marigny”. L’année suivante (26 mars nique et mélodique. Néanmoins, les deux musique électronique de la Radio, placé sous Transition II, Sur scène, Anagrama et Match – 1955), ce fut la création de Canti pour treize ins- structures restent constamment en contact par l’autorité morale de Karlheinz Stockhausen. toutes œuvres qui imposent une idée spécifi- truments, puis, le 22 avril 1956, la première un rapport de proportions constantes. Tout Mais Mauricio Kagel, qui rejoint rapidement les quement kagelienne de la représentation audition d’Incontri, œuvre qui avait été créée à comme deux êtres, différents l’un de l’autre et représentants les plus en vue de l’avant-garde musicale. Darmstadt l’année précédente sous la direction indépendants en soi, qui se rencontrent ; de leur européenne, a déjà rencontré Pierre Boulez. La Quant au Sextuor, note Célestin Deliège dans d’Hans Rosbaud et que Boulez dirigea à Paris. rencontre ne peut naître, il est vrai, une “unité”, première entrevue a eu lieu au cours de la tour- son ouvrage monumental sur Cinquante ans de Ensuite, les voies, tant musicales que politiques, mais plutôt un rapprochement mutuel, une cer- née en Amérique latine de la Compagnie modernité musicale, “il est basé sur un échange choisies par Nono l’éloignèrent quelque peu de taine intimité, une symbiose”. Jean-Louis Barrault-Madeleine Renaud, dont et une superposition de deux structures travail- la scène française ; il fut néanmoins encore pro- Boulez faisait partie. lées en différents tempi. Dans l’une de ces grammé au Domaine musical, en novembre Hans Werner Henze : Concerto per il Pierre Boulez : “J’ai connu Kagel en Argen- structures, la forme polyphonique permet aux 1960, pour la première française d’une pièce Marigny tine, en 1950, lors d’une tournée avec les instrumentistes le choix de différentes articula- déjà ancienne, Y su sangre ya viene cantando Barrault. Il était figurant dans Le Procès de tions, d’intensités et de timbres ; dans l’autre se pour flûte et petit orchestre ; mais à cette Il est évident que la présence de Hans Wer- Kafka. Quand il est venu en Europe, il m’a dit : déploie un développement en variation (…) Ce époque, Luigi Nono commençait à prendre ses ner Henze aux programmes du Domaine “J’avais été figurant… “ En effet, je me souviens plan de l’œuvre permet d’imaginer que la partie distances avec l’héritage sériel post-webernien. musical est fondée sur un malentendu. Sans d’un grand type comme ça.” déterminée était préexistante, composée en Ce n’est pas le cas avec Incontri ; comme le doute, né en 1926, fait-il partie de cette généra- tion de compositeurs dont les œuvres furent Mauricio Kagel : “Nous eûmes un excellent Argentine, alors que la partie comportant des remarque justement Célestin Deliège, “nous inscrites dès la première saison aux concerts du contact et l’enthousiasme qu’il manifesta alors traits variables aurait été ajoutée en Europe” – mesurons là la persistance d’une réelle affilia- Petit Marigny ; mais, esthétiquement parlant, il pour mon travail fut décisif en ce qui concerne hypothèse qui, ainsi que le remarque Deliège, tion à la pensée sérielle”. n’avait nulle envie d’endosser, même fugitive- le choix de venir en Europe.” est contestée par Dieter Schnebel… On retiendra le commentaire introductif de l’œuvre par son auteur, texte qui figure dans les ment, le costume du musicien sériel orthodoxe. VOL 4.

“Je ne crois pas au style”, dira-t-il trente ans plus ments (violon, violoncelle, deux percussions et Henri Pousseur : Mobile pour deux pianos “Pousseur, note Célestin Deliège, présente l’œu- tard. “Il y a quantité de façons de parler, de piano), composé au printemps 1962, a été donné vre comme un programme que les interprètes métaphores dans la musique. L’artiste n’a pas en première audition au concert du Domaine Le Belge Henri Pousseur, qui rencontra Bou- doivent achever.” besoin de perdre son temps à créer et à formu- musical du 4 décembre 1963. Œuvre de transi- lez (son aîné de quatre ans) à Royaumont en Eclairage sur la démarche : le texte qui figure ler son style, ni à veiller jalousement pour en tion, ainsi que l’indique Jésus Aguila “libéré des juin 1951, est considéré comme l’un des princi- sur le disque original de ce Mobile, non signé, garder la pureté. Je crois à l’écriture personnelle, contraintes du sérialisme strict, Madrigal III paux théoriciens du sérialisme et du mais vraisemblablement dû à la plume du com- naïve et exigeante, mais qui garde sa liberté et retrouvait la fraîcheur et la simplicité formelle post-webernisme européen ; il fut, avec Stock- positeur : “Il n’y a pas dans Mobile, de forme exclut toute ritualisation”. de l’improvisation : un groupe instrumental hausen, Messiaen et Boulez lui-même, l’un des préconçue, celle-ci s’organisant essentiellement Le Concerto per il Marigny, œuvre pour piano ponctuait, commentait ou colorait de longs solis compositeurs les plus joués dans les premières dans l’activité, toujours renouvelée, que consti- et sept instruments (clarinette et clarinette de la clarinette, dont la ligne mélodique ne crai- saisons du Domaine musical. Dès 1956, son tue une “interprétation”. L’orientation des basse, cor en fa, trompette en ut, trombone, gnait plus de créer des effets de polarisation par Quintette à la mémoire d’Anton Webern y avait structures les unes vers les autres découle donc alto, violoncelle) fut créé le 10 mars 1956 sous la la répétition d’intervalles caractéristiques”. été programmé – puis repris deux ans plus tard des réactions spontanées – par hypothèse direction de Rudolf Albert avec la participation Commentaire d’Henri Pousseur : “Cette dans une nouvelle version. Ce fut ensuite, imprévisibles – des interprètes, une articulation d’Yvonne Loriod, et obtint, grâce à ses séduc- œuvre réabsorbe la presque totalité de Madri- notamment, les Impromptu et Variations II générale demeurant nécessaire, par ailleurs, tions immédiates, un certain succès. Au succès, gal I, écrit quatre ans plus tôt pour clarinette joués par David Tudor, les Rimes pour diffé- pour “susciter“ ces réactions. L’indétermination répondit la polémique. “C’est du toc. Il y a de seule. Les solis de clarinette issus de cette pièce rentes sources sonores (qui remportèrent un de l’œuvre n’est pas constante : il peut s’agir de tout dans cette partition”, déclara Boris de alternent avec des nouveaux “formants”, plus grand succès), Répons (accueilli en novembre liberté de parcours (les structures étant alors Schloezer. La critique de Claude Rostand fut ou moins denses et aussi plus ou moins lents (..) 1960 par des sifflets), l’Ode pour quatuor à rédigées entièrement) ou de l’écriture elle- plus mesurée, mais significative : “On sait que le Cette œuvre, d’où toute forme mobile est cordes, trois ans plus tard. même dont l’interprète aura à fixer certaines don, c’est quelquefois la porte ouverte à la faci- exclue, favorise cependant une interprétation Quant au Mobile pour deux pianos, composé “manières d’être”. De grandes parties invaria- lité. Henze, à qui l’on doit des partitions d’une souple et fluctuante. Les hauteurs dépendant entre décembre 1956 et mai 1958, il fut créé par bles jalonnent la pièce, créant ainsi une “grande belle fermeté et où il se montre fort exigeant toujours d’une notation absolue, d’autres para- Alfons et Aloys Kontarsky le 21 février 1959. Avec forme”, la progression générale se faisant du avec lui-même, passe parfois par cette porte. Je mètres (durées de son et de silence, intensités ce Mobile, Pousseur s’inscrit dans le sillage de plus déterminé au toujours plus libre.” crois que c’est ce qu’il a fait cette fois dans cette et attaques) sont “relâchés” et permettent, Boulez et de Stockhausen qui, respectivement Les dix sections de la partition se jouent sans valse pour salon dodécaphonique”… grâce à une notation relative, de dégager des dans la Troisième Sonate et dans le Klavierstück interruption. Quant à Pierre Boulez, il n’était pas prêt à “zones” à l’intérieur desquelles l’interprète XI, ont, après les rigueurs de l’écriture sérielle l’indulgence… pourra osciller avec plus ou moins de liberté”… généralisée, entamé une réflexion concernant Karlheinz Stockhausen : Zeitmasse Le Madrigal III est dédié à la mémoire de le principe de l’œuvre (plus ou moins) ouverte. Henri Pousseur : Madrigal III Wolfgang Steinecke… La partition de Pousseur est accompagnée Karlheinz Stockhausen fut le compositeur d’une longue notice à l’intention des interprètes vivant le plus joué au Domaine musical : Jésus Le Madrigal III pour clarinette et cinq instru- que l’on sollicite pour une collaboration active. Aguila a relevé dix-huit exécutions en quatorze VOL 4. saisons et, parmi ces exécutions, quelques évé- force de sa pensée et l’originalité de sa concep- “pièces pour piano”, c’est-à-dire sur la compo- autrefois appoggiatures – devinrent très nom- nements, comme la création française des tion : des mesures de temps vraiment variables, sition pour un seul instrument, pour dix doigts, breuses et furent composées en groupes de Gruppen avec l’Orchestre du Westdeutscher c’est-à-dire dépendant de différents paramè- avec de minutieuses nuances de timbre et de densité variable, autour de noyaux : c’est sur ces Rundfunk de Cologne en 1965. Mais dès les pre- tres, et n’ayant pas forcément une métrique structure. Ce sont pour moi des “dessins” (dra- groupes de notes précédant, accompagnant, mières saisons, Stockhausen, qui venait commune (…) Plus que la sonorité proprement wings). J’écrivis le troisième et le deuxième prolongeant les sons-noyaux que reposent tous d’assister aux cours d’Olivier Messiaen au dite, ce sont ces structures de tempos ainsi que Klavierstücke en 1952 à Paris, pour ma femme les Klavierstücke V-X.” Conservatoire de Paris de janvier 1952 à mai 1953, la conception formelle de l’œuvre – une forme Doris qui fit ses études de piano avec moi, à Fidèle à la musique de Karlheinz Stockhau- avait eu l’occasion de partager avec Pierre Bou- en constante évolution avec des points de l’École supérieure de musique de Cologne. J’y sen, le Domaine musical programma dès le 27 lez quelques fortes convictions sur le présent et rebroussement, mais sans césures – qui font joignis ensuite les premier et quatrième Kla- avril 1955 les Klavierstücke I-IV et VIII, dans l’in- l’avenir de la création musicale. Il n’est donc pas l’originalité profonde et la nouveauté radicale vierstücke. Dans ces quatre pièces, le passage terprétation de Marcelle Mercenier. Le surprenant de noter que son nom a été inscrit des Zeitmasse. Cependant, la sonorité elle- de la “musique ponctuelle “ à une “composition Klavierstück VI, composé entre novembre 1954 au programme du concert inaugural, avec Kon- même se ressent des expériences électroniques en groupes” est nettement perceptible. et mars 1955, a été créé par Marcelle Mercenier tra-Punkte, le 13 janvier 1954. Le 15 décembre de Stockhausen : en ce sens que les accords, les Commencé à la fin de l’année 1953, à pendant les cours d’été de Darmstadt 1955, pro- 1956, ce sera le tour des Zeitmasse, bientôt enre- combinaisons d’instruments et leurs dyna- Cologne, le deuxième cycle est marqué par un voquant un véritable scandale. C’est David gistrés par les musiciens de la création (le miques sont envisagés d’un point de vue élargissement de la composition sonore grâce Tudor qui le joua ensuite dans la saison du hautboïste Claude Maisonneuve, le flûtiste véritablement acoustique (..) Certainement avec aux moyens spécifiques au piano : j’inventai six Domaine musical. Au départ, le Klavierstück VI Jacques Castagner, le cor anglais Paul Taillefer, le Zeitmasse, nous sommes en présence d’une des nouveaux “modes d’attaque” permettant de était le plus court de la série. Stockhausen le clarinettiste Guy Deplus et le bassoniste André œuvres les plus importantes de la musique différencier les transitoires d’attaque du piano, prolongea, lui donnant les dimensions, sinon la Rabot) – enregistrement pour lequel Pierre Bou- contemporaine.” à la manière dont j’avais composé auparavant, forme, d’une sonate pour répondre au souhait lez rédigea un texte d’introduction dont nous dans les Elektronische Studien, grâce à une de David Tudor, soucieux de présenter au public donnons ici de larges extraits. Karlheinz Stockhausen : Klavierstück VI série de “courbes d’enveloppes”. Je définis de new-yorkais des pièces d’une certaine ampleur. “Dans la production de Karlheinz Stockhau- nouveaux symboles pour ces modes d’attaque. I sen, le quintette à vent intitulé Zeitmasse Pourquoi les Klavierstücke, cette impression- C’est surtout la découverte d’harmoniques avec (mesures du temps) tient jusqu’à présent la nante série de pièces pour piano inscrites au des résonances “subharmoniques” qui me fut place la plus importante autant du point de vue premier rang du répertoire pianistique contem- d’un grand secours, car cela permettait de com- de la découverte formelle que de la recherche porain ? Le compositeur répond : biner de courtes attaques staccato et une stylistique. Il fut “écrit” en deux étapes ; la pre- “Malgré ou justement à cause de la grande légère prolongation de la note (“sons en écho”) mière version, assez simple (fin 1955) était assez importance accordée à la “composition de tim- pour des hauteurs identiques. En outre, je ne proche de l’esprit des Kontra-Punkte (…) Stock- bres” dans ma musique électronique et dans les composai plus des notes et des accords isolés, hausen reprit son ouvrage au printemps 1956 et œuvres orchestrales et vocales, il m’est arrivé mais des sons dotés d’une structure interne lui adjoignit ce qui fait maintenant toute la périodiquement de me concentrer sur des spécifique. Les “petites notes” – appelées VOL 5.

Igor Stravinsky : Concertino Edmond Allegra, le 8 novembre 1919. Igor Stravinsky : Symphonies Igor Stravinsky : Renard pour douze instruments L’ensemble évolue dans le dépouillement et, pour instruments à vent en particulier pour la première pièce, la médita- Renard est une pièce caractéristique de la Le Concertino pour douze instruments est la tion ; André Boucourechliev a justement souligné, Les Symphonies pour instruments à vent ont période où Stravinsky, installé en Suisse, remonte version (réalisée en 1952) pour dix bois et cuivres à propos de la troisième pièce, “le jeu diabolique pour origine un choral que Stravinsky composa aux sources de sa Russie natale. “Histoire burlesque et deux parties obbligato de violon et de violon- d’accents déplacés et de mètres variables sur à la demande d’Henry Prunières, le directeur de chantée et jouée par un canard, un coq, un chat et celle du Concertino pour quatuor à cordes que des cellules brèves, le tout étant bloqué dans le la Revue musicale, qui souhaitait publier un sup- un bouc”, Renard trouve son origine dans les contes Stravinsky composa après la première guerre registre aigu, un peu “canaille” de l’instrument“. plément de sa revue où, sous le titre du populaires russes et, plus particulièrement, dans le mondiale, alors qu’il avait décidé de s’établir en “Tombeau de Claude Debussy”, il rassemblerait recueil d’histoires russes d’Afanassiev dont le com- France. “Un morceau en un seul mouvement Igor Stravinsky : Trois pièces une dizaine de pièces d’auteurs différents. Frag- positeur a lui-même adapté les textes, avec la traité librement en forme d’allegro de sonate”, dit pour quatuor à cordes ment donc, composé en 1920, bientôt étoffé. participation de Ramuz pour la mise en forme de l’auteur, “avec une partie nettement concertante Musique âpre et lumineuse, sur laquelle Stra- la version française. Stravinsky s’est plu à le souli- au premier violon, ce qui, en raison de sa dimen- Les Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes, jalon vinsky s’est expliqué dans les “Chroniques de ma gner : il ne s’agit pas d’un opéra, mais d’une sorte sion limitée, me fit donner le titre diminutif de entre le Sacre du printemps et les Symphonies vie“ : “Je déplorais non seulement la perte d’un de cantate de chambre accompagnant une action concertino (piccolo concerto)”. C’est en 1920, au pour instruments à vent, datent de 1914 et sont homme auquel je me sentais sincèrement atta- scénique mimée. “La pièce est jouée”, dit aussi le cours de vacances à Carantec, puis à Garches que dédiées à Ernest Ansermet. L’influence de l’Écolede ché et qui me témoignait une grande amitié compositeur, “par des bouffons, des danseurs ou Stravinsky, à la demande d’Alfred Pochon, premier Vienne y est-elle décelable ? “En 1914”, répondra le ainsi qu’une inaltérable bienveillance pour mon des acrobates, de préférence sur des tréteaux, l’or- violon du Quatuor (vaudois) Flonzaley avait rédigé compositeur, “je ne connaissais aucune musique de œuvre et pour moi-même, mais aussi la dispari- chestre est placé derrière. Les rôles sont muets. Les la partition originale de l’œuvre, laquelle n’eut Webern et, de Schoenberg, uniquement le Pierrot tion d’un artiste qui, déjà mûr et miné au surplus voix (deux ténors et deux basses) sont dans l’or- guère de succès lorsqu’elle fut créée à New York, lunaire. Mais, bien que mes pièces soient peut-être par un mal implacable, avait su conserver quand chestre”, et cet orchestre est dominé par les le 3 novembre suivant, par les dédicataires. d’une substance plus mince, qu’elles soient plus ité- même la plénitude de ses forces créatrices et timbres pointus des instruments à vent, tandis que ratives que la musique de Schoenberg à la même dont le génie musical, durant toute son activité, la touche russe est donnée par le cymbalum, ins- Igor Stravinsky : Trois pièces date, elles sont aussi différentes et marquent, je n’avait subi aucune altération (…) Dans ma pen- trument qu’Ernest Ansermet, le futur créateur de pour clarinette seule crois, un important changement dans mon art”. sée, l’hommage que je destinais à la mémoire du l’œuvre, a fait découvrir à Stravinsky dans un café Les Trois Pièces pour quatuor à cordes, transcrites grand musicien que j’admirais ne devait pas être de Genève et qui évoque l’ancienne guzla, “un ins- C’est pour remercier Werner Reinhart, lui- pour quatuor à cordes et orchestre et prolongées inspiré par la nature même de ses idées musi- trument de musée”… même clarinettiste amateur, d’avoir apporté par une Étude dans le style espagnol, deviendront cales ; je tenais, au contraire, à l’exprimer dans C’est au printemps 1915 que Stravinsky a son soutien financier à la création de l’Histoire les Quatre Études pour orchestre, achevées en 1918, un langage qui fût essentiellement mien.” Les entrepris la composition de Renard, travail ter- du soldat qu’Igor Stravinsky a composé les Trois créées à Berlin en 1930. premiers auditeurs n’y furent guère sensibles. La miné à Morges, “le 1er août 1916 à midi, ciel sans pièces pour clarinette seule, partition d’à peine première à Londres en 1921, sous la direction de nuages”. Commande de la princesse de Polignac, quatre minutes qui fut créée à Lausanne par Koussevitzky, fut, dira Stravinsky, “une débâcle”… l’œuvre n’a été créée que le 18 mai 1922 à l’Opéra VOL5. de Paris par la compagnie des Ballets Russes. Les parties, une référence aux ballets de cour français habituelles exigences du compositeur avaient du XVIIème siècle : “Pas de quatre”, “Double pas de été comblées : “ce spectacle au point de vue quatre” et “Triple pas de quatre” dans la première musical (Ansermet) et scénique (décor et cos- section, “Pas de sarabande”, “Gaillarde” et “Coda“ tumes de Larionov, une de ses meilleures dans la deuxième section, “Bransle simple”, réussites) me donna une grande satisfaction. “Bransle gay” et “Bransle de Poitou” dans la troi- Nijinska avait admirablement saisi l’esprit de sième section, enfin “Pas de deux”, “Quatre duos” cette courte bouffonnade de tréteaux. Elle y pro- et “Quatre trios”. L’œuvre, dira Balanchine, “a été digua tant d’ingéniosité, tant de traits aigus et planifiée par Stravinsky et moi-même pour douze de verve satirique que l’effet en fut irrésistible”. de nos techniciens les plus qualifiés ; elle n’a pas d’argument sinon la danse elle-même ; c’est moins Igor Stravinsky : Agon un combat ou une compétition (les deux significa- tions possibles du mot grec) qu’une construction Agon appartient à la dernière période créa- mesurée dans l’espace, rendue possible par des trice d’Igor Stravinsky et marque l’un des corps en mouvement accordés à certains schémas virages de son esthétique. La distance prise au ou séquences de rythmes et de mélodies.“ début des années cinquante (avec le Septuor La création en concert d’Agon a été dirigée puis le Canticum sacrum) par l’auteur de l’Oi- par Robert Craft, à Los Angeles, le 17 juin 1957, seau de feu à l’égard d’un néo-classicisme jour du soixante-quinzième anniversaire du pratiqué pendant près de trente ans, et sa nou- compositeur ; quant au ballet, il a été créé à New velle proximité avec le langage dodécaphonique York, le 1er décembre suivant, dans la chorégra- ont suscité de sévères critiques ; avec le recul phie de Balanchine, “sans doute la plus belle que du temps, il reste une partition d’une rare habi- ce prince de la danse ait jamais réalisée”, selon leté et d’une belle qualité d’écriture. On ne André Boucourechliev. Entre-temps, très préci- manquera pas de noter qu’Agon, comme les sément le 11 octobre, Agon avait été présenté en grandes partitions du jeune Stravinsky, est création européenne, Salle Pleyel, dans le cadre écrite pour la danse – réponse à une com- de la saison du Domaine musical, par l’Orchestre mande de Lincoln Kirstein pour le New York City du Südwestfunk de Baden-Baden, sous la direc- Ballet de George Balanchine. tion du compositeur. Ballet pour douze danseurs (quatre hommes et huit femmes), Agon est dans sa forme, et plus I encore dans la dénomination de ses différentes VOL 6.

Arnold Schoenberg :La Nuit transfigurée Mais le passage du texte littéraire au texte “chez Webern, la brièveté n’est pas contingente, cution qui déclencha un chahut mémorable, à musical tend moins vers une illustration que ni provoquée, mais elle naît des exigences pro- propos duquel certains commentateurs évo- Arnold Schoenberg termine en décembre vers la définition d’un climat expressif, “musique pres de la pensée musicale”. Et ce sera l’une des queront le scandale du Sacre du printemps, à 1899 la composition de la version sextuor (deux pure”, insiste l’auteur. La tonalité est affirmée innovations majeures que retiendra la jeune Paris, qui éclatera deux mois plus tard. violons, deux altos, deux violoncelles) de la Nuit – ré mineur –, le cadre formel également ; génération des années cinquante, plus weber- Les six pièces portent des indications de transfigurée. Il a vingt-cinq ans, et revendique l’œuvre, pourtant, qui ouvre la voie à Pelléas et nienne que schoenbergienne. mouvement : successivement Etwas bewegt sa filiation : “Ma Nuit transfigurée se réclame de Mélisande, au Premier Quatuor à cordes et à la Au-delà de cette condensation du langage, (assez animé), Bewegt (animé), Zart bewegt Wagner dans son traitement thématique d’une Symphonie de chambre, fit scandale à sa créa- les jeunes compositeurs ont retenu, tel Pierre (doucement animé), Langsam, marcia funebre cellule développée au-dessus d’une harmonie tion, à Vienne, par le fameux Quatuor Rosé et Boulez, le goût de l’ellipse, la douceur et la (lent, marche funèbre), Sehr langsam (très lent) très changeante, mais également de Brahms deux musiciens de l’Orchestre Philharmonique, transparence de cette musique – Boulez qui et Zart bewegt (doucement animé). dans sa technique de développement par varia- le 18 mars 1902. Schoenberg réalisera deux ver- ajoute : “L’emploi de la couleur instrumentale tion.” Wagner-Brahms : les trois musiciens de sions pour orchestre de chambre de la Nuit est d’une beauté tellement directe qu’il n’y a Arnold Schoenberg :Trois pièces l’École de Vienne ont été sensibles à cette transfigurée, en 1917 et en 1943. aucune difficulté pour l’auditeur à la goûter, si pour orchestre de chambre conjonction. On ajoutera le nom de Richard étrange que lui paraisse, au premier abord, la Strauss, dont Schoenberg découvre alors avec Anton Webern : 6 Pièces op. 6 raréfaction de l’atmosphère musicale (…) Trois pièces : Rasch (rapide), Mäßig (modéré), intérêt les poèmes symphoniques. Et, d’une Webern n’a jamais été aussi séduisant, et il ne Gehend (allant), d’une durée totale de moins de certaine façon, avec cette Nuit transfigurée, Anton Webern a vingt-six ans lorsqu’il com- le sera peut-être jamais autant ; car le charme trois minutes. La composition date de février 1910, Schoenberg s’efforce d’introduire le poème pose les Six Pièces pour orchestre. Il a rencontré baroque – au sens stylistique de ce mot – éma- mais la partition a été tardivement découverte symphonique dans la musique de chambre. Schoenberg cinq ans auparavant, il a travaillé nant de ces pièces constitue un phénomène par le musicologue autrichien Josef Rufer et la Comme le note Colin Mason, “c’est une œuvre très intensément auprès de ce maître vénéré tout à fait transitoire dans l’œuvre de Webern création, à Berlin, n’eût lieu que le 10 octobre 1957. de jeunesse, avec ses qualités et ses défauts. pendant six années, et l’on peut dire qu’en 1909, qui tendra son effort vers une rigueur non moins Œuvre dont “l’extrême condensation du dis- Elle déborde de vivacité et trahit en même la période d’apprentissage est terminée. Les belle, mais moins directement intelligible.” cours” annonce le Pierrot lunaire et dont Pièces op. 6 témoignent de l’expérience acquise temps le plaisir sauvage d’inventer des combi- Composé par Anton Webern pour une l’effectif instrumental est également caractéris- naisons de motifs toujours nouvelles”. auprès de Schoenberg : brièveté de la forme, tique des préoccupations de Schoenberg à cette travail sur le timbre ou, ce que Schoenberg grande formation symphonique, avec les cui- Au départ de l’œuvre, il y a le poème de vres par six, l’Opus 6 (la seule partition de époque : flûte, hautbois, clarinette, basson, cor, nommera dans son Traité d’harmonie de 1911, la harmonium, célesta et quintette à cordes. Richard Dehmel, tiré du recueil Weib und Welt, “Klangfarbenmelodie”, abandon du thématisme Webern pour grand orchestre, dont l’auteur publié en 1896, reproduit en tête de la partition, traditionnel. En matière de brièveté, Webern réalisera, en 1928, une version pour orchestre Arnold Schoenberg :Pierrot lunaire poème qui relate les confidences de deux fait, si l’on peut dire, encore mieux que son maî- réduit), a été créé à Vienne, dans la prestigieuse amants (dialogue du violoncelle et de violon) et tre : aucune des six pièces de l’Opus 6 ne salle du Musikverein le 31 mars 1913. Il avait fallu la révélation de la trahison de la femme, par une six répétitions pour mettre au point cette Au début de l’année 1912, Arnold Schoenberg compte plus de quarante mesures ; il va aussi apprend qu’Albertine Zehme, une comédienne nuit froide, au clair de lune. Lettre de Schoen- loin dans la rénovation formelle, ne confondant œuvre de douze minutes. Schoenberg, dédica- berg à Dehmel : “Votre poésie a eu une taire de l’œuvre, a dirigé la première exécution viennoise qui n’est plus de première jeunesse, pas la brièveté avec la réduction des formes tra- désire lui commander (pour mille marks) un influence décisive sur mon évolution musicale.” ditionnelles. Comme l’a noté Claude Rostand, (mais seulement la dernière répétition) – exé- VOL 6. cycle de mélodrames sur les poèmes du Pierrot à chanter ! Les mélodies chantées doivent être lunaire du Belge Albert Giraud dans la traduc- équilibrées et modelées d’une manière totale- tion allemande d’Otto Erich Hartleben. Réponse ment différente des mélodies parlées. Vous du compositeur : “Après avoir lu la préface et déformeriez tout à fait l’œuvre si vous la faisiez étudié les poèmes, je suis enthousiaste. Bril- chanter, et chacun aurait raison de dire : “on lante idée, elle me convient parfaitement. Je n’écrit pas ainsi pour le chant”. Commentaire de ferais ce travail, même sans honoraires.” Pierre Boulez : “Il semble que Schoenberg n’ait Schoenberg entreprend la composition le 12 pas exactement étudié les rapports du registre mars : “J’ai la conviction d’aller à la rencontre vocal et chanté et du registre parlé, non seule- d’une expression nouvelle, je le sens.“ ment dans la tessiture, mais dans la durée de En effet, l’expression était si nouvelle que l’émission ; on ne peut parler sur une hauteur l’œuvre de Schoenberg a été considérée, pen- donnée que pendant un temps très bref, sinon dant longtemps, comme le prototype de la cela devient une émission chantée ; en outre, musique contemporaine. La nouveauté réside pour la voix féminine, le registre parlé est plus dans la variété des couleurs instrumentales – grave et restreint que le registre chanté. Si l’on cinq instrumentistes jouant de huit instruments veut parler Pierrot lunaire, on aboutit à une : piano, flûte/piccolo, clarinette/clarinette basse, espèce de réduction de la ligne écrite (…) Jusqu’à violon/alto et violoncelle, et les effectifs variant présent aucune solution satisfaisante, à notre de pièce en pièce (flûte, clarinette et violon dans connaissance, n’a été trouvée pour résoudre Une pâle lavandière, flûte seule dans La lune cette contradiction.” malade, clarinette et piano dans Prière à Pier- Pierrot lunaire, cycle en trois parties – cha- rot, etc.) ; mais aussi (caractéristique sans doute cune d’elles comportant sept mélodrames – la plus directement frappante de l’œuvre) avec point d’orgue de l’hyper-expressionnisme, a été l’emploi systématique du “Sprechgesang”, créé le 16 octobre 1912 sous la direction du com- déclamation fixée selon un rythme strict, dont positeur avec Albertine Zehme, seule en scène les hauteurs sont indiquées par des croix sur la mais en costume de Pierrot. Anton Webern partition, l’interprète passant d’une hauteur à était dans la salle : “L’accueil réservé aux mélo- l’autre par un glissando ascendant ou descen- drames a été enthousiaste. Naturellement, il y dant. On rappellera que la commanditaire (et a eu quelques huées après la première partie et créatrice) du Pierrot lunaire était une comé- quelqu’un a sifflé à l’aide d’une clé. Mais cela ne dienne, à laquelle ont succédé dans ce rôle signifiait pas grand chose”… essentiellement des chanteuses. Remarque du I compositeur (en 1930) : Pierrot lunaire “n’est pas VOL 7.

Alban Berg : Sonate pour piano op.1 référence schoenbergienne : la proximité du La nouvelle œuvre aussi est une manière de direction d’Anton Webern, l’intégrale de l’œuvre premier thème de la Sonate avec le deuxième réponse à la “désapprobation” schoenbergienne à Oldenburg, sept ans plus tard. Sans être précisément la première œuvre thème de la Symphonie de chambre op. 9, l’un – dans l’écriture et la conquête de la grande composée par Alban Berg, c’est celle qu’il a et l’autre débutant par une quarte juste suivie forme, dans le détail de certaines conventions Arnold Schoenberg :Première Symphonie jugée digne, après différentes partitions de d’une quarte augmentée ascendante. (l’utilisation sur la partition des références à la de chambre op. 9 grande jeunesse (nombreux Lieder, et notam- Composée en 1907 et 1908, la Sonate ne fut “Hauptstimme” et la “Nebenstimme”, respecti- ment, les Sieben Frühe Lieder, différents créée que trois ans plus tard – le 24 avril 1911 par vement H et N, comme le fait Schoenberg) et Destinée à quinze instruments solistes, chœurs, Douze Variations pour piano sur un Etta Werndorff, en même temps que le Quatuor dans la parenté avec les Cinq Pièces pour orchestrée pour grand orchestre par l’auteur en thème original, etc.) de porter la mention “opus 1”. à cordes op. 3. Berg avait fait éditer (à ses frais) orchestre de Schoenberg (quoique Berg ait écrit 1922 et 1935, transcrite par Berg pour piano qua- Et c’est une œuvre qui, malgré sa brièveté, l’œuvre l’année précédente, et avait dessiné le à son épouse : “Mes pièces n’en sont pas déri- tre mains mais aussi par Webern (pour flûte, introduit très explicitement dans l’univers d’un projet de couverture de la partition. vées, au contraire ; elles sont très différentes”), clarinette, violoncelle et piano), la Symphonie musicien qui, tout en s’inscrivant dans la des- enfin dans la dédicace : Arnold Schoenberg, à de chambre op. 9 marque une étape importante cendance du romantisme (ici, pour l’écriture Alban Berg : Trois pièces pour orchestre l’occasion de son quarantième anniversaire. dans une évolution qui amena Schoenberg du pianistique, par l’intermédiaire de Brahms et de op. 6 Mais une autre filiation s’impose, celle de post-romantisme à un langage instrumental Schumann), conjugue la rigueur de la forme et Gustav Mahler, en particulier dans les rythmes épuré – évolution également dans la texture une économie de moyens qui sera l’une des Berg a vingt-huit ans lorsqu’il entreprend la de marche, dans l’intrusion du banal. Comme le harmonique dont la conséquence directe sera signatures des musiciens de l’École de Vienne. composition des Trois Pièces pour orchestre op. 6, note Etienne Barilier, il s’agit de “l’intégration, bientôt la suspension des relations tonales tra- ditionnelles. Schoenberg lui-même a pris date : Commentaire de Theodor Adorno : “Il s’agit la seule de ses partitions destinée à une grande, forcément violente, du banal dans la composi- très grande formation symphonique, sans la tion. Les “sens” des Pièces pour orchestre “J’ai maintenant trouvé mon style, je sais com- dans un espace réduit à l’extrême, d’obtenir à ment je devrai désormais composer .” partir d’un matériau motivique minimal un foi- présence d’un soliste. Il vient de passer seraient à chercher dans l’angoisse du banal”. sonnement de caractères thématiques, et en quelques jours à Berlin avec Arnold Schoenberg, Les Trois Pièces sont conçues comme un L’effectif instrumental rassemblé dans la même temps d’inscrire ces derniers dans une son maître vénéré, et a très mal vécu une vive cycle : Präludium, Reigen (un clin d’œil à Symphonie de chambre est une manière d’or- unité rigoureuse pour éviter que la richesse des altercation qui opposa les deux hommes à la fin Schnitzler, et à la valse viennoise, mais dans un chestre en réduction : une flûte, un hautbois, un figures ne produise, dans une œuvre aussi du séjour – Schoenberg critiquant les deux der- mouvement de contestation) et Marsch, pièce cor anglais, une petite clarinette, une clarinette, brève, un effet de confusion.” nières œuvres de Berg (Les Altenberg-Lieder et aussi longue à elle seule que les deux précé- une clarinette basse, un basson, un contrebas- les Pièces pour clarinette op. 5), reprochant dentes réunies, qui, pour Adorno, réclamerait un son, deux cors et un quintette à cordes – C’est à l’instigation de son maître Arnold apparemment à son disciple la faiblesse du réaction contre le gigantisme des œuvres sym- Schoenberg que Berg a composé cette sonate, livre entier d’explications. Berg : “C’est la parti- développement thématique, son penchant pour tion la plus compliquée jamais écrite.” phoniques de Gustav Mahler et de Richard seule pièce de son catalogue destinée au piano ; les impressionnistes français, le caractère pes- Strauss, permettant une perception plus fine la forme-sonate impliquant habituellement simiste de sa musique. Berg, reconnaissant : “Je Terminé en 1914, quelques jours avant que des timbres et conduisant à cette “Klangfarben- trois mouvements, Berg se préparait à poursui- dois vous remercier de votre réprobation, Berg assiste à la représentation du Wozzeck de melodie” (mélodie de timbres) qui constituera vre la composition, mais Schoenberg, consulté comme de tout ce que j’ai reçu de vous, sachant Büchner, l’Opus 6 attendit longtemps une exé- l’un des grands acquis des musiciens de l’École sur ce point, fit remarquer à son disciple qu’il que c’était pour mon propre bien.” cution publique : les deux premières pièces de Vienne. L’écriture polyphonique est complexe avait dit tout ce qu’il avait à dire… Autre furent créées à Berlin, le 5 juin 1923 sous la VOL 7. et, quoique la partition porte encore l’indication qu’avait faite Webern des Cahiers de Malte Lau- Chacun des quatre Lieder a son poète et sa sont dédiés au Dr. Norbert Schwarzmann. C’est de la tonalité de mi majeur, le chromatisme est rids Brigge, publiés au printemps précédent ; date de composition : après avoir composé la première et la troisième largement exploité avec l’harmonie des mais aussi par l’existence de deux poèmes 1. Wiese im Park (Pelouse dans le jardin), pièces que Webern a confié à son ami Alban quartes, signalée d’emblée par le thème du pre- d’amour, bien en situation, si l’on peut dire, au poème de Karl Kraus, composé à Klagenfurt, le Berg : “Je suis sur la bonne voie. D’ailleurs, mier cor (ré-sol-ut-fa-si bémol-mi bémol); le moment où le jeune Webern vit une difficile 16 juin 1917. Schoenberg l’a confirmé. Sonorités homogènes, compositeur précise : “Je parvins à établir ici une relation amoureuse avec sa cousine Wilhelmine. 2. Die Einsame (La solitaire), poème de Li-Tai- thèmes parfois longs : l’un dans l’autre, quelque interaction étroite en associant la mélodie à Si Webern traduit bien ses propres émotions Po (extrait du recueil de la Flûte chinoise, dans chose de très différent de ce que je faisais avant l’harmonie, l’une et l’autre assurant la fusion dans les deux Lieder, c’est avec une parfaite la traduction d’Hans Bethge), composé à Vienne la guerre.” des relations tonales éloignées en une parfaite pudeur, dans une langue d’une impressionnante le 16 février 1914. unité (…) J’avais abouti à un progrès considérable économie. Boulez : “Webern ira plus avant Anton Webern : Première Cantate op. 29 dans la libération de la dissonance.” 3. In der Fremde (Au loin), également poème jusqu’à l’asphyxie, dans l’exploration de ce de Li-Tai-Po, même source, composé à Klagen- Première Cantate pour soprano solo, chœur Composée en 1906 (terminée le 25 juillet à microcosme vers lequel l’avait déjà attiré son furt, 4 juillet 1917. mixte et orchestre sur des poèmes de Rottach-Egern, au bord du lac de Tegern), la tempérament.” Ici, dans ce style “pointilliste” Hildegard Jone. Symphonie de chambre a été créée à Vienne, le qui est sa signature, Webern joue sur la diffé- 4. Ein Winterabend (Un soir d’hiver), poème 8 septembre 1907, par le Quatuor Rosé et des renciation des timbres, leur transparence, la de Georg Trakl, composé à Mödling, le 10 juillet Les deux Cantates, op. 29 et op. 31, qui enca- membres de l’Orchestre de l’Opéra. brièveté et la condensation du discours. 1918. drent dans le catalogue webernien les La date de la création des Lieder op. 8 est On retrouve dans l’écriture instrumentale Variations pour orchestre op. 30, sont des Anton Webern : Lieder op. 8 incertaine. D’après Hans Moldenhauer, les des quatre Lieder l’influence schoenbergienne, œuvres posthumes, n’ayant pas eu les honneurs archives des Editions Universal indiquent seule- en particulier du Pierrot lunaire et des Quatre d’une exécution publique avant la mort du com- Deux Lieder d’après les poèmes de Rainer ment : “Vers 1927, Bruxelles ?“. Mélodies avec orchestre op. 22. Webern utilise positeur, le 15 septembre 1945. Œuvres qui Maria Rilke pour voix, clarinette, cor, trompette, au mieux la Klangfarbenmelodie, mais il l’asso- soulignent le destin tragique de leur auteur et célesta, harpe, violon, alto et violoncelle : “Du, Anton Webern : Lieder op. 13 cie à une expression lyrique plus présente. “La qui, selon les termes d’Henri-Louis Matter, der ich’s nicht sage” et “Du machst mich allein”. réserve que Webern conservait précédemment “livrent un message de sérénité d’une beauté C’est au cours de l’été 1910 (le 10 août pour le Les quatre Lieder pour voix et orchestre semble se détendre, note Claude Rostand. La extatique et bouleversante. Musique de “haute premier Lied, le 30 pour le second), pendant un marquent le début d’un cycle dans lequel liberté du musicien marque de plus en plus de altitude” à laquelle seules quelques pages de séjour à Preglhof qu’Anton Webern a composé Webern va associer la voix et différents groupes souplesse et d’aisance à se mouvoir dans l’uni- Bach, de Mozart et du dernier Beethoven peu- les deux Lieder op. 8. Alors que les Lieder précé- instrumentaux – de l’opus 13 à l’opus 19, de 1913 vers atonal” ; quant à Henri-Louis Matter, il vent être comparées”. dents (opus 3 et 4), étaient destinés à la voix et à 1926. Formule déjà adoptée, trois ans aupara- insiste sur les accents pathétiques de l’opus 13, La composition de la Première Cantate au piano, Webern associa pour l’opus 8 un vant, pour l’opus 8, mais l’effectif est ici plus révélant la période de tension psychique s’étale sur dix-huit mois : juillet 1938 – janvier ensemble instrumental à la voix, formule qu’il étoffé : flûte et piccolo, clarinette et clarinette extrême que traverse alors le compositeur. 1940. En effet, Webern écrit à Hildegard Jone, utilisera à plusieurs reprises (notamment pour basse, cor, trompette, trombone, célesta, Créés à Winterthur le 16 février 1928 par dont il a choisi les textes, le 20 juillet 1938 : “Je les opus 13,14 et 15). Quant au choix de Rainer glockenspiel, harpe, un violon, un alto, un vio- Clara Wirz-Wyss et un ensemble instrumental compose actuellement Kleiner Flügel Ahornsa- Maria Rilke, il s’explique par la lecture récente loncelle, une contrebasse. dirigé par Hermann Scherchen, les Lieder op. 13 men schwebst im Winde… C’est le début d’un VOL 7. grand cycle symphonique pour solo, chœur et résonnent les cordes bénies d’Apollon), le plus orchestre dans lequel d’autres textes de toi étendu des trois mouvements dont le dépouil- généralement, de toute sa démarche esthé- musicaux qui n’a plus rien de didactique (…) vont encore être présents. Une sorte de sym- lement rappelle la partie initiale. tique : “Vivre signifie défendre une forme – en Maintes notions nouvelles y sont contenues : phonie avec des passages vocaux”. Il tient son citant Hölderlin. Je suis heureux de te dire que 1. Harmonie fonctionnelle, en dehors de cri- amie et collaboratrice au courant de l’avance- Anton Webern : Deuxième Cantate op. 31 pendant longtemps j’ai été intensément inté- tères adoptés jusqu’alors ; ressé par ce poète. Imagine l’effet que cela a eu ment de son travail – le 25 janvier 1939 : Cantate pour soprano, basse, chœur mixte et 2. Engendrement, par la série, de blocs “Peut-être la musique n’a-t-elle jamais rien orchestre, sur des poèmes d’Hildegard Jone. sur moi quand j’ai découvert ce passage dans sonores ayant une vie autonome ; ses notes sur la traduction d’Œdipe : “D’autres connu auparavant d’aussi délié – c’est le fruit 3. Utilisation des formes classiques du d’un procédé plus strict, si possible, que tout ce œuvres d’art manquent d’infaillibilité compa- Entreprise en mars 1941, ainsi qu’en rées avec celles des Grecs. Au moins ont-elles contrepoint, contrôlées suivant une pure répar- qui a constitué antérieurement la base d’une témoigne une première lettre à Hildegard Jone, tition d’intervalles ; conception musicale”. Le 16 janvier 1940 une été jugées jusqu’à maintenant plus par l’impres- datée du 11 de ce mois, la composition de la sion qu’elles apportent que par leur légalité 4. Frontière abolie entre la dimension hori- nouvelle lettre annonce que le travail de com- Cantate op. 31 occupa Webern pendant une zontale et verticale, en considérant que la position est terminé. Quant à la création, elle mathématique et toutes les autres méthodes période importante, et ce n’est que le 4 décem- grâce auxquelles la beauté est créée.” Ai-je fonction horizontale se ramène, par le temps aura lieu après la guerre, à Londres, dans le bre 1943 qu’il put annoncer l’achèvement de ce zéro, à la fonction verticale ; cadre du Festival de la SIMC, le 12 juillet 1946, même besoin de dire pourquoi je fus si frappé qui devait être son ultime partition. Il restait par ce passage ?” 5. Utilisation de séries à fonctions symé- avec la participation de la cantatrice Emelie encore à décider de l’ordre des six pièces, et le Hooke et l’Orchestre de la BBC, placé sous la Ce n’est que le 23 juin 1950, donc près de cinq triques, à un stade beaucoup moins “naïf” que compositeur réfléchit longuement avant d’éta- dans les œuvres précédentes ; direction de Karl Rankl. blir une répartition définitive : 1. “Schweigt auch ans après la mort du compositeur, que fut créée La Première Cantate comporte trois parties : die Welt” ; 2. “Sehr tief verhalten”; 3. “Schöpfen la Deuxième Cantate, à Bruxelles, dans le cadre 6. Utilisation de fonctions de “mutation” (dans l’emploi de ce mot appliqué aux jeux 1. Zündender Lichtblitz (l’éclair, feu de la vie), aus Brunnen” ; 4. “Leichteste Bürden” ; 5. des concerts de la SIMC, avec la participation du “Freundselig ist das Wort” ; 6. “Gelockert aus Chœur et de l’Orchestre de la radio belge dirigés d’orgue), où la série est, en quelque sorte, épais- mouvement destiné aux seuls chœur et orches- sie par un ou plusieurs intervalles de base ; tre, presque toujours séparément, en dem Schoße”. Mais avant ce dernier stade, il y par Herbert Häfner, de la soprano Ilona Stein- alternance. Pièce qui rappelle Das Augenlicht, eut de nombreuses interruptions, parfois pour gruber et de la basse Otto Wiener. Mais si la 7. Fonction temporelle unique distribuant l’opus 26 de 1935, également composé sur des des raisons matérielles – ainsi, en septembre postérité immédiate avait pris son temps pour l’œuvre entière.” poèmes d’Hildegard Jone. 1942, lorsque Webern nota qu’il devait s’arrêter saisir l’importance du message de la Cantate op. I 31, la génération des jeunes compositeurs de 2. Kleiner Flügel Ahornsamen (Petite aile, “pour son beurre et son pain”… Toute l’élabora- tion de l’œuvre, nous pouvons la suivre grâce l’immédiate après-guerre, rectifia cette absence graine d’érable), mouvement entièrement de jugement, et c’est Pierre Boulez qui, dans un confié à l’orchestre et au soprano solo. Henri- aux lettres échangées avec Hildegard Jone, puis avec Willi Reich. Une correspondance fort inté- texte (re)publié dans “Points de repère I”, indi- Louis Matter : “On a peine à croire que cette qua la dimension de cette partition capitale : musique, qui semble couler de source, soit le ressante à de nombreux titres, en particulier fruit d’un travail d’une complexité byzantine, à quand Webern, dans son avant-dernière lettre “La Seconde Cantate paraît une œuvre riche faire pâlir les polyphonistes de la Renaissance !” à Willi Reich, donne une clé essentielle pour la d’avenir, parce qu’elle met en jeu une nouvelle Cantate façon de penser et de concevoir les rapports 3. Tönen, die seligen Saiten Apolls (Quand compréhension profonde de sa et, plus VOL 8.

Arnold Schoenberg :Sérénade op. 24 Tanzscene, Lied ohne Worte et Finale. la série, l’usage très pointu des sept instruments mouvements, mais également le plus dépouillé. pour sept instruments et voix de basse Œuvre entre deux mondes : “Le caractère (piano, petite clarinette, clarinette, clarinette L’idée de ces Variations remonte précisément, ostensiblement léger de la Sérénade demeure une basse et trio à cordes) et son souci de parvenir à d’après la correspondance du compositeur, au 14 Le début de l’adoption par Schoenberg de la pierre d’achoppement pour apprécier ses mérites. une construction rigoureuse. octobre 1935, mais la première phase du travail méthode dodécaphonique est précisément Son poli exagéré peut déplaire : il n’y a cependant L’œuvre comporte quatre mouvements : Ouver- fut très lente : quatre pages et demie seulement daté : 1923, année de composition des 5 Pièces pas de contradiction entre son caractère haute- ture, Tanzschritte (Pas de danse), Thema mit furent rédigées en huit mois ; il est vrai que divers pour piano op. 23, dont la Valse est bâtie sur une ment expérimental – sa témérité technique, plus Variationen (dont l’idée maîtresse, note HH. événements avaient perturbé la vie de Webern, série de douze sons. Puis vient, dans la foulée, précisément – et l’efficacité débonnaire avec Stuckenschmidt, consiste à traiter la tonalité très particulièrement la mort brutale d’Alban la Sérénade op. 24. “Dans cet ouvrage”, écrit le laquelle elle fait retour au passé.” (Charles Rosen)… comme un cas particulier de la pensée dodécapho- Berg à la veille de Noël. Le 18 juillet 1936, il écrit à compositeur à Nicolas Slonimsky en 1937, “vous nique – peut-on dire la nostalgie ?), enfin, la Gigue. son amie, la poétesse Hildegard Jone : “Bonne trouverez maint emploi de cette méthode. Le Arnold Schoenberg :Suite op. 29 En 1926, Schoenberg quitte Vienne et va période pour le travail. J’ai déjà fini une partie de plus caractéristique réside dans le troisième pour sept instruments s’installer à Berlin pour succéder à Busoni ma nouvelle œuvre. Je t’ai dit que j’écrivais morceau des variations. Le thème se compose comme professeur de composition à l’Académie quelque chose pour piano. Ce qui est achevé est d’une suite de quatorze notes dont onze seule- Lorsqu’il compose la Suite op. 29 (janvier 1925 un mouvement en variation ; le tout formera une er des Arts ; il emporte dans ses bagages le ment sont différentes, mais ces quatorze sons – 1 mai 1926), Arnold Schoenberg explore les pos- manuscrit de la Suite encore inachevée, bientôt sorte de suite. Dans ces variations, j’espère avoir sont utilisés tout au long du mouvement (…) Le sibilités que lui offre le maniement de la série complète. Elle sera créée (curieusement) à Paris réalisé quelque chose à quoi je pense depuis des quatrième mouvement, le Sonnet, est une véri- dodécaphonique, expérimentée deux ans aupara- (à la Société musicale indépendante) le 15 années. Goethe a dit un jour à Eckermann, qui table composition à douze sons. La technique y vant, mais il l’applique à des formes de l’époque décembre 1927 et remportera un vif succès. Elle s’enthousiasmait pour un nouveau poème, qu’en est relativement élémentaire : c’est, en effet, classique, ce que Pierre Boulez nomme “des opé- est dédiée à Gertrude, “ma chère épouse”. vérité il y avait pensé pendant quarante ans”… une des premières œuvres qui furent écrites en rations de vérification de la technique sérielle par L’œuvre est dédiée à Edouard Steuermann, qui application rigoureuse de la méthode”. des formes anciennes” – ce qui a vieilli le plus Anton Webern : Variations pour piano op. 27 ne la joua pas, arguant de “raisons personnelles”, On notera le renouvellement de l’effectif ins- rapidement, ajoute-t-il, et “peut entraîner les naturellement en relation avec l’attitude un peu trumental : mandoline, guitare, clarinette, clarinette réserves les plus formelles dans l’appréciation de Trois mouvements se succèdent dans cette trop conciliante de Webern à l’égard du nazisme. basse et trio à cordes, également la présence de la son oeuvre à partir de l’opus 25”. Une approche œuvre brève, seule partition que Webern a desti- La création fut donc confiée à “un pianiste local voix de basse dans la quatrième partie, le Sonnet que l’on peut considérer chez ce révolutionnaire née au piano et qui est considérée comme l’un des de grand talent”, Peter Staden, qui révéla la par- de Pétrarque. Œuvre de divertissement, comme encore obsédé par le lourd héritage de l’histoire, chefs-d’œuvre de sa maturité : 1 – Sehr mäßig tition au public viennois le 26 octobre 1927 ; après l’indique son titre, la Sérénade a été composée comme une tentative de réconciliation entre la (très modéré) ; 2 – Sehr schnell (très vite), seule- une seconde audition, quatre jours plus tard, le d’août 1920 à avril 1923, et créée à Donaueschin- nouvelle écriture et les formes du passé. Donc, ment deux épisodes de onze mesures – à propos critique de la Neue freie Presse nota malicieuse- gen, sous la direction du compositeur le 20 juillet l’Ouverture est un allegretto à deux thèmes pré- de ce mouvement, Webern a dit avoir pensé à la ment : “On a enfin trouvé une solution musicale 1924. Elle comporte sept mouvements : Marsch, cédé d’une introduction, la Gigue est un allegro de Badinerie de la Suite en si de Bach… 3 – Ruhig flie- au problème âprement discuté de la fission de Menuett, Variationen, Sonnet de Pétrarque, sonate en style fugué. Mais l’ensemble confirme ßend (souple et calme), le plus développé des trois l’atome.” C’est la dernière fois que Webern enten- la maîtrise de Schoenberg dans le maniement de VOL 8. dit sa musique (bientôt remisée dans les placards La Symphonie op. 21 marque un véritable de l’art dégénéré) dans sa ville natale. virage dans l’esthétique webernienne, mieux Malgré sa brièveté, l’œuvre a été largement assumée dans sa radicalité, avec la multiplication commentée. Citons René Leibowitz (Schoen- des grands intervalles, l’abondance des grands berg et son école, 1947) : “Le dépouillement, silences, provoquant un éparpillement sonore l’extrême économie des moyens, la précision et très insolite. C’est René Leibowitz qui, dans son le laconisme du discours musical, toutes ces Schoenberg et son école, souligne : “Rien que qualités dont témoigne l’évolution de Webern l’aspect extérieur de cette partition est décon- se réalisent d’une façon peut-être indépassable certant. Souvent il est d’une nudité effrayante. et atteignent leur expression la plus parfaite Quelques notes semblent avoir été jetées par-ci dans les Variations pour piano op. 27.” par-là sans raison apparente. L’audition réserve une impression analogue.” Ce n’est qu’une Anton Webern : Symphonie op. 21 impression : l’œuvre est bâtie avec la plus exi- geante rigueur. “Il n’y a pas dans la Symphonie (et Le 25 novembre 1927, Anton Webern écrit à particulièrement dans le premier mouvement) Schoenberg qu’il est “occupé avec quelque chose un seul son dont la présence, la situation par rap- pour orchestre, une petite symphonie” ; ce sera, port aux autres sons, la nécessité ne puissent en effet, une symphonie – petite par l’effectif (cla- être justifiées” (Henri-Louis Matter). Webern rinette, clarinette basse, deux cors, harpe, premier poursuit son exploration de la Klangfarbenmelo- et deuxième violons, alto et violoncelle) et relati- die, mais sur un plan plus structurel que vement brève (une dizaine de minutes), mais il est décoratif. Boulez parle de “mélodie abstraite”, où vrai que la brièveté est une des dimensions de le timbre devient élément de structure. l’esthétique webernienne – dont Webern entre- La Symphonie op. 21, dédiée “à ma fille Chris- prendra la composition, laquelle sera terminée au tine”, a été créée au Town Hall de New York, mois de juin suivant. Deux mouvements auront dans la série de la League of Composers, le 18 été rédigés : Ruhig schreitend (allant avec calme) décembre 1929, sous la direction d’Alexander et Variationen (variations), un thème et sept Smallens. La première européenne a été don- variations, “splendide exercice de polyphonie née à Vienne, le 24 février 1930. sérielle”, note Claude Rostand. Webern avait Claude Samuel songé à un troisième mouvement ; il y renoncera, expliquant que Beethoven aussi a fait des sonates I en deux mouvements. VOL 1.

Karlheinz Stockhausen : external element of form, given by the progres- lighting, which penetrates them. ments follow one another, alternating tutti and Kontra-Punkte sive effacement of each soloist, the piano, as in soli in nimble instrumentation; one will notice Webern’s Concerto, playing the role of principal Luciano Berio: Serenata I for flute the gay, exuberant character of this Serenata, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontra-Punkte, first instrument; a first substitution of the group for and 14 instruments an improvised work, so to speak.’ performed (with the ink barely dry) at the inau- the point…’ Severino Gazzelloni (1919-1992) was the gural evening of ‘Les Concerts du Petit Marigny’ Kontra-Punkte was performed again at the Luciano Berio’s works were played regularly soloist for whom Berio wrote his Serenata and on 14 January 1954, under the direction of Her- Domaine musical in April 1956 and included in at the Domaine musical, and it is useless to who gave the first performance—Gazzelloni, a mann Scherchen, belongs to the young the 10th-anniversary programme of 31 October stress the long-lasting musical and personal fabulous musician, superb technician and composer’s radical period. Indeed, in the early 1962. This remains a significant period piece. closeness between Berio and Pierre Boulez, prospective spirit who contributed largely to 1950s, the most active representatives of the And significant, too, are the young composer’s both born in 1925. But Berio’s first two works the blossoming of a new repertoire for his young European generation chose the musi- first comments on his work: that were entitled to a public performance had instrument and participated in Domaine musi- been specially written for the Domaine musical: cians of the Vienna School as their models and, The counterpoint concerns the sound cal concerts on several occasions. the Serenata I for flute and 14 instruments and in particular, Anton Webern. As Stockhausen dimensions [...], transposed into a four-dimen- Différences. The first of these scores was dedi- proclaimed, they wanted to put the past behind sional space [...] No repetition, no variation, no Pierre Boulez : cated to Pierre Boulez, who conducted the them and organise musical work according to development, no contrasts. All these elements Le Marteau sans maître world premiere on 30 March 1957, during the the new principles of ‘total serialism’. Some of of form—theme, motif, object—, what is Domaine’s fourth season. The composition had them worked with Olivier Messiaen, from whom repeated, varied, developed, contrasted before- It was in Baden-Baden, in the framework of been very rapid: 14 days, between February and they retained less the colourful élans of the hand; what is dismembered, reworked, the ISCM (International Society for Contempo- March, and as Berio later confided to Rossana Turangalîla-Symphonie than the abstract struc- augmented, diminished, modulated, trans- rary Music) festival that—despite the Dalmonte: ‘Today, these are not times for dia- tures of Mode de valeurs et d’intensités. posed, arranged in mirror or in retrograde; all obstruction of the French section!—the world mond cutters. There is a storm brewing—you Kontra-Punkte represents pure testimony to that is abandoned since the first isolated works, premiere of Le Marteau sans maître took place have to work fast and well.’ this approach; the score, quite close to the Con- our world, our language, our grammar. Not neo! on 18 June 1955. Heinrich Strobel had been the certo, Op.24 by Webern (who, on the subject, But what, then? Kontra-Punkte: a series and ‘The work’s exact title: Serenata I for flute initiator of this historic premiere, initially already indicated very precise leads), proposes, the most hidden and subtle changes and and 14 instruments,’ noted Pierre Boulez, planned for the Donaueschingen Festival the as noted Célestin Deliège, seven characteristics renewals; no marked ending. One never hears ‘expressly indicates the concertante part that previous October. The musicians of the Orches- that go in this direction: the organisation of the same. One clearly has a foreboding of not the composer intended for the solo instrument. tra of the Südwestfunk were conducted by Hans timbres into five pairs; a reduced number of abandoning oneself to an unchanging, external Two cadenzas underline this virtuoso role: an Rosbaud (‘Rosbaud was really marvellous,’ durations and intensities; the same economy in unitary whole. A hidden profession that consti- introductory cadenza to the work itself, and a wrote the composer), the vocal part entrusted the choice of intervals; a first, still embryonic, tutes related proportions: a structure. Not the cadenza before the conclusion of the other to Sybilla Plate. Parisians had less than a year state of the serialisation of tempi, presented same form under changing lighting but, more instruments, introduced almost in the classic to wait before discovering this cult work, which here in a form of progression; a determining opportunely, changing forms under the same way on a long sostenuto chord. The develop- the composer conducted himself with the col- VOL 1. laboration of Marie-Thérèse Cahn for the vocal the analyst, he quoted the seventh piece of by the composer: 5 October 1955 – 23 January purples’. Nothing less was called for to honour part, at the concert of Domaine musical (Petit Pierrot (‘Der kranke Mund’) in the third piece of 1956, a period of supreme ornithological pas- the ‘marvellous coloured plumages’. Marigny) on 21 March 1956. Le Marteau. sion: in 1951, Olivier Messiaen composed the Oiseaux exotiques is made up of 13 linked A cult work indeed, which was going to be Pierrot lunaire had imposed Sprechgesang, brief Merle noir, at the same time as the very sections, including five cadenzas for the piano. heard round the (western) world and be which is found here but only in the double of Le scholarly elaboration work of Le Livre d’orgue; The percussion section (to which are entrusted recorded several times including four under the Bel Edifice; other vocal methods (enumerated in 1953, he wrote Réveil des oiseaux, for piano Hindu and Greek rhythms) is abundant here, composer’s direction: with Marie-Thérèse Cahn, by Dominique Jameux) include melismatic and orchestra and, having finished Oiseaux exo- comprised of three temple-blocks, woodblock, Jeanne Deroubaix (heard in the present set), singing, syllabic singing, parlando, as well as tiques, he was going to begin, that same year of side drum, three gongs and tam-tam; as in Yvonne Minton and Elizabeth Laurence. This bouche fermée. This variety of singing matches 1956, the composition of his large piano cycle, Couleurs de la cité céleste, written seven years was a point of reference for an entire genera- the variety of instrumental combinations, which Catalogue d’oiseaux, 13 pieces dedicated to the later, there are no strings. tion and the target of heated polemics, which sometimes evoke ‘exotic musics’, the xylo- ‘birds of the provinces of France’. Oiseaux exotiques was first performed at the considerably enriched the collection of music phone, vibraphone and guitar referring Oiseaux exotiques bears witness to the Petit Marigny, in the framework of the Domaine critics’ howlers. respectively to the African balaphone, the Bali- curiosity of the composer who, on the occasion musical concert of 10 March 1956, with Yvonne It was after having experimented with ‘total nese gamelan and the Japanese koto, but of his voyages, as well as information collected Loriod as soloist and Rudolf Albert conducting. ‘neither the stylistics nor even the use of the elsewhere, wished to pay tribute to so-called serialism’ that Boulez undertook the composi- I tion of Le Marteau in 1952. Here, after Le Visage instruments is attached in any way to the tra- ‘exotic’ birds. The result is, as Harry Halbreich nuptial and Le Soleil des eaux, he came back to ditions of those different musical civilisations’ noted, ‘an arbitrary assembly of the songs of 48 the use of the voice, ever faithful to the poetry (Pierre Boulez). different birds: 38 from North America, four of René Char. Boulez’s choice fell on three (brief) The work has provoked abundant commen- from India, two from South America, one each poems taken from Le Marteau sans maître: taries; it will be noted that the composer from China, Malaysia and the Canary Islands’— ‘L’Artisanat furieux’, ‘Bourreaux de solitude’ and pursued his work on serialism whilst going birds that, as Messiaen pointed out… never ‘Bel Edifice et les pressentiments’, the composer beyond it, and that with highly refined instru- meet! alternating vocal and instrumental parts and mental combinations, he translated the force of ‘More than the form,’ the composer also making up three (entangled) cycles of three René Char’s images in a harmony that is more noted, ‘more than the rhythms, more than the pieces. This combination, as well as the choice profound than textual. timbres, it is necessary to hear and see sound- of the six instruments (flute, vibraphone, colours in my work. In the horn parts of the xylorimba, viola, guitar and percussion) natu- Olivier Messiaen: Oiseaux exotiques second tutti there is orange mixed with gold rally refers to Schoenberg’s Pierre lunaire (three for piano solo, small wind orchestra, and red; in the piano’s first and last cadenzas cycles of seven pieces each) but in a radically xylophone, glockenspiel and percussion there is green and gold. The central tutti blends different stylistic atmosphere. An ‘intended and in coloured spirals, in swirls of intertwined rain- direct’, reference, noted the composer; as for The period of composition is precisely dated bows, blues, reds, oranges, greens, violets and VOL 2.

Claude Debussy: Syrinx repertoire of all flautists. Densité 21,5 is quite remarkable for the musicians be given the right to breathe, i.e., to constantly changing combination of the flute’s go all the way to the end.’ The following year, in In early 1909, dramatist Gabriel Mourey asked Edgar Varèse: Densité 21,5 different registers with the attacks and London, the critics denounced the ‘Bolshevism Claude Debussy to compose incidental music for intensities and, as Odile Vivier points out, in music’ and the ‘lion’s roar’ (which is already his three-act verse play, Psyché, to which the An enigmatic title, which the composer resulting in a strange ‘feeling of space and relief’. an improvement). Varèse: ‘the creative artist is, composer responded ironically: ‘Your idea is explained as follows: ‘One must not give it any The work is constructed on two short melodic in a particular way, the witness to his era. But it quite good; I felt it in you; the only thing is, you occult or symbolic meaning but see in it only a ideas: the first, modal in a binary rhythm, at the is because the public, owing to its dispositions give music more than its due share… You relation to current events: the specific gravity beginning and end of the piece; the second, in and experience, is behind by fifty years that mustn’t have singers directly taking part in the of platinum, of which Monsieur Barrère’s new ternary rhythm and atonal, ‘lending its elasticity there is disagreement between this public and action—first of all, those people act about as flute is made, being 21.5, the first work written to short developments placed between the the composer.’ convincingly as table legs; then, recited verse for this instrument was placed by its author reiterations of the first idea’. The work had everything for creating a coupled with sung verse make [sic] one howl under this characteristic sign.’ And Varèse ‘A song-cry’, was how Varèse’s biographer, surprise, starting with its instrumental forces: with pain […] As for the subject of Psyché, it is continued: ‘Despite the monodic nature of Fernand Ouellette, described it. flute alternating with piccolo, clarinet, three Density 21.5, the rigidity of its structure is natural that you should like it since you are right Advice from the composer (so often damned horns, two trumpets, tenor and bass trombones in the midst of your subject at the moment… Is openly defined by the harmonic level, which the as well as a siren and an ensemble of 16 unfolding of the melody takes care to specify by poor performances) to interpreters: ‘Please this what we need? Think about the genius it respect the dynamics!’ ‘drumming instruments’. In addition there are would take to rejuvenate this old myth that has and emphasise’. the violent collisions provoked by the been so exploited that it seems to me all the It was in the framework of a gala given at Edgar Varèse: Hyperprism confrontation of winds and percussion, the feathers have been plucked from Cupid’s wings.’ Carnegie Hall in New York on 16 February 1936, absence of any perceptible themes, the Yet, four years later, Debussy composed a in honour of the French flautist Georges Barrère A short work (seven minutes!) but occupying obsessive repetition of a pivot-note, this C sharp brief score that was played (offstage) by the and to raise funds for the Lycée français of New an important place in the history of modern that Varèse linked to a ship’s siren heard in New flautist Louis Fleury, in the home of Louis Mors York, that Edgar Varèse’s brief piece was music, it created a scandal when first performed York during the composition, the C sharp that where the performance of Mourey’s play took premiered, to total indifference—brief but now on 4 March 1923, in New York, under the evoked the whistling of a train in Le Villars, place on 1 December 1913. The manuscript, belonging in the repertoire of all flautists. At the composer’s direction. Varèse evoked that heard one night in childhood. Finally, a striking saved by Louis Fleury, bore the note: ‘Psyché. end of the evening, Varèse noted with his tumultuous evening: ‘When we gave the first novelty: the circulation of sounds that allowed Acte III. Scène 1: “But now that Pan resumes customary irony: ‘Audience of ambassadors – hearing of Hyperprism, there was a formidable for acknowledging this Hyperprism as the first millionaires – and other important, starchy battle in the hall. And, in America, you don’t give work of spatial music. Varèse the visionary. As playing his flute”’. It was only in 1927 that the 1 score was published, under the title Syrinx, but bigwigs of Phynance and high shoshiety , as little slaps—you punch with your fist […] The for the title, according to Odile Vivier ‘Varèse was still called La Flûte de Pan when Fleury Count Laval would say’… battle continued out into the street. But that was fascinated by the decomposition of light in played it again, at the Salzburg Festival, on 8 The only score that Varèse completed in the doesn’t matter to me. I don’t give a damn prisms; he sought to write prismatic music in August 1922. It would quickly become part of the twenty years separating Ecuatorial from Déserts, whether or not one likes my music. But let the which the sonorities would be as if subjected to

1 Translator’s note: This pronunciation is characteristic of the Auvergne accent, more recently exemplified by former French President Giscard d’Estaing. VOL 2. decompositions of sounds, scatterings, pure gold of music. Technique is the essence of 1925 at Aeolian Hall in New York, conducted by Olivier Messiaen: Cantéyodjayâ explosions for obtaining searing intensities that its nature. Varèse creates music, he does not Leopold Stokowski, and it was on this occasion found themselves liberated from traditional compose harmonious melody [...] His conception that Varèse wrote for the evening’s programme It was during the summer of 1949, a few parallelisms and symmetries…’ ’The point of embraces all possible material means, a an especially enlightening text on his approach: months before the premiere of the Turangalîla- departure is the fourth dimension, the prismatic phenomenon found in all musicians of genius.’ Music is neither a story nor a picture, nor a Symphonie in Boston, that Olivier Messiaen, side’ (Varèse). It was Robert Schmitz, dedicatee of the psychological or philosophical abstraction. It is invited by Serge Koussevitzky to the The audience was certainly not ready to score, who conducted the world premiere of quite simply music. It has a well-determined Tanglewood summer school, profited from the enter this universe. Octandre, on 13 January 1924, in New York, in the structure that can be apprehended much more few liberties that his own teaching allowed him framework of the concerts of the International accurately by listening to it rather than by to compose Cantéyodjayâ. The rhythmic Edgar Varèse: Octandre Composers’ Guild, an institution that Varèse had attempting to analyse it. I repeat what I have research of this work, lasting approximately 12 founded three years earlier with harpist Carlos already written: analysis is sterile [...] I admit minutes, announces the 4 Études de rythme, Composed during the same period as Salzedo and boasting particularly inventive that I take great pleasure in choosing my titles: which would soon follow. Hyperprism (1923) and using the same programmes. it is a sort of parental pastime, like baptising a The composer specified: ‘In this work are instrumental family (flute alternating with newborn child, quite different from the intense found several deçi-tâlas (Hindu rhythms) from piccolo, B-flat clarinet alternating with an E-flat Edgar Varèse: Intégrales activity that consists of creating [...] I often ancient India: in particular, lakskmîça (‘the peace clarinet, oboe, bassoon, English horn in F, borrow my titles from mathematics or that comes down from Lashmi’) and trumpet in C, tenor trombone, double bass In March 1924, Varèse embarked on the astronomy because these sciences stimulate simhavikrama (‘the strength of the lion and also tuned down to low C), Octandre displays the Suffren, having decided to spend a few months my imagination and give me an impression of the strength of Shiva’). Here we again find same concision and formal invention. As in in Paris—homecoming, as well as a new job, the motion and rhythm. I find more musical chromatic scales of durations: straight, through Hyperprism (but here, without any percussion composition of a work he called Intégrales, inspiration in contemplating the stars— the progressive acceleration of durations, and instrument), Varèse plays on the shocks of which he was writing for forces dear to his especially through a telescope—and in the high retrograde, through the progressive slowing of sonorities and the differentiation of timbres. heart: 11 wind instruments (two piccolos, oboe, poetry of a mathematical demonstration than durations, the two directions being superposed. Certain relations have been mentioned— two clarinets, horn in F, two trumpets, three in the most sublime account of human passions. Finally, near the second third of the work, one Schoenberg, Webern, Debussy—but they are trombones) and 17 percussion instruments. Composer François-Bernard Mâche described hears a mode of durations, pitches and remote, so much does Varèse’s music respond Here, Varèse tested particularly unusual acoustic Intégrales as ‘a sort of overheated nuclear intensities, distributed in three stages of tempi, to an aesthetic of break. effects whilst also introducing the idea of sound reactor, a new celestial object that would be a in which each sound has its own duration and Three linked movements, each of them spatialisation, despite the absence of means sort of pulsar engendering supernovae…’ intensity. The piece’s unity is ensured by a very introduced by an instrumental solo: assez lent which, he would say later on, did not yet exist. In short refrain that comes back in different places.’ (fairly slow), très vif (very fast), grave. spite of the resistance of the critics and a certain Cantéyodjayâ, too rarely played, was first Carlos Chávez, who first conducted the work public, the pioneer continued on his way. performed at the Domaine musical concert of in Mexico City in 1925, commented: ‘Here is the The work was first performed on 1 March 23 February 1954 by Yvonne Loriod. VOL 2.

Olivier Messiaen: Sept Haïkaï cadenza)—birds heard in the forest, near Lake Yamanaka, at the foot of Mount Fuji, notes Japanese sketches for solo piano, solo (Les oiseaux de xylophone and marimba, two clarinets, Messiaen—as in the sixth trumpet and small orchestra. Karuizawa), a veritable ornithological banquet, with the uiguisu (Japanese warbler), hototoguisu (a small grey-headed cuckoo), kibitaki (Narcissus Japan exerted a veritable fascination over flycatcher) and so many others. Olivier Messiaen, beginning with his first voyage to the very far-off Orient. After a new stay in Finally, the fifth piece (Miyajima et le Torii 1962, he undertook the composition of these dans la mer) in which colours rise to the surface, Seven Haïkaï, whose title indicates, by analogy and rites and symbols circulate: ‘Perhaps the with the Japanese poems, the brevity of each most beautiful landscape in Japan. An island, a piece; as for the score, it refers to a few themes mountain covered with dark green Japanese dear to the composer of the Turangalîla: pines and maples (red in autumn). A white and rhythmic research, particularly with the red Shinto temple. In the blue sea, opening onto presence of rhythms from India ‘dedicated to the the invisible (i.e., the true temple), stands a large three Shakti’ in the two outer pieces; the beauty red portal or torii…’ of the landscapes—it is in the second piece that The Sept Haïkaï were first performed at the Messiaen evokes the park in Nara, where ‘the Domaine musical, in residence at the time at stags and does move about in freedom […], the Odéon-Théâtre de France, on 30 October where the sun plays on the Japanese cedars, 1963, with the participation of Yvonne Loriod for where three thousand lanterns huddle as far as the concertante part, and conducted by Pierre the eye can see’; the Japanese tradition imposed Boulez. by the Gagaku (fourth piece), Messiaen I transposing the sonorities of this noble music from the 7th century—an ensemble of eight violins representing the shô (or mouth organ) and the trumpet replaced by the hichiriki (primitive oboe). Birds, as in so many Messiaen works, have the best part, in the third piece (Yamanaka- VOL 3.

Pierre Boulez: Structures for two pianos from the text itself.’ As regards this, Boulez Pierre Boulez: Sonatine whose modernism, in particular the peculiar - Book I speaks on several occasions of ’experiment’—an for flute and piano instrumental writing, was alien to his musical experiment, in fact, for extending the series of universe. It was the flautist Jan van Boterdael, The first Book of Structures for two pianos pitches to all the parameters of the composi- Although preceded, but only briefly, by 12 accompanied by pianist Marcelle Mercenier, constitutes a particularly significant step in tion: durations, intensities, attacks; the Notations for piano and Three Psalmodies, the who first performed the work in Brussels, in Boulez’s reasoning. In fact, when he began com- perspective of ‘total’ serialism, an idea that was Sonatina for Flute and Piano is officially consid- 1947, before a rather unreceptive audience; on posing his new work in 1951, he became going to gain ground… but of which Boulez him- ered the Opus 1 of the composer who, at the the other hand, as of October 1946, doubtless acquainted with Mode de valeurs et d’intensités self detected the limits: ‘Some might think it age of 20, affirmed his adherence to the dode- after consulting the score, composer (and music by Olivier Messiaen, to whom he wished to pay was a straitjacket and that, to oblige the lan- caphonic language and his relation to critic) Virgil Thomson pointed out to his Amer- tribute—after a few vague anti-authority guage to blossom in a new direction, there was Schoenberg, taking the Chamber Symphony of ican readers the importance of the Sonatine impulses—and whose research he was anxious absolutely no need for such restrictive methods; 1906 as a precedent. Not the post-Romantic and the presence of the composer, a ‘brilliant to extend. Thus, having opted for the neutral, I persist in believing that this experiment was Schoenberg—‘that aspect did not interest me at young man in the Parisian musical landscape’. flexible sonorities of the piano, he tackled a job really fundamental only to the degree that it all’—but the Schoenberg inventor of a form. ‘In of considerable theoretical import, a working directly reached the boundaries of logical the Chamber Symphony,’ noted Boulez, ‘the Pierre Boulez: Second Sonata drawing (épure), he would say, or even a refine- absurdity.’ This was the price to pay for the four movements of a sonata are brought for piano ment (épuration). At one time, he had even used unity of all the elements of language. together but, at the same time, these four the title of a painting by Paul Klee: Monument Book I of the Structures for two pianos con- movements constitute the four verses, the four 1948: Pierre Boulez composes his Second à la limite du pays fertile as an epigraph. sists of three parts: 1a, 1b, 1c. Structure 1a, quite developments of a single movement’; and in the Piano Sonata. 1950: the work is premiered in brief but highly emblematic, was first per- Sonatine ‘as in Schoenberg, the traditional four Paris, 29 April, by Yvette Grimaud. 1948-50: a Boulez thus took hold of the fundamental highly important period in the life of the young Mode de valeurs et d’intensités formed in Paris on 4 May 1952, by Olivier movements are respected: the opening Allegro series of —of the Boulez; for two years, he has been musical series, if we might say so, before utilisation. As Messiaen and the composer. On 13 November preceded by an introduction, the slow move- 1953, Yvette Grimaud and Yvonne Loriod gave ment, the Scherzo with trio and repeat, and director of the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault. He the composer commented: ‘Independently of has just met poet René Char and discovered the any personal reason that led me to borrow this the first performance of the complete score in finally the closing Presto with a coda [...] What Cologne. Eight years later, Pierre Boulez would interested me were the metamorphoses of a works of Klee, Kandinsky and Mondrian ; he set of themes—for it is indeed a thematic bor- reads Joyce, Kafka, Dostoyevsky and Mallarmé; rowing—I would like to emphasise that the compose his second Book of Structures for two single theme and, from this point of view, the pianos. work is even more unitary than Schoenberg’s he is going to know John Cage and Heinrich seizure of the material offered by Messiaen did Strobel who, in his position as director of not occur on the completed material, i.e., on an Chamber Symphony because the basic material is more reduced’. musical services of the Südwestfunk in Baden- excerpt from the piece itself as written and as Baden, will contribute decisively to the orientation Sonatine played, but on the raw matter, the initial partic- The had been commissioned by of his future activities; he will also meet ulars that had served Messiaen, of which he had Jean-Pierre Rampal, then at the very beginnings Suzanne Tézenas, future president of the the “key”, but which were quite easy to deduce of his career; but Rampal never played the work VOL 3.

Domaine musical association. world of form.’ Fourth movement: ‘On the con- This period is no less essential as concerns trary, extremely free.’ And the author composition. Indeed, Boulez, already author of comments: ‘Probably influenced by the whole a first Piano Sonata, the Sonatine for flute and Vienna School, which wanted to try to salvage piano and Le Visage nuptial ‘simply breaks,’ as the old forces, I attempted the experiment of Célestin Deliège relates, ‘with the ”concept” of thoroughly destroying them; by which I mean the Schoenbergian series’. Antoine Goléa goes an attempt at the destruction of what was further: ‘This sonata renounces straight out the sonata-form of a first movement, dissolution of dodecaphonic point of departure and the for- the form of the slow movement by the trope mulations ensuing from it. Here one finds no and dissolution of repetitive scherzo-form by initial series on the level of either sound or variation-form, finally in the fourth movement, rhythm; here, fairly brief sound cells serve as a destruction of the fugal and canonic forms.’ support for veritable rhythmic themes, worked Beyond the specific problems of language, and developed according to the principles laid one might agree with Dominique Jameux that down by Messiaen.’ the Second Sonata is, in its aggressiveness, rage After having been, as a 20-year-old one of and delirium, its hyper-sensitivity, modesty and the initiators of post-Schoenberg dodecaphony, charm, ‘the portrait of the young 22-year-old Boulez turned his back on it or, rather, decided Boulez’. to go beyond it. It is true that, in 1951, he had I just written ‘Schoenberg is dead’—in both senses of the phrase. The composer himself gave valuable indica- tions on the content of each of the Sonata’s four movements: ‘Contrast between highly pre- cise motifs and a dissolution of these motifs in imprecise intervals.’ Second movement: ‘Built on the principle of the trope: large variation […] not a mechanical variation but a truly organic variation.’ Third movement: ‘One of the final remains of Classicism that I could find in the VOL 4.

Mauricio Kagel: String Sextet The composition of the Sextet had already Luigi Nono: Incontri Incontri are encounters. In Incontri, a com- been begun in Argentina in 1953, under the title position for 24 instruments, two structures In 1957, when he left Buenos Aires where he Sexteto de cuerdas. The score was taken up Luigi Nono was quite present throughout the meet. Each of the two structures is independ- was a coach and conductor at the Teatro Colón, again in 1957 and completed, being premiered first three seasons of the Domaine musical; in ent in itself and differentiates itself from the Mauricio Kagel was 25. Beneficiary of a one-year in Darmstadt on 7 September 1958, but would fact, one of his very first works, Polifonica- other by its rhythmic construction and timbre scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer not be heard again until the Domaine musical’s Monodia-Ritmica (1951), was given its French (timbre and instrumentation), as well as the Auslandsdienst, he decided to move temporar- sixth season, in Paris. Kagel’s name would sub- premiere on 13 January 1954, under the direction dynamics of its harmonic and melodic projec- ily, then permanently, to the Federal German sequently be included in several Domaine of Hermann Scherchen at the inaugural concert tion. Nonetheless, both structures constantly Republic, choosing Cologne where he would concerts, in particular: Sonant (whose perform- of the series that was initially called ‘Les Con- remain in contact through a ratio of constant soon participate in the work of the Radio’s elec- ance provoked quite a scandal), Transition II, Sur certs du Petit Marigny’. The following year, 26 proportions. Just like two beings, each different tronic music studio, which was under the moral scène, Anagrama and Match—all works that March 1955 saw the first performance of Canti and independent, who meet; a ‘unit’ cannot be authority of Karlheinz Stockhausen. But Kagel, impose a specifically Kagellian idea of musical for 13 instruments; then, on 22 April 1956, Incon- born from their encounter, that is true, but who quickly joined the most prominent repre- performance. tri, a work premiered in Darmstadt the previous rather a mutual coming closer, a certain inti- sentatives of the European avant-garde, had As for the Sextet, Célestin Deliège wrote in year under the direction of Hans Rosbaud but macy, a symbiosis. already met Pierre Boulez, their first meeting his monumental work, Cinquante ans de which Boulez conducted in Paris. Then, the having taken place in the course of a Latin- modernité musicale, ‘it is based on an exchange paths, both musical and political, chosen by Hans Werner Henze: Concerto per il American tour of the Compagnie Jean-Louis and superposition of two structures worked in Nono removed him somewhat from the French Marigny Barrault-Madeleine Renaud, of which Boulez different tempi. In one of these structures, the scene; he was nonetheless programmed again was music director. Boulez recalls: ‘I knew Kagel polyphonic form gives the instrumentalists the at the Domaine musical, in November 1960, for It is obvious that the presence of Hans Werner in Argentina, in 1950, during a tour with the Bar- choice of different articulations, intensities and the French premiere of a piece that was already Henze on the programmes of the Domaine musi- raults. He was a walk-on in Kafka’s Trial. When timbres; in the other, a development in varia- ‘old’: Y su sangre ya viene cantando for flute cal was based on a misunderstanding. Born in he came to Europe, he told me: “I was a walk- tion unfolds [...] This outline of the work allows and small orchestra; but at that period, Luigi 1926, he doubtless belongs to this generation of on…” Indeed, I remembered a big guy like that.’ for imagining that the determined part was Nono was beginning to move away from the composers whose works were included as of the first season in the ‘Concerts du Petit Marigny’. Mauricio Kagel: ‘We had excellent relations, pre-existent and composed in Argentina, post-Webern serial heritage. This was not the But aesthetically speaking, he had no desire, even and the enthusiasm that he showed then for whereas the part with variable features would case with Incontri; as Célestin Deliège accurately fleetingly, to be considered an orthodox serial my work was decisive in my choosing to come have been added in Europe’. This hypothesis observed: ‘There, we measure the persistence of musician. ‘I don’t believe in the style’, he would to Europe.’ was, as Deliège remarks, contested by Dieter a real affiliation with serial thinking’. say thirty years later. ‘There are many ways of Schnebel… We shall remember the introductory com- speaking, many metaphors in music. The artist mentary on the work by its author, a text has no need to waste his time creating and for- appearing in the ‘Écrits’ collected by Editions mulating his style or jealously watching out so as Christian Bourgois in 1993: VOL 4. to preserve its purity. I believe in personal performed at the 4 December 1963 concert of Henri Pousseur: Mobile for two pianos musicians must complete.’ writing that is naïve and demanding but which the Domaine musical. A transitional work, as The text of this Mobile, unsigned but most preserves its freedom and excludes all ritualisa- Jésus Aguila indicated, ‘freed from the con- The Belgian composer Henri Pousseur, who likely written by the composer, offers a perspec- tion.’ straints of strict serialism, Madrigal III goes back met Boulez (his elder by four years) at Royau- tive on the approach: The Concerto per il Marigny, for piano and to the freshness and formal simplicity of mont in June 1951, is considered one of the In Mobile, there is no preconceived form, this seven instruments (clarinet and bass clarinet, improvisation: an instrumental group punctu- principal theorists of serialism and European being essentially organised in the constantly- horn in F, trumpet in C, trombone, viola, cello) ated, commented on or coloured with long post-Webernism and was, with Stockhausen, renewed activity that is constituted by an was first performed on 10 March 1956 under the clarinet solos whose melodic line was no longer Messiaen and Boulez himself, one of the com- ‘interpretation’. The orientation of structures direction of Rudolf Albert with the participation afraid of creating polarisation effects through posers most often played during the first towards each other thus ensues from the of Yvonne Loriod. Thanks to its immediate the repetition of characteristic intervals’. seasons of the Domaine musical. In 1956, his spontaneous reactions— unpredictable by charms, it enjoyed a certain success, but the Henri Pousseur commented: ‘This work Quintette à la mémoire d’Anton Webern had hypothesis —of the artists, an overall articula- success was counterbalanced by polemic. ‘It’s reabsorbs the near-totality of Madrigal I for solo been programmed, then reprised two years tion remaining necessary moreover for trash. There’s a bit of everything in this score’, clarinet, written four years earlier. The clarinet’s later in a new version. Next came, in particular, ‘provoking’ these reactions. The work’s indeter- snorted Boris de Schloezer. Claude Rostand’s solos from that piece alternate with new ‘for- the Impromptu et Variations II, played by David mination is not constant: it can be a matter of review was more moderate but significant: ‘It is mants’, more or less dense and also more or Tudor, Rimes for different sound sources (which freedom of progression (the structures then known that a gift is sometimes an open door to less slow [...] This work, in which all mobile form achieved a great success), Répons (greeted, in being written out entirely) or the writing itself, facility. Henze, to whom we owe scores of fine is excluded, however favours a flexible and fluc- November 1960, with booing) and, three years of which the musician will have to set certain firmness and in which he shows that he can set tuating interpretation. The pitches always later, Ode for string quartet. ‘ways of being’. Large invariable parts punctu- very high standards for himself, sometimes depend on absolute notation; other parameters Mobile for two pianos, composed between ate the piece, thereby creating a ‘large form’, goes through this door. I think that is what he (durations of sound and silence, intensities and December 1956 and May 1958, was first per- the overall progression going from the most did this time, in this dodecaphonic drawing- attacks) are “released” and, thanks to relative formed by Alfons and Aloys Kontarsky on 21 determined to the ever-freer. room waltz.’ notation, allow for freeing up “zones” within February 1959. With this work, Pousseur fol- The ten sections of the score are played As for Pierre Boulez, he was not ready for which the interpreter will be able to oscillate lowed in the footsteps of Boulez and without interruption. indulgence… with more or less freedom.’ Stockhausen who, respectively in the Third Madrigal III is dedicated to the memory of Sonata and Klavierstück XI, after the rigours of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Zeitmasse Henri Pousseur: Madrigal III Wolfgang Steinecke. ‘total serial’ writing, began thinking about the principle of (more or less) open work. Pousseur’s Karlheinz Stockhausen was the living com- Madrigal III for clarinet and five instruments score is accompanied by a long notice for the poser most often played at the Domaine (violin, cello, two percussion and piano), com- performers of whom an active collaboration is musical: Jésus Aguila noted 18 performances in posed in the springtime of 1962, was first requested. ‘Pousseur,’ notes Célestin Deliège, 14 seasons, a few of which were real events, ‘presents the work as a programme that the such as the French premiere of Gruppen with VOL 4. the Orchestra of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk sonority, strictly speaking, it is these tempo Klavierstücke. In these four pieces, the passage 1955, was premiered by the same artist during of Cologne in 1965. But as of the first seasons, structures as well as the formal conception of from ‘isolated music’ to a ‘composition in the 1955 Darmstadt summer session, provoking Stockhausen, who had come to Paris to attend the work—a form in constant evolution with groups’ is clearly perceptible. a veritable scandal. It was David Tudor who next Olivier Messiaen’s classes at the Conservatoire points of turning round but without caesuras— Begun in late 1953, in Cologne, the second played it during the Domaine musical season. from January 1952 to May 1953, had an opportu- which make for the profound originality and cycle is marked by an enlargement of the sound At the outset, Klavierstück VI was the shortest nity to share some strong convictions with radical novelty of Zeitmasse. However, the composition thanks to means specific to the of the series. Stockhausen extended it, giving it Pierre Boulez regarding the present and future sonority itself reveals the effects of Stock- piano: I invented six new ‘attack methods’ the dimensions, if not the form, of a sonata in of musical creation. It is thus not surprising to hausen’s electronic experiments: in the sense allowing for differentiating the transitory char- response to the wishes of David Tudor, anxious see his name on the programme of the inaugu- that the chords, combinations of instruments acteristics of the piano’s attack, in the way I had to present pieces of a certain scope to the New ral concert of 13 January 1954, with and their dynamics are envisaged from a truly composed beforehand, in the Elektronische Stu- York audience. Kontra-Punkte. On 15 December 1956, it would acoustic point of view [...] Certainly, with Zeit- dien, thanks to a series of ‘envelope curves’. I I be the turn of Zeitmasse, soon after recorded masse, we are in the presence of one of the defined new symbols for these attack methods. by the musicians of the premiere—Claude most important works in contemporary music. It was above all the discovery of harmonics with Maisonneuve (oboe), Jacques Castagner (flute), ‘subharmonic’ resonances that was of great Paul Taillefer (English horn), Guy Deplus (clar- Karlheinz Stockhausen: Klavierstück VI help to me, for that permitted combining short inet) and André Rabot (bassoon)—, with Pierre staccato attacks and a slight prolongation of Boulez writing an introductory text from which Why the Klavierstücke, this impressive series the note (‘sounds in echo’) for identical pitches. we quote at length: of piano pieces in the front rank of the contem- In addition, I no longer composed isolated notes In Karlheinz Stockhausen’s output, the wind porary piano repertoire? The composer replies: and chords but sounds endowed with a specific quintet entitled Zeitmasse (‘measures of time’) Despite—or precisely because of—the great internal structure. The ‘little notes’—called occupies, as of now, the most important place, importance given to ‘composition of timbres’ in appoggiaturas in the past—became quite as much from the point of view of formal dis- my electronic music and the orchestral and numerous and were composed in groups of covery as stylistic research. It was ‘written’ in vocal works, it periodically happens that I varying density, centred on cores: it is on these two steps; the first, fairly simple version (late concentrate on ‘piano pieces’, i.e., on the com- groups of notes preceding, accompanying and 1955) was somewhat akin in spirit to Kontra- position for a single instrument, for ten fingers, prolonging the core-sounds that all the Klavier- Punkte [...] Stockhausen went back to his work with minutely detailed nuances of timbre and stücke V-X are based. in the spring of 1956 and added what now gives structure. For me, these are drawings. I wrote Faithful to the music of Karlheinz Stock- it the full force of his thinking and the originality the third and second Klavierstücke in 1952 in hausen, the Domaine musical programmed of its conception: bars of truly variable beats, Paris, for my wife, Doris, who studied piano with Klavierstücke I-IV and VIII on 27 April 1955, per- i.e., depending on different parameters not nec- me at the Graduate School of Music in Cologne. formed by Marcelle Mercenier. Klavierstück VI, essarily having common metrics [...] More than To these I later added the first and fourth composed between November 1954 and March VOL 5.

Igor Stravinsky: Concertino by Edmond Allegra, on 8 November 1919. Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies Koussevitzky, was, in Stravinsky’s words, ‘a debacle’. for 12 instruments The set evolves in sobriety and, in particular of wind instruments for the first piece, meditation. Concerning the Igor Stravinsky: Renard The Concertino for 12 instruments is the ver- third piece, André Boucourechliev rightly under- The Symphonies of wind instruments sion for ten woodwinds and brass with two scored ‘the diabolical play of shifted accents and started off as a chorale that Stravinsky com- Renard is characteristic of the period when obbligato parts for violin and cello, realised in variable meters over brief cells, the whole being posed at the request of Henry Prunières, Stravinsky, living in Switzerland, went back to 1952 from the Concertino for String Quartet, blocked in the instrument’s upper, somewhat director of La Revue musicale, who wished to the sources of his native Russia. ‘A burlesque which Stravinsky composed after the First World “cheap”, register’. publish a supplement in which he would bring story sung and acted by a duck, a cock, a cat and War, when he had decided to settle in France. ‘A together some ten pieces by different com- a goat’, Renard has its origins in Russian folk piece in a single movement treated freely in Igor Stravinsky: Three Pieces posers under the title ’Le Tombeau de Claude tales and, more particularly, in Afanassiev’s col- sonata-allegro form,’ wrote the composer, ‘with for string quartet Debussy’. This fragment, composed in 1920, was lection of stories of which the composer himself a distinctly concertante part in the first violin, soon fleshed out. Harsh, luminous music, which adapted the texts, with the help of C.F. Ramuz which, owing to its limited dimension, made me These Three Pieces for string quartet, a mile- Stravinsky explained in Chroniques de ma vie: for the French version. Stravinsky liked to stress give the diminutive title of “concertino” (piccolo stone between The Rite of Spring and the that it was not an opera, but a sort of chamber ‘I lamented not only the loss of a man to cantata accompanying mimed stage action. concerto)’. It was in 1920, during holidays in Brit- Symphonies of Wind Instruments, date from whom I felt sincerely attached and who always tany, then in Garches, outside of Paris, that 1914 and are dedicated to Ernest Ansermet. Is ‘The play is acted,’ the composer also said, ‘by showed great friendship as well as unfailing buffoons, dancers or acrobats, preferably on a Stravinsky had written the original score at the the influence of the Vienna School detectable kindness for my work and myself, but also the request of Alfred Pochon, first violin of the Swiss here? ‘In 1914,’ the composer would reply, ‘I didn’t stage, with the orchestra placed behind. The disappearance of an artist who, already mature roles are silent. The voices (two tenors and two Flonzaley Quartet. It met with little success know any music by Webern or Schoenberg—just and, what is more, undermined by an implacable when first performed in New York the following Pierrot lunaire. But even though my Pieces may basses) are in the orchestra’, which is domi- illness, had nonetheless managed to preserve nated by the shrill timbres of the wind 3 November by the dedicatees. be of slighter substance, and though they be the plenitude of his creative forces and whose more iterative than Schoenberg’s music at the instruments, whereas the Russian touch is pro- musical genius, throughout his professional life, vided by the cimbalom, an instrument that Igor Stravinsky: Three Pieces same date, they are also different and mark, I had undergone no alteration […] In my thoughts, for solo clarinet believe, an important change in my art’. The Stravinsky discovered in a Geneva café, thanks the homage that I was writing in memory of the to Ernest Ansermet, the future conductor of the Three Pieces for string quartet, arranged for great musician I admired was not to be inspired It was to thank Werner Reinhart, himself an string quartet and orchestra and extended by an work’s premiere, and which evokes the ancient by the very nature of his musical ideas; on the guzla, ‘a museum instrument.’ amateur clarinettist, for having provided financial ‘Etude in the Spanish Style’, would become the contrary, I was anxious to express it in a lan- support for the first performance of Histoire du Four Studies for orchestra, completed in 1918 guage that was essentially my own.’ It was in the spring of 1915 that Stravinsky soldat that Igor Stravinsky composed the Three and first performed in Berlin in 1930. began composing Renard, finishing work in The first listeners were hardly sensitive to this. Pieces for solo clarinet, a score lasting barely four Morges, ‘on 1 August 1916 at noon, cloudless The premiere in London, in 1921, conducted by minutes, which was first performed in Lausanne sky’. Commissioned by the Princess de Polignac, VOL 5. the work was not performed until 18 May 1922 the naming of its different parts, a reference to at the Paris Opera by the Ballets Russes. The 17th-century French court ballets: ‘Pas de quatre’, composer’s habitual demands had been satis- ‘Double pas de quatre’ and ‘Triple pas de quatre’ fied: ‘this production, from the points of view in the first section, ‘Pas de sarabande’, ‘Gaillarde’ both music (Ansermet) and staging (set and cos- and ‘Coda’ in the second, ‘Bransle simple’, tumes by [Mikhail] Larionov, one of his finest ‘Bransle gay’ and ‘Bransle de Poitou’ in the third, successes), gave me great satisfaction. Nijinska and finally ‘Pas de deux’, ‘4 duos’ and ‘4 trios’. The had admirably grasped the spirit of this short work, Balanchine would say, ‘was planned by bouffonnade de tréteaux, displaying such inge- Stravinsky and myself for 12 of our most qualified nuity, so many keen traits and such satirical technicians; it has no story line other than dance verve that the effect was irresistible’. itself; it is less a combat or competition (the two possible meanings of the Greek word) than a Igor Stravinsky: Agon measured construction in space, made possible by bodies in motion tuned to certain outlines or Agon belongs to Igor Stravinsky’s last creative sequences of rhythms and melodies.’ period and marks one of the major changes of The first concert performance of Agon was direction in his aesthetic. The distance taken at conducted by Robert Craft, in Los Angeles, on 17 the beginning of the Fifties (with the Septet, then June 1957, the composer’s 75th birthday. The Canticum sacrum) by the composer of The Fire- first ballet performance was given in New York, bird in regard to a neo-classicism practiced for the following 1 December in Balanchine’s cho- nearly thirty years, and his new proximity to the reography, ‘doubtless the most beautiful that dodecaphonic language gave rise to severe criti- this prince of dance ever created,’ in the opinion cism; with the passing of time, there remains one of André Boucourechliev. Meanwhile, on 11 Octo- score of rare skill and high quality of writing. One ber to be precise, the European premiere of will not fail to note that Agon, like the great Agon was given at Paris’ Salle Pleyel, in the scores of the young Stravinsky, was written for framework of the Domaine musical’s season, by dance, responding to a commission from Lincoln the Orchestra of the Südwestfunk, Baden- Kirstein for George Balanchine’s New York City Baden, under the composer’s direction. Ballet. A ballet for 12 dancers (four men, eight I women), Agon is, in its form, and even more in VOL 6.

Arnold Schoenberg:Verklärte Nacht definition of an expressive atmosphere—‘pure cal thinking’. And this would be one of the major Spring, which exploded two months later in music’, insisted the composer. The tonality (D innovations that the young generation of the Paris. In December 1899, Arnold Schoenberg com- minor) is asserted, as is the formal framework; Fifties would remember, more Webernian than The six pieces are marked, successively: pleted the sextet version (two violins, two yet the work, premiered in Vienna by the Schoenbergian. Etwas bewegt (fairly lively), Bewegt (lively), Zart violas, two cellos) of Verklärte Nacht. He was 25 famous Rosé Quartet and two musicians from Beyond this condensing of language, the bewegt (gently animated), Langsam, marcia and declared the relation: ‘My Verklärte Nacht the Philharmoniker, on 18 March 2002, and young composers such as Pierre Boulez funebre (slow, funeral march), Sehr langsam is influenced by Wagner in its thematic treat- which opened the way for Pelléas et Mélisande, retained the taste for the ellipse, along with the (very slow) and Zart bewegt. ment of a cell developed over a highly-changing the First String Quartet and the Chamber Sym- softness and transparency of this music. Boulez harmony, as well as by Brahms in its develop- phony, caused a scandal. Schoenberg would added: The use of instrumental colour is of such Arnold Schoenberg:Three Pieces ment technique through variation.’ Wagner- realise two versions of Verklärte Nacht for straightforward beauty that the listener has no for chamber orchestra Brahms: the three musicians of the Vienna chamber orchestra, in 1917 and 1943. difficulty, however strange as that may seem, in School were sensitive to this conjunction; we tasting it at first approach, the rarefaction of Three pieces—Rasch (fast), Mäßig (moder- shall add the name of Richard Strauss, whose Anton Webern: 6 Pièces op. 6 the musical atmosphere [...] Webern was never ate), Gehend (lively)—with a total playing time symphonic poems Schoenberg discovered with as appealing, and perhaps never would be again of less than three minutes. The composition interest at that time. And, in a certain manner, Anton Webern was 26 when he composed to the same degree; for the Baroque charm—in dates from February 1910, but the score was not with this Transfigured Night, Schoenberg the Six Pieces for orchestra. He had met the stylistic sense of this word—emanating discovered until much later by the Austrian endeavoured to introduce the symphonic poem Schoenberg five years earlier and worked quite from these pieces constitutes a thoroughly musicologist Josef Rufer, with the first perform- into chamber music. As Colin Mason points out, intensely with this venerated master for six transitory phenomenon in Webern’s work, ance given on 10 October 1957, in Berlin. ‘it is a youthful work, with its qualities and its years, but it can be said that, by 1909, the which will brace his effort towards a rigour no The work’s ‘extreme condensation of dis- flaws. It brims with vivacity and, at the same apprenticeship period was over. The Opus 6 less beautiful but less directly intelligible. course’ prefigures Pierrot lunaire, and its Pieces attest to the experience gained from time, betrays the wild pleasure of inventing Composed by Anton Webern for a large sym- instrumentation is equally characteristic of ever-new combinations of motifs’. Schoenberg: brevity of form, work on timbre or Schoenberg’s preoccupations at that time: flute, what Schoenberg, in his Harmonieliehre (1911), phony orchestra, with brass by six, Opus 6 At the work’s origin was Richard Dehmel’s (Webern’s only score for large orchestra, of oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, harmonium, would call ‘Klangfarbenmelodie’, the abandon- celesta and string quintet. poem, taken from the collection Weib und Welt, ing of traditional sets of themes. In terms of which he would realise a version for reduced published in 1896 and printed at the top of the brevity, Webern, if we might say so, went his orchestra in 1928) was first performed in Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg:Pierrot lunaire score. The poem relates the confidences of two master one better: none of the six pieces of in the prestigious hall of the Musikverein, on 31 lovers (dialogue of the cello and violin) and the March 1913. It had taken six rehearsals to finalise Opus 6 has more than forty bars. And he goes At the beginning of 1912, Arnold Schoenberg revelation of the woman’s betrayal, one cold just as far in formal renovation, not confusing all the details in this 12’ work. Schoenberg, the night in the moonlight. In a letter to Dehmel, dedicatee, conducted the first performance (but learned that Albertine Zehme, a Viennese brevity with the reduction of traditional forms. actress who was no longer as young as she had Schoenberg wrote: ‘Your poetry had a decisive As Claude Rostand points out: ‘With Webern, only the final rehearsal), which set off a memo- influence on my musical evolution’, but the rable commotion, which some commentators once been, wanted to commission him (for brevity is not contingent or provoked but is 1,000 marks) to write a cycle of melodramas on transition from the literary text to the musical born from the conducive requirements of musi- would compare with the scandal of The Rite of text tends less towards an illustration than the the poems from Pierrot lunaire by the Belgian VOL 6.

Albert Giraud in Otto Erich Hartleben’s German songs. You thoroughly distort the work if you do translation. The composer’s response: ‘After it singing, and everyone would be right in reading the preface and studying the poems, saying: “One doesn’t write for the voice like I’m enthusiastic. A brilliant idea, which suits me that.” Pierre Boulez commented: ‘It seems that down to the ground. I would do this job even Schoenberg did not exactly study the relations without payment.’ Schoenberg began the com- between the vocal and sung register and the position on 12 March and stated ‘I have the spoken register, not only in the tessitura, but conviction of going to meet a new expression— also in the duration of the emission; one can I feel it.’ speak on a given pitch for only a very brief time, Indeed, the expression was so new that otherwise it becomes a sung utterance; in addi- Schoenberg’s work was long considered the tion, for the female voice, the spoken register is prototype of contemporary music. The novelty lower and more restricted than the sung regis- lay in the variety of instrumental colours—five ter. If someone wants to speak Pierrot lunaire, instrumentalists playing eight instruments— you end up with a sort of reduction of the writ- piano, flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, ten line [...] Up until now, to our knowledge, no violin/viola and cello—, with the number of satisfactory solution has been found for resolv- instruments varying from piece to piece (flute, ing this contradiction.’ clarinet and violin in Eine blasse Wäscherin, solo Pierrot lunaire, a cycle in three parts—each flute in Der kranke Mond,, clarinet and piano in consisting of seven melodramas—and the break Gebet an Pierrot, etc.). But also—doubtless the of hyper-Expressionism, was premiered on 16 work’s most directly striking characteristic—the October 1912 under the composer’s direction systematic use of Sprechgesang, set declama- with Albertine Zehme alone on stage, costumed tion according to a strict rhythm, with pitches as Pierrot. Anton Webern was in the hall: ‘The marked by crosses on the score, the performer reception reserved for the melodramas was going from one pitch to another by a rising or enthusiastic. Naturally, there was some booing falling glissando. It will be recalled that the insti- after the first part, and someone whistled using gator and first interpreter of Pierrot lunaire was a key. But that didn’t mean much…’ an actress, who was succeeded in this role I essentially by singers. In 1930, the composer remarked that Pierrot lunaire ‘is not to be sung! The sung songs must be balanced and modelled in a completely different way from the spoken VOL 7.

Alban Berg: Piano Sonata, Op.1 Chamber Symphony, Op.9, both beginning with certain conventions (the use on the score of ref- Arnold Schoenberg:Chamber Symphony a perfect fourth followed by a rising augmented erences to Hauptstimme and Nebenstimme2, No.1, Op.9 Without exactly being the first work com- fourth. respectively ‘H’ and ‘N’, as did Schoenberg) and posed by Alban Berg, it was the one, after Composed in 1907-08, the Sonata was not in the relation to Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Written for 15 solo instruments, orchestrated various scores from his early youth (numerous performed until three years later, on 24 April 1911 orchestra (even though Berg wrote to his wife: for large orchestra by the composer in 1922 and Lieder and, in particular, the 7 Frühe Lieder, cho- by Etta Werndorff, along with the String Quar- ‘My pieces are not derived from them; on the ‘35, transcribed by Berg for piano four hands ruses, 12 Variations on an Original Theme for tet, Op.3. Berg had had the work published (at contrary—they are very different’), and finally in and arranged by Webern for flute, clarinet, cello piano, etc.), he deemed worthy to bear the title his own expense) the year before and done the the dedication: Arnold Schoenberg, on the occa- and piano, the Chamber Symphony, Op.9 marks ‘Opus 1’. And it is a work that, despite its brevity, preliminary design for the cover of the score. sion of his 40th birthday. an important step in the evolution that led introduces quite explicitly the universe of a But another relation imposes itself: that of Schoenberg from post-Romanticism to a musician who, whilst falling within the Roman- Alban Berg: Three Pieces for orchestra, Gustav Mahler, especially in the march rhythms refined, stripped-down instrumental lan- tic heritage (here via the intermediary of Op.6 and the intrusion of the banal. As Etienne Bar- guage—an evolution also in the harmonic Brahms and Schumann for the piano writing), ilier noted, this is a matter of ‘inevitably violent texture, of which the direct consequence would combines the rigour of form and modest Berg was 28 when he began composing the integration of the banal in composition. The soon be the suspension of traditional tonal rela- means, which will be one of the signatures of Three Pieces, Op.6, his only score written for “meanings” of the Pieces for orchestra would tions. Schoenberg himself set the date: ‘I have the Vienna School musicians. large—very large—symphony orchestra, with- have to be sought in the dread of the banal’. now found my style; I know how I must com- Theodor Adorno remarked: ‘It comes down out the presence of a soloist. He had just spent The Three Pieces are conceived as a cycle: pose from now on.’ to, in a space reduced to the extreme, obtaining a few days in Berlin with Arnold Schoenberg, his Präludium, Reigen (a veiled reference to Schnit- The instrumental forces brought together in an abundance of thematic characters from min- venerated master, and had a very hard time zler and the Viennese waltz, but in a movement the Chamber Symphony form a sort of orches- imal motivic material and, at the same time, dealing with a sharp altercation opposing the of contestation) and Marsch, which is as long as tra in reduction—flute, oboe, English horn, inscribing the latter in rigorous unity to prevent two men at the end of the stay. Schoenberg had the two preceding pieces combined and which, E-flat clarinet, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, the wealth of figures from producing an effect criticised Berg‘s latest two works (the in Adorno’s view, would require an entire book contrabassoon, two horns and string quintet— of confusion in such a brief work.’ Altenberg-Lieder and Op.5 Pieces for clarinet), of explanations. Berg: ‘It is the most compli- in reaction to the gigantic proportions of the apparently reproaching his disciple for the It was at the instigation of his master, Arnold cated score ever written.’ symphonic works of Gustav Mahler and Richard weakness of the thematic development, his Strauss, permitting a more refined perception Schoenberg, that Berg composed this Sonata, penchant for the French Impressionists and the Finished in 1914, a few days before Berg the sole piece in his catalogue for piano. attended the performance of Büchner’s of the timbres and leading to this Klangfarben- pessimistic character of his music. Berg melodie (‘melody of timbres’) that would Sonata- form customarily implying three acknowledged: ‘I must thank you for your dis- Wozzeck, Opus 6 had to wait quite some time movements, Berg prepared to pursue the com- for a public performance: the first two pieces constitute one of the major features of the approval as for everything I have received from musicians of the Vienna School. The polyphonic position, but Schoenberg, consulted on this you, knowing it was for my own good.’ were premiered in Berlin on 5 June 1923 under point, pointed out to his disciple that he had the direction of Anton Webern, the complete writing is complex, and even though the score said all he had to say… Another Schoenbergian The new work was also a way of responding cycle in Oldenburg, seven years later. still bears the indication of the key of E major, reference: the closeness of the first theme of to Schoenberg’s disapproval—in the writing and chromaticism is widely exploited with the har- the Sonata with the second theme of the conquering of the large form, in the detail of

2 Translator’s note: ‘Principal part’ and ‘subordinate or accompanying part’ VOL 7. mony of fourths, signalled straightaway by the quite appropriate, if we may say so—at the time 1. Wiese im Park (‘Meadow in the Park’), the first and third pieces that Webern confided theme of the first horn (D-G-C-F-B flat-E flat). when the young Webern was going through a poem by Karl Kraus; composed in Klagenfurt, 16 to his friend Alban Berg: ‘I’m on the right path. The composer specified: ‘Here I succeeded in difficult love affair with his cousin Wilhelmina. June 1917. Moreover, Schoenberg confirmed it. Homoge- establishing a close interaction by combining Whilst Webern well expressed his own emo- 2. Die Einsame (‘The Solitary Woman’), poem neous sonorities, themes that are sometimes melody and harmony, both of them ensuring tions in the two Lieder, it was with perfect by Li-Tai-Po (taken from the collection The Chi- long: all in all, something quite different from the fusion of remote tonal relations in perfect propriety, in a language of impressive economy. nese Flute, translated by Hans Bethge); what I was doing before the war.’ unity […] I had achieved considerable progress in Boulez: ‘Webern would go even further towards composed in Vienna, 16 February 1914. the liberation of dissonance.’ asphyxia in the exploration of this microcosm 3. In der Fremde (‘In the Distance’), also by Li- Anton Webern: Cantata No.1, Op.29 Composed in 1906, completed 25 July in Rot- towards which his temperament had already Tai-Po, same source; composed in Klagenfurt, 4 for soprano solo, mixed choir and orchestra, tach-Egern, on the shores of Lake Tegern, the attracted him.’ Here, in this ‘pointillist’ style July 1917. on poems by Hildegard Jone Chamber Symphony was premiered in Vienna that was his signature, Webern plays on the dif- 4. Ein Winterabend (‘A Winter Evening’), on 8 September 1907 by the Rosé Quartet and ferentiation of timbres, their transparency, poem by Georg Trakl; composed in Mödling, 10 The two Cantatas, Opp. 29 and 31, flanking members of the Opera Orchestra. brevity and the condensation of the discourse. July 1918. the Variations for Orchestra, Op.30 in Webern’s catalogue, are posthumous works, not having Anton Webern: Lieder, Op. 8 The date of the first performance is uncer- One finds Schoenberg’s influence in the tain. According to Hans Moldenhauer, the instrumental writing of the four Lieder, espe- had the honours of a public performance prior archives of Universal Editions indicate only ‘c. to the composer’s death on 15 September 1945. Two Lieder after poems by Rainer Maria cially that of Pierrot lunaire and the Four Songs 1927, Brussels?’ with orchestra, Op.22. Webern uses Klangfar- These works underscore their author’s tragic Rilke: ‘Du, der ich’s nicht sage’ and ‘Du machst destiny and, to quote Henri-Louis Matter, mich allein’; for voice, clarinet, horn, trumpet, Anton Webern: Lieder, Op. 13 benmelodie to the utmost but combines it with lyric expression that is more present. ‘The ‘deliver a message of serenity of ecstatic and celesta, harp, violin, viola and cello. deeply moving beauty. “High altitude” music to It was during a stay in Preglhof in the sum- The four Lieder for voice and orchestra mark reserve that Webern previously maintained seems to relax,’ notes Claude Rostand. ‘The which only a few pieces of Bach, Mozart and mer of 1910, that Anton Webern composed the the beginning of a cycle—from Opus 13 to Opus late Beethoven can be compared.’ two Lieder, Op.8: 10 August for the first Lied, the 19—in which Webern was going to combine the musician’s freedom marks increasing supple- ness and ease in moving about in the atonal The composition of the First Cantata 30th for the second. Whereas the previous voice and different instrumental combinations, spanned 18 months: July 1938 – January 1940. Lieder (Opp. 3 and 4) were written for voice and between 1913 and 1926. The formula had already universe’. Henri-Louis Matter stresses the pathetic tone of Opus 13, which reveals the Indeed, Webern wrote to Hildegard Jone, whose piano, for Opus 8, Webern resorted to an instru- been adopted three years earlier, in Opus 8, but texts he had chosen, on 20 July 1938: ‘I am cur- mental ensemble with the voice, a formula he here the forces are increased: flute and piccolo, period of extreme psychic tension that the composer was going through at the time. rently composing Kleiner Flügel Ahornsamen would use again on several occasions (in partic- clarinet and bass clarinet, horn, trumpet, trom- schwebst im Winde… It is the beginning of a ular for Opp. 13, 14 and 15). As for the choice of bone, celesta, glockenspiel, harp, violin, viola, First performed in Winterthur on 16 Febru- ary 1928 by Clara Wirz-Wyss and an large symphonic cycle for solo, chorus and Rainer Maria Rilke, it is explained by Webern’s cello and double bass. orchestra in which other texts of yours are recent reading of Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Each of the four Lieder has its own poet and instrumental ensemble conducted by Hermann Scherchen, the Lieder, Op.13 are dedicated to Dr again going to be present. A sort of symphony Laurids Brigge, published the previous spring, date of composition: with vocal passages.’ He kept his friend and as well as by the existence of two love poems— Norbert Schwarzmann. It was after composing VOL 7. collaborator up to date on how his work was Anton Webern: Cantata No.2, Op.31 progressing: ‘Perhaps, heretofore, music has time, I was intensely interested by this poet. 2. Creation, via the series, of sound blocks For soprano, bass, mixed chorus and Imagine the effect it had on me when I discov- having an autonomous life; never known anything as agile—this is the fruit orchestra, on poems by Hildegard Jone of a process that is stricter, if possible, than any- ered this passage in his notes on the translation 3. Use of classical forms of counterpoint, of Oedipus: ‘Other works of art lack infallibility controlled according to a pure distribution of thing that previously constituted the basis of a Begun in March 1941, as attests a first letter musical conception’ (25 January 1939). On 16 Jan- compared with those of the Greeks. They have intervals; to Hildegard Jone, dated the 11th, the composi- been judged, at least up until now, more by the uary 1940, he wrote another letter, saying that tion of the Cantata, Op.31 occupied Webern over 4. Boundary abolished between the horizon- the composition work was over. As for the first impression they bring than by mathematical tal and vertical dimensions, by considering that a long period, and it was only on 4 December legality and all the other methods thanks to performance, it would be given after the war in 1943 that he was able to announce the comple- the horizontal function boils down, by zero London, in the framework of the ISCM Festival, which beauty is created.’ Need I even say how time, to the vertical function; tion of what would be his final score. He had struck I was by this passage?’ on 12 July 1946, with the participation of singer 5. Use of series with symmetrical functions, only to decide on the order of the six pieces, and It was only on 23 June 1950, thus nearly five Emelie Hooke and the BBC Orchestra, con- the composer thought long about this before at a much less ‘naïve’ stage than in the previous ducted by Karl Rankl. years after the composer’s death, that the Sec- works; establishing the definitive repartition: 1) ond Cantata was first performed, in Brussels, in The First Cantata is in three parts: Schweigt auch die Welt; 2) Sehr tief verhalten; 6. Use of ‘mutation’ functions (this term used 1. Zündender Lichtblitz (‘Lightning, the Fire of the framework of the ISCM concerts, with 3) Schöpfen aus Brunnen; 4) Leichteste Bürden; soprano Ilona Steingruber, bass Otto Wiener as applied to organ stops), where the series is, Life’), for chorus and orchestra, but almost 5) Freundselig ist das Wort; 6) Gelockert aus in a way, thickened by one or several basic inter- always separately, in alternation. The piece is and the Belgian Radio Orchestra and Chorus dem Schoße. But before this final step, there conducted by Herbert Häfner. But although vals; reminiscent of Das Augenlicht, Op.26, of 1935, were numerous interruptions, sometimes for 7. Unique temporal function distributing the another setting of poems by Hildegard Jone. immediate posterity had taken its time to grasp material reasons, such as in September 1942 the importance of the message of the Cantata, entire work.’ 2. Kleiner Flügel Ahornsamen (‘Little Wing, when Webern noted that he had to stop ‘for his Op.31, the generation of young composers of I Maple Seed’), for orchestra and solo soprano. bread and butter’… We are able to follow the the immediate post-war period rectified this Henri-Louis Matter states: ‘One has difficulty whole elaboration of the work thanks to the let- lack of judgement, and it was Pierre Boulez believing that this music, which seems to flow ters exchanged with Hildegard Jone, then Willi who, in a text (re)published in Points de repère naturally, is the result of work of Byzantine Reich, correspondence that is quite interesting I, indicated the dimension of this major score: complexity that makes the polyphonists of the from numerous points of view, especially when Renaissance pale by comparison!’ Webern, in his penultimate letter to Willi Reich, ‘The Second Cantata appears to be a work provides an essential key for the profound com- with a rich future because it brings into play a 3. Tönen, die seligen Saiten Apolls (‘Resound, new way of thinking and of conceiving musical Apollo’s blessed strings’), the most extensive of prehension of his Cantata and, more generally, his whole aesthetic approach: relations, which no longer has anything didactic the three movements; its bareness is reminis- [...] Several new notions are contained herein: cent of the first part. ‘Living means defending a form [quoting Hölderlin]. I am happy to tell you that, for a long 1. Functional harmony, outside of criteria heretofore adopted; VOL 8.

Arnold Schoenberg:Serenade, Op.24 A work astride two worlds: ‘The Serenade’s series, the very precise use of the seven instru- According to the composer’s correspon- for seven instruments and bass ostensibly light character remains a stumbling ments (piano, E-flat clarinet, clarinet, bass dence, the idea for these Variations goes back block for appreciating its merits. Its exaggerated clarinet and string trio) and his concern with precisely to 14 October 1935, but the first phase The beginning of Schoenberg’s adoption of polish can displease: yet there is no contradic- achieving a rigorous construction. of work was very slow, with only four and a half the dodecaphonic method is precisely dated: tion between its highly experimental The work is made up of four movements: pages being written in eight months. But it is 1923, the year he composed the 5 Pieces for nature—more precisely, its technical boldness— Ouverture, Tanzschritte, Thema mit Variationen true that various events had perturbed piano, Op.23, of which the Waltz is built on a and the good-natured effectiveness with which (whose major idea, notes H.H. Stuckenschmidt, Webern’s life, especially Alban Berg’s sudden twelve-note row. Then, close on its heels, came it returns to the past’ (Charles Rosen). consists of treating tonality like a particular death on Christmas Eve. On 18 July 1936, he the Serenade, Op.24. ‘In this work,’ wrote the case in dodecaphonic thinking—might one say wrote to his friend the poetess Hildegard Jone: Arnold Schoenberg: Suite, Op.29 ‘nostalgia’?) and, at last, the Gigue. A good period for work. I’ve already finished composer to Nicolas Slonimsky in 1937, ‘you’ll find for seven instruments numerous uses of this method. The most char- In 1926, Schoenberg left Vienna and settled part of my new score. I told you I was writing acteristic lies in the third piece of the variations. in Berlin to succeed Busoni as professor of com- something for piano. What is finished is a vari- In composing the Suite, Op.29 (January 1925 The theme is made up of a series of 14 notes of position at the Prussian Academy of Arts; in his ation movement; the whole will form a sort of – 1 May 1926), Arnold Schoenberg explored pos- which only 11 are different, but these 14 sounds baggage he took with him the manuscript of suite. In these variations, I hope I have achieved sibilities offered by manipulating the are used throughout the movement [...] The the Suite, still unfinished but soon complete. something I have been thinking about for years. dodecaphonic row, experimented with two fourth movement, the Sonnet, is a real 12-note Curiously, it would first be performed in Paris (at Goethe said one day to Eckermann, who was years earlier, but he applied it to forms from the composition. Here, the technique is relatively the Société Musicale Indépendante) on 15 enthusing over a new poem, that, in truth, he Classical era, which Pierre Boulez calls ‘verifica- elementary: it is, in fact, one of the first works December 1927 and achieve a great success. It is had been thinking about it for forty years… tion operations of serial technique by old written in strict application of the method.’ dedicated to Gertrude, ‘my dear wife’. The work is dedicated to Edward Steuermann, forms’—which has aged most quickly, he adds, who did not play it, arguing ‘personal reasons’, One will note the renewal of the instrumental and ’can bring with it the most definite reser- Anton Webern: Piano Variations, Op.27 naturally in relation to Webern’s attitude forces: mandolin, guitar, clarinet, bass clarinet vations in the appreciation of his work, towards Nazism, which was a bit too conciliatory. and string trio, along with the presence of a bass beginning with Opus 25’. An approach that can Three movements follow one another in this The first performance was thus entrusted to ‘a voice in the fourth part, the Petrarch sonnet. A be considered, with this revolutionary who was Ser- brief work, Webern’s only piano score, which is local pianist of great talent’, Peter Staden, who divertissement, as indicated by its title, the still obsessed with the weighty heritage of His- enade considered one of the masterpieces of his matu- unveiled the score to the Viennese public on 26 was composed between August 1920 and tory, an attempt at reconciliation between the rity: 1) Sehr mäßig (quite moderate); 2) Sehr schnell October 1927. After a second hearing, four days April 1923 and premiered at Donaueschingen, new writing and the forms of the past. So, the (very fast), only two episodes of 11 bars—as regards later, the critic from the Neue freie Presse noted under the composer’s direction, on 20 July 1924. Overture is an allegretto with two themes, pre- Marsch, this movement, Webern said he had thought of maliciously: ‘We have at last found a musical It consists of seven movements: ceded by an introduction; the Gigue is a Menuett, Variationen, Sonett von Petrarca, the Badinerie in Bach’s Suite in B… 3) Ruhig solution to the bitterly-argued problem of atomic sonata-allegro in fugal style. But the whole con- Tanzscene, Lied (ohne Worte) Finale. fließend (calm and flowing), the most developed of fission.’ That was the last time Webern heard his and firms Schoenberg’s mastery in handling the the three movements and also the most bare. music (soon stashed away in the cupboards of VOL 8. degenerate art) in his birthplace. its radicalness, with the multiplication of large Despite its brevity, the work was widely com- intervals and abundance of long silences, provok- mented on. Let us quote René Leibowitz3: ‘The ing a highly unusual scattering of sound. It was bareness and extreme economy of means, the René Leibowitz who, in his Schoenberg et son precision and terseness of the musical dis- école, emphasised: ‘The very external aspect of course—all these qualities attested to by this score is disconcerting. Its bareness is often Webern’s evolution are achieved in a way that is frightening. A few notes seem to have been perhaps impassable and attain their most per- tossed here and there without apparent reason. fect expression in the Variations for piano, Op.27’ Listening leaves an analogous impression.’ This is only an impression, for the work is constructed Anton Webern: Symphony, Op.21 with the most demanding rigour. ‘There is not a single sound in the Symphony (and particularly Anton Webern wrote to Schoenberg on 25 in the first movement) whose presence, situation November 1927, saying that he was ‘busy with in relation to the other notes and necessity can- something for orchestra, a little symphony’. This not be justified’ (Henri-Louis Matter). Webern would, in fact, be a symphony—little in terms of pursues his exploration of Klangfarbenmelodie forces (clarinet, bass clarinet, two horns, harp, but on a more structural than decorative level. first and second violins, viola and cello) and rel- Boulez speaks of ‘abstract melody’, in which tim- atively short (some ten minutes), but it is true bre becomes a structural element. that brevity is one of the dimensions of the The Symphony, Op.21, dedicated ‘to my Webernian aesthetic—that would be completed daughter Christine’, was first performed at the following June. Two movements would have Town Hall in New York, in the League of Com- been written: Ruhig schreitend (lively with calm) posers series, on 18 December 1929, conducted and Variationen (variations), a theme and seven by Alexander Smallens. The European premiere variations, ‘a splendid exercise in serial was given in Vienna on 24 February 1930. polyphony’, notes Claude Rostand. Webern had Claude Samuel thought about a third movement, but aban- doned the idea, explaining that Beethoven also Translated by John Tyler Tuttle wrote sonatas in two movements. I The Symphony, Op.21 marks a veritable change in Webern’s aesthetic, better assumed in

3 in Schoenberg et son école (1947) INTERVIEW WITH PIERRE BOULEZ BY CLAUDE SAMUEL

SEPTEMBER 2005

Pierre Boulez et Jean-Louis Barrault lors d'une répétition de "L'Histoire du soldat" d'Igor Stravinsky. Paris, novembre 1966. © Lipnitzki / Roger-Viollet lieve it was simply a cultural question. Besides, it wasn’t stances. First of all, it was launched by Jean-Louis Barrault only in music that this fact was patent but also in painting. and Madeleine Renaud and therefore had the advantage of All the great Austrian painters like Schiele, Klimt, [Richard] an actor who was very well known at the time and who had Gerstel and even Kokoschka were totally ignored in France created in the Théâtre Marigny, next to the large auditorium, for quite some time. Even Klee, who was very, very well known a small experimental auditorium, which had something like in Germany before Nazism, was practically unknown in 300 seats. And so the stage was small—we couldn’t do France. The few exhibitions that were held were exhibitions works for a large number of musicians but, in any case, that of, shall we say, ‘initiates’ and not large exhibitions, whereas enabled us to do a lot of things from the Vienna School, Picasso and Matisse in particular benefited from consider- since, as you know, a lot of works, either by Webern, by Claude Samuel: Pierre Boulez, I wouldn’t say that we’re here generation did not stand much chance of being played. Per- able—I wouldn’t go so far as to say popularity but, in any Schoenberg, or even by Berg, are for chamber formations. for a celebration, but even so, if we look at the calendar, the haps this can be understood, what was less understandable case—recognition. So you see it wasn’t a phenomenon that And so Barrault had initiated this auditorium for more or less Domaine musical under its definitive denomination is cur- was the fact that the music that had preceded us was prac- was typically musical but a more general cultural phenom- experimental theatre, which would not have had enough of rently 50 years old. And here we are, 50 years later, at IRCAM. tically ignored. I’m speaking about the Vienna School. No one enon. And I must say that, in literature, you find approxi- an audience in the large auditorium. And he wanted music Could it be said that the Domaine musical and IRCAM are was interested in it, and it must be said that there was no mately the same thing. Who knew Musil in the 1930s? Who to have its share, since he knew me well—I’d been with him two of the great adventures of your life? tradition in France from this point of view, for even Mahler in France even knew Thomas Mann in terms of his impor- since 1946. tance in German literature? Pierre Boulez: Certainly, they are important moments in my was totally ignored at the time. This wasn’t the only country C. S.: Yes, tell us a bit about your relations with Jean-Louis life, both in my personal life as well as, I think, in France’s where Mahler had been ignored, but in France particularly. C. S.: Nonetheless, there were a few attempts, for example Barrault. musical life. It shouldn’t be forgotten that when I created There was not only a kind of oblivion, but also a rejection of the Pléiade concerts in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. I mention P. B.: My relationship was quite simple: I was engaged at the Domaine musical, I didn’t create it by myself; besides, I all Austro-German culture. Not even just for political rea- that for the record so that it not be said there was nothing. that time with a grand title like Director of Stage Music, created it with backing, of course. But Parisian musical life sons… Moreover, your Second Sonata was premiered at a Pléiade which sometimes boiled down to two musicians, so it wasn’t was nonetheless somewhat dormant, especially in compar- C. S.: Nonetheless, we’d just come out of the war! concert as far as I recall. really as grand as it sounded. And then sometimes there was ison with musical life in Germany. It was at the time when P. B.: I don’t think it was for political reasons because, be- P. B.: No, not at all. an enlargement, but I think the maximum was something German radios were extremely effective, extremely virulent tween the two wars, between 1914 and 1939, or let’s say be- C. S.: It was written, however! like 15 musicians. That allowed me to know instrumentalists even, in their defence of contemporary music, and every- tween 1918 and 1939, there would have been time to become P. B.: Yes, perhaps it was written, but there are things that of my generation. where there were people at the head of these organisations acquainted with the Austrian tradition. There was a tiny ef- I don’t contradict because it’s not worth it. There was indeed C. S.: And you played the ondes Martenot from time to time… who were doing a tremendous amount for contemporary fort, for example, made in 1920 with Milhaud conducting an organisation that was the Pléiade, which was especially P. B.: Yes, and I also conducted from time to time… It’s also music. I’m thinking of [Heinrich] Strobel in Baden-Baden, Pierrot lunaire. But I do believe it was the only effort made during the war and, in fact, gave first performances of Mes- where I did my apprenticeship, which was painful at times. Karl Amadeus Hartmann in Munich and, of course, Darm- because afterwards the few hearings that were given fell siaen, for example, and Leibowitz. There was a much more I won’t tell you all the problems I had then, but conducting stadt and its director, Wolfgang Steinecke. There was also into the largest desert, if I may say so. Thus, around 1938- modest organisation than the Pléiade called the Triptyque, was not at all something innate in me, as far as I recall. I Cologne with Otto Tomek, Hamburg with Herbert Hübner… 39, before the war, it wasn’t political at all. On the contrary, and that’s where my Second Sonata was played for the first therefore had to learn from the beginning and then, in the There’s no end to all those organisations that were so active. Schoenberg being Jewish, you might imagine that he would time. But the Triptyque had extremely limited means, and long run, didn’t do too badly, given the circumstances, es- In France, on the contrary, people were overcautious and even have been supported in relation to the German government, even though the Domaine musical also had very limited pecially when you repeat a lot. I don’t mean repeat to pre- hostile, it must be said—so much so that the music of my which was under the domination of the Nazis. So no, I be- means, it benefited from a very different set of circum- pare—of course, you repeat when you rehearse—but when a production works, you play it a hundred times. By the end, So, at that moment, we turned, with Pierre Suvchinsky, to in general. And I myself was looking for a name that didn’t the object of many attacks because, from the very beginning, you nonetheless have certain automatisms that get moving. private patronage and thus to Madame Tézenas who took on sound like a standard to be brandished but which would be some people said the Domaine musical was fashionable. Therefore, I was the company musician, as it were. And when the responsibility for the deficit. sufficiently vague to cover enough territory. And I took this Well, there were polemics on this theme. Barrault created this theatre for more experimental plays, C. S.: So, to refresh our memory, might we say a few words expression from one of his articles, but it wasn’t he who sug- P. B.: Yes, there are always polemics that are, besides, he was anxious for music to have its place. about Pierre Suvchinsky, because I’m not sure that there are gested it as the title for the concerts. There’s the truth. grotesque polemics when one looks closely—as from afar. C. S.: The first production was Schéhadé’s La Soirée des still many memories today, in particular amongst young peo- C. S.: So, is it true that it was he who introduced you to If you look at them now, you see that there was a kind of jeal- Proverbes, I believe... ple. Suzanne Tézenas? ousy and bitterness, because young people were doing their P. B.: Well, yes and no. That is, La Soirée des Proverbes P. B.: No, certainly. He was one of those figures who unfor- P. B.: Yes, it’s true. It was he who, let us say, made the con- job quite simply and allowing themselves to tell a few plain wasn’t ready for the theatre’s opening, so Barrault asked me tunately disappear from the landscape. They are intermedi- nection between Suzanne Tézenas and me, but we had al- truths to people who were completely wrapped up in their to inaugurate the theatre so, curiously, it was music that in- aries and, especially, intermediaries who have time, ready known each other for some time. For example, Cage’s sphere, which, precisely, was not the musical sphere. augurated the theatre. And I don’t know if 13 is a lucky num- something that is increasingly difficult to find. He was a man first concert in Paris was organised by me at Susanne Whereas we made known, in particular, the works of Webern, ber but, in any case, it was on 13th January. I no longer who had his secrets, moreover, who was Russian as his Tézenas’ home. Berg and Schoenberg, which weren’t played at all. There was remember the day but I do remember the date. name indicates, who had emigrated from Russia after the C. S.: She wasn’t a musician, it must be said… a real backwardness of which I’ll mention one example be- cause it’s the most striking. Once in 1957, I organised a con- C. S.: ‘54? Revolution, but fairly long after the Revolution, and who had P. B.: No, she wasn’t a musician but she was a woman who cert in conjunction with the Südwestfunk because the P. B.: 13th January ‘54, i.e., in the ’53-54 season. The season first spent time in Berlin before settling in Paris. He had a had a great many relations with literature and who knew very Südwestfunk was a window onto Paris, and Strobel was there had been launched, but it couldn’t be done earlier because, very close relationship with Stravinsky, especially between well the milieus of the NRF [La Nouvelle Revue Française] in and he very much wanted to present his orchestra in Paris. quite simply, the theatre wasn’t ready. But the season had the wars, just before the Second World War. He was a man particular, as well as knowing painting very well. For exam- He had already presented it at Aix-en-Provence but never in been announced as the ‘53-54 season. who was as comfortable with literature as with music. He ple, she knew Nicolas de Staël and many others: Poliakoff, Paris. It was an opportunity, and there was Stravinsky’s 75th was also a friend of the writer Boris Pasternak, and a friend André Masson, Miró, et al. And that enabled me to know all C. S.: And the concerts were called ‘Les Concerts du Petit birthday in ‘57. And moreover, we had given the first per- of Scherchen, too, for example. He was a friend of a great those painters there. It was a society, which, I think, has Marigny’. formance of Agon in Europe. The world premiere was given many people. I had met him right after the war, in ’45-46, pretty much disappeared now, where people could get to- P. B.: The first year, ‘Les Concerts du Petit Marigny’. And in Los Angeles, but the European première was in Paris where and had been quite impressed by his knowledge of people gether, who came from fairly different horizons and could at then—I didn’t have much experience, of course, in fact I had Stravinsky had all his connections, so it was very important. and his ease in bringing people together. Even though he least talk amongst themselves. I remember Nicolas de Staël no experience in organising concerts so, in particular, I didn’t But since Stravinsky was conducting Agon, at the same time, also had sections, segments of friends, i.e., he did not mix in particular. I must say that he was an exception because know exactly how to organise the length of a concert. For we had prepared a programme of the Vienna School with people who should not have mixed and, at the same time, he loved music enormously, as did André Masson. They came works, yes—that, I knew how to do. But for the length, that Strobel and Hans Rosbaud, who was the permanent conduc- he knew them quite well. And when there was need for an to the concerts too and, besides, Nicolas de Staël’s last was something quite different. The first concerts were very, tor of the Orchestra of the Südwestfunk. This was the mo- intermediary, he played intermediary quite easily, bringing painting, which is L’orchestre, a large canvas that was ex- very long—so much so that, in the long run, they were also ment when Stravinsky truly discovered the Vienna School together people where he saw the necessity of their being hibited at the Pompidou Centre, was painted after hearing quite expensive. Despite the different formations, by dint of brought together. with Robert Craft, who was steering him in that direction, having different formations—however small they might one of the Domaine musical concerts. C. S.: So it was he who suggested the name of the Domaine and so we had done a programme centred on the Vienna be—that accumulates and makes for a large formation. C. S.: And which is now in Antibes at the Picasso Museum. musical. School. There were Schoenberg’s Opus 16 Pieces, composed C. S.: It was Jean-Louis Barrault who was financing? P. B.: That’s right. in 1910 or around 1911, I don’t remember exactly, Webern’s P. B.: No, I’m sorry—that was me. That is to say, he spoke C. S.: Then of course, there was this whole milieu, which was Opus 6 Pieces, which had been composed in 1912-13, and P. B.: It was Jean-Louis Barrault who financed but, at the of the domaine musical in an article—the ‘musical domain’ end of the first season, he told me: ‘I can’t finance twice’. very enriching, very gratifying. It can also be said that it was pieces by Berg… C. S.: Opus 6. number of rehearsals. Above all, these were all Conservatoire formance, certainly, because you have to say that we were C. S.: And Messiaen. And then there were the fellow trav- P. B.: Opus 6, which were [written in] 1914. All right, I’m tak- classmates who had approximately the same age as me and also the Stravinsky generation, i.e., objectivity... ellers, if I dare say... ing the example of Berg because Berg was the one who saved therefore, when we did, for example, Stockhausen’s Zeit- C. S.: Objectivity! P. B.: That’s it. the Vienna School. People said: ‘Oh, yes, that one—feeling, masse, we had—I don’t know—ten or twelve rehearsals and P. B.: Voilà, that’s it exactly, the objectivity of the realisation, C. S.: That is, composers of your generation. Now much has soul—it means something’, etc. Well, the Opus 6 Pieces, with a good deal of constancy for trying to achieve a maxi- the exact rhythms, no rubato, etc. Whereas the Austrian tra- been said about the first case, and especially the case of which had been composed in 1914, were never played in mum of exactitude in the performance. I’m not saying we al- dition is just the opposite: it’s flexibility, the right to rubato the Viennese. So the references, you got rid of them quite Paris until 1957. So you can imagine the delay—43 years, ways succeeded, because we had our difficulties, too. When and the sensibility that is expressed by this flexibility. So quickly, I must say. Le Marteau sans maître was first performed, there were also that’s still quite a bit! And practically all of Webern’s that’s something we learnt as we went on. When I compare P. B.: Yes, because I first wanted to prove—no… Quite sim- a lot of instrumental difficulties. pieces—we gave their first performance in Paris. So we were even my later conducting—30 years ago and not 50—with ply, there were certain kinds of music in history that inter- considerably behind, and even Schoenberg’s pieces were al- C. S.: It’s interesting what you are saying in relation to the today’s, it is obvious that I am much more supple now, be- ested us more than others and why they interested us. There most never performed. The Serenade, Op.24, the Suite, contents of this set, precisely because we hear interpreta- cause I first learnt a profession, and this profession teaches really were references that the thinking was a way of thinking Op.29: never given. There was a kind of reticence and re- tions from that period when you were able to surmount cer- you to listen as much as give, whereas at that time there with new materials, but this thinking, nevertheless, had fusal—rejection even—which had created a sort of gap that tain problems, perhaps with less flexibility than you had later were so many problems to resolve that you gave but you precedents in history. In particular, all of Gesualdo’s chro- had to be bridged completely. on. It’s very interesting to compare over time performance didn’t receive. maticism was interesting, especially since Gesualdo was not C. S.: But was it more the refusal of a certain modernism or approaches of works for which, at the outset, there was no C. S.: There was a stiffness… performed at all, and I must say that if I still hear vocal point of reference. the refusal of what has been termed, somewhat condescend- P. B.: There was a certain stiffness, yes—not only conceptual music again today, I find that Gesualdo is not performed ingly, ‘Mittel Europa’. P. B.: No, there was no point of reference and there was also but also in the gesture. enough in relation to, for example, Monteverdi. Monteverdi no habituation. I think there is an absorption that occurs P. B.: Ah, yes, it was absolutely the refusal of ‘Mittel Europa’. C. S.: Let’s talk about the programming because, from the is performed fairly often, but Gesualdo almost never. For ex- more or less rapidly in relation to the Vienna School. Berg ‘We’re Latin, we don’t want those tortured souls’. In short, declarations for specifying the main lines of the Domaine ample, Machaut and Dufay were very interesting from the and Schoenberg didn’t pose many problems, if not instru- there was this grotesque side—infantile, I’d say—of rejec- musical’s programming, there were three. There were refer- point of view of rhythmic structure, which was sometimes mental problems or problems of flexibility or stylistic com- tion. There were efforts, of course—they shouldn’t be for- ence points… conceived even before the notes. And so we were accused of, gotten—the efforts of Leibowitz to impose that, but prehension. As regards Webern, there were instrumental say, exaggerating the rhythmic thinking in relation to the P. B.: The references. Leibowitz was—it has to be admitted—also a very poor con- problems but, above all, there were problems of comprehen- thinking of pitches. Well, there was a precedent in history ductor, and therefore the performances of these works were sion. For example, when a musician plays only two notes in C. S.: Yes. You mentioned Gesualdo and Dufay, and there was which was spreading and it was a thoroughly valid prece- catastrophic because people didn’t realise. I remember an a melodic line then waits five bars before playing another even Bach, too, since the Musical Offering was given at the dent. Okay, it’s obvious that the complete Musical Offering execution of Webern’s Symphony, Op.21… Okay, it has to be note, one can well imagine someone who doesn’t know the first concert. So that was Number 1 in the explanations: the was a bit long for the first concert, and we should have set- said in his defence that French musicians had no sense of context well and doesn’t see why he plays those two notes references. Second were the great contemporaries. You have tled for a certain number of pieces. But Scherchen wanted the Austrian tradition, that the instrumentalists were looking and how he can place them in a continuity. Whereas now, I already mentioned the Vienna School at considerable length, absolutely [to do the whole score], and since he was the one for the sense of the music and that Leibowitz’s conducting see, for example, with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, but the great contemporaries for you were also Varèse, who was conducting that first concert... We began in aus- did not at all help in this discovery. So, what we endeavoured when we play these works, there is practically no need to Stravinsky and even Debussy… terity with the Musical Offering and ended in divertissement to do each time—without patting myself on the back or even rehearse. They know where they are and know full well P. B.: Bartók… with Stravinsky’s Renard. being exaggeratedly modest either—was make sure the per- the continuity, despite the discontinuity of sounds produced, C. S.: Bartók… C. S.: Yes. if I may put it that way. But at the time, no, there was a lack formances were really polished without regard, say, to the P. B.: Debussy, Messiaen… P. B.: And there were Webern and two ‘acolytes’, so to speak: of habituation and then there was a certain stiffness in per- Stockhausen and Nono. It was a pretty well thought-out pro- C. S.: But it is nonetheless significant of the atmosphere of C. S.: No, but the caricature wasn’t that there was nothing P. B.: Of course there were aesthetic choices, but how do you gramme, I must say. the period and the tastes of your generation, to have totally on your programmes but that you considered that there was want me to do, for example, Jeu de cartes? Impossible! C. S.: You don’t disown this programme… disregarded the 19th century, whereas there were avant- nothing. C. S.: Right. th P. B.: No, and it’s a manifesto-programme. Simply, I find that gardists in the 19 century, too. P. B.: No, no, there was nothing on the programmes—that’s P. B.: I could have done the Piano Concerto… the Bach portion was a bit long in relation to the rest, that’s P. B.: Yes, but I don’t think there was any need to come to completely different. We didn’t pretend to make a manifesto C. S.: Or Dumbarton Oaks, for example, that you didn’t much th th all. If I were to do this programme today, I could reconstruct the aid of 19 -century music. It was very, very often played that there was nothing between the 15 century and the sec- care to do. and is still very often played, and I don’t think there’s any ond half of the 20th. No, I think that [on] the programmes, it in exactly the same way, keeping three or four pieces from P. B.: No, the ‘Seventh Brandenburg’ was not what interested need to help it. we were obliged to abandon these references quite simply the Musical Offering since we’re not obliged to play the Mu- us—not at all. sical Offering in its entirety—it wasn’t meant for that! In C. S.: Yes, but you said that Mahler, for example, was a bit because it was very difficult to maintain. C. S.: Of course. principle. But it was Scherchen’s idea—he thought we ignored. You didn’t programme Mahler… C. S.: And then, you didn’t have all that many concerts during P. B.: And moreover, I demand this freedom of choice, even should play the whole monument or not at all. Fine. At that P. B.: No. Programming Mahler would have required a large the year and you wanted to make up for lost time regarding now. Even now, you know, to get me to conduct Jeu de cartes, moment, as I nonetheless had respect for someone who had orchestra. contemporary creation and certain contemporary classics. you’d have to get started very early, and I still don’t think far more experience than me, I said to myself: fine. But I C. S.: Yes, of course. P. B.: Yes, exactly. We had four concerts a year, maximum six made the programmes and I find they were a bit long, it’s you’d succeed. No, there are Stravinsky works that I find thor- P. B.: I think that with the ‘Petit Marigny’, it was rather dif- sometimes when there was, for example, a recital. Once, we true, but they were still pretty well organised. I absolutely do oughly secondary and which don’t interest me, and which, ficult, since it meant reductions, like Schoenberg made af- had an organ recital by Messiaen for his new organ work, not regret the programming ideas but perhaps I would be a in that framework, were not at all in their validity even, or in terwards. I’m not particularly in favour of this type of which we gave at La Trinité. little more skilful nowadays in ‘staging’ these programmes. the little validity they had. So I think that, on the contrary, reduction and especially now that we know the originals, of C. S.: Yes, Le Livre d'orgue. we chose works that interested me a great deal, which are C. S.: So, the references—why did you gradually abandon course. But it’s true that we have, for example, a reduction P. B.: But those were exceptional things. We couldn’t really like pages from Stravinsky’s diary—not a daily, private diary them? of Das Lied von der Erde for 15 instruments, and I don’t find do a lot of things, and when you reread the correspondence but a journal such as a writer might keep. All the works from P. B.: I abandoned the references because they called for it very convincing. The only thing that’s convincing in this or certain excerpts from the correspondence, you see that I’m the Swiss period are really quite interesting and prepare the specialised groups, and specialised groups were really very Mahlerian reduction is the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, always pleading poverty or we’re pleading poverty because way for Les Noces, naturally. We couldn’t give Les Noces ei- expensive because we used them for only a part of the pro- which is closer to chamber music. There are a few pieces we can’t do certain things, given that they are too costly. Our ther, for example, because in the ‘Petit Marigny’ it was totally gramme: for example, for a segment of a concert and they like that in Mahler that could be reduced, but now it’s no means were very, very limited. impossible. didn’t play at all afterwards. If I had a chorus for Gesualdo, longer convincing at all. C. S.: So, before talking about means, let’s go back a bit to C. S.: And even afterwards, you didn’t do Les Noces. what could I do? I could do a few choruses by Webern and a C. S.: Yes, but then, the Domaine musical was naturally car- programming, in particular, the contemporary classics: few choruses by Schoenberg, full stop. So I couldn’t always P. B.: No, I never did Les Noces and I regret it, too, but I did icatured a great deal, and it was said at the time: ‘For the Stravinsky, with—if I may say so—a big hole between Pul- them later on. have the reference. In addition to that, there were musico- Domaine musical, between Dufay and Stravinsky there’s cinella and Agon... logical problems. If you speak of Machaut or Dufay, say, the C. S.: In Salzburg, in particular. nothing!’ P. B.: Yes, but because there were also works that were im- French specialists were somewhat rare in the genre if not P. B.: Yes, when I had the means at my disposal—which P. B.: It’s true that at the time there wasn’t much, in fact. possible to do. The works that were possible in our sphere non-existent. You had to go to England to have real groups were not mine. So we did what we could. For example, We weren’t going to play Lully before playing Stockhausen— were those from the Swiss period, i.e., a very economical pe- who were attached to the historic value of interpreting these once—but that was again thanks to the German radios— that would have been completely absurd. And there was a riod. musics that were, after all, quite distant and in which the we were able to do orchestral concerts. In particular, we pre- lot of music that we couldn’t have played, that had no rela- performance standard was very difficult to find. C. S.: There were also aesthetic choices, all the same. sented Stockhausen’s Gruppen in Paris, thanks to the tion. Cologne radio, i.e., the WDR, Westdeutscher Rundfunk. the Conservatoire. I knew their professor very well, Félix pens, but something happens in the first months or the first C. S.: Berio, naturally… French radio was totally incapable of putting on that kind of Passerone, who had a very good class at the time, and to weeks, and that is productive. Quite simply. And the rela- P. B.: Pousseur… thing. give that, we had to resort to him. It was one of the collab- tionship with Messiaen was quite productive. It was also, C. S.: Nono, Pousseur, right, but one also sees many, many C. S.: Not interested? orations we had with the Conservatoire—there weren’t let’s say, ‘prickly’ at times, because I can’t say that at the other names and … many, to tell the truth. time I really approved of certain sides of Messiaen’s aes- P. B.: Not interested and incapable. I emphasise the inca- P. B.: Ah, yes! C. S.: But Varèse was not really featured on many pro- theticism, but I was always grateful to him because he made pability—there were people at the head of the Radio who C. S.: No, I mean the problem is that today there are the ob- grammes in Paris at the time. me discover contemporary music. were worthless, absolutely worthless. vious names—which weren’t obvious at the time. So, mak- C. S.: But we can say that the Turangalîla-Symphonie is not C. S.: Of course. You have often written that. P. B.: There was the famous Déserts… ing choices, you had hundreds of names, and your choices really your music. P. B.: Yes, I wrote that—I have no reason to hide it! You need C. S.: Yes!! were based on the level of quality and also of aesthetic. P. B.: No, frankly, it’s not my cup of tea. But whereas every- only look at the radio programmes of that period to see how P. B.: Now that… P. B.: Yes, certainly. I don’t want to take up Diaghilev’s eter- thing starting with Chronochromie or all the works he did, much they were … C. S.: Bad programming, it has to be said. nal phrase, ‘Astound me’, but there was something in that. precisely, first for the Domaine musical, in truth, all his C. S.: Désormière was an exception, because, nonetheless, If something didn’t surprise me or interest me, I naturally P. B.: Bad, absolutely terrible programming—absurd pro- chamber works he wrote for me, or I should say, the Domaine he conducted this orchestra. didn’t programme it. But it also has to be said that you pro- gramming in grotesque conditions, but that was French musical. Beginning with Oiseaux exotiques, the Haïkaï, Un gramme not only those who are going to become ‘headliners’, P. B.: Yes, but he was paralysed in 1952, don’t forget. His Radio. Whoever looked at the programme for even five sec- Vitrail et des oiseaux, etc. Finally, after Un Vitrail et des if I may say so, but you also programme an environment. career ended in 1952, i.e., just when we had begun with the onds would never have done that. So when I see the differ- oiseaux it was the extension of the Domaine musical, since There are people you think are going to produce something, Domaine musical. ence between the people running French Radio, the people it was already the Ensemble Intercontemporain. running German Radio, William Glock who was at the BBC but ‘it’ quite simply goes out. But I mean you have to take— C. S.: It was he who premiered Le Soleil des eaux. C. S.: But he was also a believer in the Domaine musical it- in London—there’s an absolutely tremendous difference of no, it’s not a risk, really—you have to give a panorama of P. B.: And we counted on him to conduct the programmes. self because he knew he was going to discover works by category. what is being done. So you know there were people who, say, He was completely ready. Of that generation, he was one of young composers too. C. S.: So, we were talking about contemporary classics, and stand heads and shoulders above the others. But you have the rare few—and probably even the only one—who was P. B.: He had a curiosity—he was probably the only one of you mentioned Bartók too, but I think we should dwell a bit to provide a certain setting, and that eventually disappears. enthusiastic and wanted to do something. his generation who had that curiosity and that generosity. It on Messiaen, because your relations with Messiaen already If you see, for example, the programmes from Darmstadt— C. S.: So, amongst the composers, aside from Stravinsky, the was a generosity that always impressed me and marked me. went back quite a few years. He played a truly important role about the period, one always says ‘Darmstadt Darmstadt’, great contemporaries, first of all there was Varèse. You’ve In that sense, I think I received a great deal from him, but I for you. but there are, let’s say, 60% of the names that practically played Varèse’s works fairly regularly… also learnt a great deal from him and later paid it back, if I disappeared or, in any case, who are… P. B.: Of course. He was my professor at the Conservatoire; I P. B.: Quite simply because they called for relatively limited might say so, by helping my younger colleagues. I can’t say C. S.: That’s normal. forces. We did Ionisation one single time because we had was in his class for only a year, however: ‘44-45, if I recall I was inspired but, in any case, certainly influenced by his P. B.: But that’s normal. And above all, it must be main- students from the Conservatoire who were not expensive. correctly. And I had my prize in harmony straightaway be- generosity. cause he was a very good teacher. He got me off to a very tained, i.e., you can’t perform solely the people in whom you C. S.: And there were thirteen percussionists… C. S.: So when one looks at the programmes and, in partic- fast start, and I think that the—this is perhaps a personal believe totally—you have to have confidence at times. ular, the third ‘section’, so to speak, i.e., the ‘fellow trav- P. B.: And there was the practical aide. I’m sorry to be like idea—pupil-teacher relationship or, as some people like to C. S.: But what is interesting is that [not only did] you take ellers’, the young, one of course sees the leading names of that—rather trivial—but when you’re doing programmes, say, the student-professor relationship is one that must be risks, but the public also takes risks. you always have to look at the practical side. And so we did the avant-garde of the time, e.g., Stockhausen… brief, because it either ‘catches’ or it doesn’t. And you can P. B.: But the public comes. We tried to be regular, if I might Ionisation at that moment, once, thanks to the students from have students for five years afterwards and nothing hap- P. B.: Berio… say, i.e., giving four or six concerts a year but really limiting living in Germany for eight years, meaning I was still obliged P. B.: Yes, there were fewer obligations. There’s the whole also spent their time, and I was very concerned about that. ourselves to that frequency of concerts and, in addition, not to come regularly. It was the period when my conducting ca- story, the polemic with [Marcel] Landowski, I was quite sim- And when they prepared Stockhausen’s Zeitmasse, for ex- being bound to a concert hall. That was very important for reer began to take off, and I was starting to travel a lot. I ply fed up with France, I have to admit, and why waste my ample, they had to prepare it and they weren’t counting the me, such as when, for example, with Barrault, we were at would simply remind you that the commotion of my career energy uselessly when, next door, I was offered all sorts of hours of preparation at all. They only counted the hours when the Théâtre Marigny. As of ‘56, Barrault left the Marigny, and as a conductor began in ‘63 exactly, with two important mo- things? So, I wasn’t going to try to argue, especially when I we were together. So there was a certain friendship which we had a year of wandering and we withdrew to Salle ments. One was the 50th anniversary of The Rite of Spring, didn’t have much esteem for those wanting to argue—and linked them and a certain enthusiasm for doing things that Gaveau. which I conducted, so a Stravinsky concert at the [Théâtre even a total lack of esteem. So, I really went completely were not customary. C. S.: A bit more than a year... des] Champs-Elysées; the second was Wozzeck—the pre- abroad, and that relieved me, and I simply had a much more C. S.: And to oversee the programmes, once a year you could P. B.: Two years—almost three... Salle Gaveau was not ideal, miere of Wozzeck in Berlin in 1925, 1963 in Paris... That was positive activity. There were also personal reasons… It study the subject. But to oversee the daily chores, of course, but it was a concert hall where there were other events, so still nearly 40 years behind the times, and it was directed wasn’t only because I deemed that I had taken sufficient when you’re not there, it poses problems. In fact, there are we weren’t completely isolated, whereas at the Théâtre by Jean-Louis Barrault. It was [Georges] Auric who was di- care of the organism, but it became very heavy for me to take very interesting documents: there is the correspondence with Marigny, ours were the only concerts being given there, so rector of the Opéra at the time, and Wozzeck was a sort of care of it, and I found that it was time for the responsibility Suzanne Tézenas, now at the Bibliothèque Nationale, corre- the image was very strong. So, when Barrault went to the bombshell. to go to someone else. spondence that is often very, very vindictive: ‘I’ve learned Théâtre de l'Odéon in 1959, I immediately repatriated the C. S.: And André Masson did the sets. C. S.: So, getting back to the Domaine musical, I believe that the last concert was very bad, very badly played…‘ concerts to Barrault’s theatre, and they were the only con- P. B.: Yes. So, starting from that moment, I began to have there is another aspect that can also be mentioned, and P. B.: Oh yes. I remember I was at Harvard at that time. I’d certs given there. In addition, there was the advantage of discussions with Bayreuth and then with the major, more or you’ve already touched on it: it’s the problem of performers been invited to Harvard in ‘63, for six months. Well, I wasn’t being in the university quarter, i.e. frequented by a strong less international, orchestras. And afterwards, I began con- and, in fact, what you wanted to do was present works that going to suspend this participation at Harvard, which was intellectual community, which was interested in contempo- ducting in the United States, beginning in 1965, so as of ‘67 were not known or played in France, as well as improve the interesting from all points of view—from the monetary point rary art in general and contemporary music in particular. And I couldn’t any longer. I was quite attached, in particular, to performance levels with rehearsal times and musicians who of view, because I didn’t have much in the way of resources therefore, these concerts immediately took on much greater the BBC, which interested me because I could do really in- were more open and more receptive. at the time, and interesting from the intellectual point of importance owing to the fact that they were completely iso- teresting programmes. There was a musical director named P. B.: Yes, that’s true. That’s how we began and continued, view—and therefore, I was not going to suspend that for lated and in a setting that was favourable to their blossom- William Glock, who was truly a very original spirit—quite in- with comrades who were headstrong, if I might say. They two concerts and, besides, I was contributing to the general ing. novative and very daring. were all in different places—the Opéra, the Opéra-Comique, coffers... C. S.: Still, you had a large hall, at last, in comparison with C. S.: So then, you advised Suzanne Tézenas, if she wanted the Radio… In other words, they had incomes. With the four C. S.: But you still kept an eye on things from afar. Marigny. to pursue the adventure, to ask Gilbert Amy to take over, concerts per year, I couldn’t provide them a living. But I had P. B.: Yes, of course, because turnabouts do exist, you know, P. B.: It wasn’t a very large hall, but was approximately the which he did for a few years. But finally, when things indeed warned Suzanne Tézenas. In the interest of quality, I and people were telling me: ‘Ah, that last concert wasn’t size of Gaveau: around 900 seats, I think, but not 1,000. stopped—because afterwards, it stopped—there were often didn’t want people simply because of bonds of friendship. good!’ etc. So I took care of it—it was bothering me—and, Sometimes that wears out when you overdo it on the friend- C. S.: Yes, Gaveau is about 1,000. material reasons, and you pointed out those connected to at the same time, I realised that it was necessary that an your agenda, but there were also profound reasons. The Do- ship. But I insisted that there be accounts and salaries and organisation be able to live in my absence, too! P. B.: And I think the Odéon is 900 or something like that. that people really be paid the maximum. Then, when we had maine musical had truly been a raison d'être in the Fifties, C. S.: And you said, for example, to Suzanne Tézenas: ‘I saw C. S.: Why did you say, one fine day: ‘For me, the adventure to go over[time], no one was really calculating to the half- and afterwards, there was nonetheless more contemporary the programme, those texts are gibberish. Stop publishing of the Domaine musical is over’? hour. But even so, there was a certain playing discipline be- music, even in France, so there were fewer obligations, if I texts that are gibberish!’ P. B.: But you know, the adventure of the Domaine musical might say. cause it was consented for such material reasons. The lasted until ‘67 for me, and at that time, I had already been concerts were not free—there were already musicians who P. B.: It’s true; I was the first to be the most critical. Moreover, say, i.e., giving four or six concerts a year but really limiting living in Germany for eight years, meaning I was still obliged P. B.: Yes, there were fewer obligations. There’s the whole also spent their time, and I was very concerned about that. ourselves to that frequency of concerts and, in addition, not to come regularly. It was the period when my conducting ca- story, the polemic with [Marcel] Landowski, I was quite sim- And when they prepared Stockhausen’s Zeitmasse, for ex- being bound to a concert hall. That was very important for reer began to take off, and I was starting to travel a lot. I ply fed up with France, I have to admit, and why waste my ample, they had to prepare it and they weren’t counting the me, such as when, for example, with Barrault, we were at would simply remind you that the commotion of my career energy uselessly when, next door, I was offered all sorts of hours of preparation at all. They only counted the hours when the Théâtre Marigny. As of ‘56, Barrault left the Marigny, and as a conductor began in ‘63 exactly, with two important mo- things? So, I wasn’t going to try to argue, especially when I we were together. So there was a certain friendship which we had a year of wandering and we withdrew to Salle ments. One was the 50th anniversary of The Rite of Spring, didn’t have much esteem for those wanting to argue—and linked them and a certain enthusiasm for doing things that Gaveau. which I conducted, so a Stravinsky concert at the [Théâtre even a total lack of esteem. So, I really went completely were not customary. C. S.: A bit more than a year... des] Champs-Elysées; the second was Wozzeck—the pre- abroad, and that relieved me, and I simply had a much more C. S.: And to oversee the programmes, once a year you could P. B.: Two years—almost three... Salle Gaveau was not ideal, miere of Wozzeck in Berlin in 1925, 1963 in Paris... That was positive activity. There were also personal reasons… It study the subject. But to oversee the daily chores, of course, but it was a concert hall where there were other events, so still nearly 40 years behind the times, and it was directed wasn’t only because I deemed that I had taken sufficient when you’re not there, it poses problems. In fact, there are we weren’t completely isolated, whereas at the Théâtre by Jean-Louis Barrault. It was [Georges] Auric who was di- care of the organism, but it became very heavy for me to take very interesting documents: there is the correspondence with Marigny, ours were the only concerts being given there, so rector of the Opéra at the time, and Wozzeck was a sort of care of it, and I found that it was time for the responsibility Suzanne Tézenas, now at the Bibliothèque Nationale, corre- the image was very strong. So, when Barrault went to the bombshell. to go to someone else. spondence that is often very, very vindictive: ‘I’ve learned Théâtre de l'Odéon in 1959, I immediately repatriated the C. S.: And André Masson did the sets. C. S.: So, getting back to the Domaine musical, I believe that the last concert was very bad, very badly played…‘ concerts to Barrault’s theatre, and they were the only con- P. B.: Yes. So, starting from that moment, I began to have there is another aspect that can also be mentioned, and P. B.: Oh yes. I remember I was at Harvard at that time. I’d certs given there. In addition, there was the advantage of discussions with Bayreuth and then with the major, more or you’ve already touched on it: it’s the problem of performers been invited to Harvard in ‘63, for six months. Well, I wasn’t being in the university quarter, i.e. frequented by a strong less international, orchestras. And afterwards, I began con- and, in fact, what you wanted to do was present works that going to suspend this participation at Harvard, which was intellectual community, which was interested in contempo- ducting in the United States, beginning in 1965, so as of ‘67 were not known or played in France, as well as improve the interesting from all points of view—from the monetary point rary art in general and contemporary music in particular. And I couldn’t any longer. I was quite attached, in particular, to performance levels with rehearsal times and musicians who of view, because I didn’t have much in the way of resources therefore, these concerts immediately took on much greater the BBC, which interested me because I could do really in- were more open and more receptive. at the time, and interesting from the intellectual point of importance owing to the fact that they were completely iso- teresting programmes. There was a musical director named P. B.: Yes, that’s true. That’s how we began and continued, view—and therefore, I was not going to suspend that for lated and in a setting that was favourable to their blossom- William Glock, who was truly a very original spirit—quite in- with comrades who were headstrong, if I might say. They two concerts and, besides, I was contributing to the general ing. novative and very daring. were all in different places—the Opéra, the Opéra-Comique, coffers... C. S.: Still, you had a large hall, at last, in comparison with C. S.: So then, you advised Suzanne Tézenas, if she wanted the Radio… In other words, they had incomes. With the four C. S.: But you still kept an eye on things from afar. Marigny. to pursue the adventure, to ask Gilbert Amy to take over, concerts per year, I couldn’t provide them a living. But I had P. B.: Yes, of course, because turnabouts do exist, you know, P. B.: It wasn’t a very large hall, but was approximately the which he did for a few years. But finally, when things indeed warned Suzanne Tézenas. In the interest of quality, I and people were telling me: ‘Ah, that last concert wasn’t size of Gaveau: around 900 seats, I think, but not 1,000. stopped—because afterwards, it stopped—there were often didn’t want people simply because of bonds of friendship. good!’ etc. So I took care of it—it was bothering me—and, Sometimes that wears out when you overdo it on the friend- C. S.: Yes, Gaveau is about 1,000. material reasons, and you pointed out those connected to at the same time, I realised that it was necessary that an your agenda, but there were also profound reasons. The Do- ship. But I insisted that there be accounts and salaries and organisation be able to live in my absence, too! P. B.: And I think the Odéon is 900 or something like that. that people really be paid the maximum. Then, when we had maine musical had truly been a raison d'être in the Fifties, C. S.: And you said, for example, to Suzanne Tézenas: ‘I saw C. S.: Why did you say, one fine day: ‘For me, the adventure to go over[time], no one was really calculating to the half- and afterwards, there was nonetheless more contemporary the programme, those texts are gibberish. Stop publishing of the Domaine musical is over’? hour. But even so, there was a certain playing discipline be- music, even in France, so there were fewer obligations, if I texts that are gibberish!’ P. B.: But you know, the adventure of the Domaine musical might say. cause it was consented for such material reasons. The lasted until ‘67 for me, and at that time, I had already been concerts were not free—there were already musicians who P. B.: It’s true; I was the first to be the most critical. Moreover, you know, it’s always like that in life. When I was in charge of musicians hired and their specificity. And so, yes, it wasn’t to be looked after, if I may say. There’s no compromise damentally, you like to fight. either IRCAM or the Ensemble Intercontemporain, especially by chance each time as it had been during the Domaine mu- therein. You see, for example, when I’m at the Academy in P. B.: Yes, I like to fight but when there is a cause; I don’t at the beginning, when I was really there every day, I was not sical era but it was really an institution. So there was a lot Lucerne, an institution which is not even mine, one where like to fight just for the sake of fighting. That’s not very in- sparing in my criticisms to my closest collaborators. Just be- since ‘68, a kind of anti-institution mode. I, on the other I’m a guest, I simply do what I think I should do. And if you’re teresting, which is why I left France at a given time because cause you’re friends, that’s no reason not to tell a truth when hand, am for the institution—when the institution knows not convinced about what you’re doing, if you make sort of a it was a purely negative activity. So, a negative activity wea- it must simply exist. It’s true that certain programme notes how to criticise itself, i.e., it’s not completely protected in a muddle of things in which you don’t really believe, on the ries you very quickly. On the contrary, a positive activity stim- were really grotesque, and it was very easy to attack them, kind of cocoon but, on the contrary, is open and able to change contrary, you demolish the prestige of the institution. The ulates you. So, when I came back to Paris for good in ‘76, and that’s why I did not want attacks on things that were according to the evolution of circumstances. So, the Ensemble prestige of the institution comes because there are choices. ‘77, people said: ‘Oh, yes, he’s been given everything’. ‘They easy to demolish. Intercontemporain was established on very different bases, One always mentions Diaghilev as a model. In fact, if he give him everything’, of course, they trusted me because I C. S.: And years later, naturally, when you launched the En- and it was necessary to look—there were no more references chose Stravinsky, it was for very specific reasons, and if he was holding good cards, and people knew that maybe, with semble Intercontemporain, did you tell yourself, one way or at that time—at a repertoire that was as much chamber chose Ravel or Debussy, he wasn’t mistaken either—it really the experience I had gained elsewhere, I could organise another, ‘There, it’s the Domaine musical taking up a new music, without conductor, as the repertoire of conducted was for specific reasons. And if you look at Diaghilev after something. I said: ‘For the twenty years I was away, if nothing adventure’? music. The proportion of first performances in relation to the the war, in the Twenties, it’s a Diaghilev who is much less happened, that’s not my fault either.’ P. B.: No, I didn’t think that because, even so, thirty years ‘upkeep’ of 20th-century classics—and then those classics convincing precisely because he wanted to be a bit fashion- C. S.: Does it touch you that recorded traces of a certain had passed. The Domaine musical, as you recalled yourself, that increase, we’re in the 21st. How to establish the pre- able and up-to-date. There it didn’t work. number of concerts by the Domaine musical—not necessar- was launched in ‘53. In ‘75-76, there was still a gap of 22 mieres, in what proportions, what instruments to propose, C. S.: The big difference is that Diaghilev never became di- ily recorded during the concerts, moreover—have been found years. And all the experience that I’d accumulated abroad, what instruments to favour or not? What instruments are rector of the Opéra. and are being re-released today? naturally disadvantaged? For example, much less is written being in charge of institutions like the BBC Symphony Or- P. B.: No, he was free, but he was still an institution—just P. B.: Of course that touches me—it’s as if you look at a for the bassoon than for the clarinet, and there, we should chestra or the New York Philharmonic, and I was principal a private institution. So, the difference between private and photo of yourself when you were younger and you say ‘Yes, I try to re-establish an equilibrium, so we try to aim commis- guest conductor at Cleveland for a long time... So there were public, i.e., between the United States and Europe, practi- was younger, it’s true.’ But no, I’m not nostalgic because I sions in a certain direction. The relation with electronics, responsibilities that I had assumed and of which I had cally, is a difference in which I don’t much believe. Above think you’re better than at that time, believe it or not. It was which is quite important… So you see that the Domaine mu- knowledge, much more in-depth knowledge than when I all, I believe in the people who are in the institutions, whether perhaps a bit presumptuous on my part to say so and, es- sical was nothing in comparison with that—it was a tiny began the Domaine musical where I was, when all is said private or public. If they are convinced and have great pecially, believe it but I think one progresses a good deal. organisation. and done, in a naïve state, if I may say so. At that moment strength of conviction, the institutions work. If, at the heads But what’s interesting is to see exactly where one started when, for example, Michel Gay suggested the Ensemble In- C. S.: But can it be said—I know that you don’t agree with of institutions, whether private or public, you have people from in order to see where one has arrived now. That’s inter- tercontemporain, I said, ‘Fine, I’m completely ready, but you me on this—that when you’re in an institution, not an in- who are lethargic or spineless, who have no ideas and who esting from the documentary point of view, and seeing the have to subsidise this ensemble like subsidising an orches- stitution, a private company, roughly speaking, like the Do- are always looking for the least compromising arrangement efforts one made to impose a music that was really very, very tra such as the Orchestre de Paris or the Radio orchestras. maine musical, you don’t have much money—often very possible, if I might say, the institutions don’t work—that’s sickly, if I can express it that way, in the opinion at that time. Without that, I’m not even starting.’ That was the condition little, even—but you have total freedom of choice. When all. So, yes, it is interesting from that point of view. So that sine qua non. Because if you want to have an elite ensemble, you’re in an institution, you have a lot of money or a fair C. S.: So, we can ask the question: if you weren’t there, if you touches me, of course, but I’m certainly not going to be well, you’ve simply got to pay for it. It’s as trivial as that, but amount of money but, on the other hand, sometimes—ex- hadn’t been there in the early Fifties, the Domaine musical moved to tears over it either. cept when you smash the walls a bit as you do—you no it’s also as indispensable as that. So, at that time, with Nico- would not have existed as it existed. Perhaps there would Translated by John Tyler Tuttle las Snowman, we took inventory, i.e., looking at the reper- longer have the freedom of programme. have been no equivalent, because, in the final analysis, fun- toire—what might correspond best to, say, the number of P. B.: But it’s necessary to keep it, quite simply. Freedom has

VOL 1 [66:54] VOL 6 [65’04] LE CONCERT DU 10E ANNIVERSAIRE L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE I. DE 1899 À 1912 Karlheinz Stockhausen / Kontra-Punkte, opus 1 Arnold Schoenberg / Verklärte Nacht [La Nuit transfigurée] Luciano Berio / Serenata I Anton Webern / Sechs Stücke für Orchester Pierre Boulez / Le Marteau sans maître [Six pièces pour orchestre], opus 6 Olivier Messiaen / Oiseaux exotiques Arnold Schoenberg / Trois pièces / Pierrot lunaire

VOL 2 [62’32] VOL 7 [74’30] LES RÉFÉRENCES FRANÇAISES L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE II. DE 1906 À 1943 Claude Debussy / Syrinx Alban Berg / Sonate en si mineur / Drei Stücke Edgar Varèse / Densité 21,5 / Hyperprism / für Orchester [Trois pièces pour orchestre], opus 6 Octandre / Intégrales Arnold Schoenberg / Kammersymphonie Olivier Messiaen / Cantéyodjayâ / Sept Haïkaï [Symphonie de chambre] n°1 VOL 3 Anton Webern / Deux Lieder, opus 8 / Quatre Lieder, [59’46] opus 13 / Cantate n°1, opus 29 / Cantate n°2, opus 31 LE COMPOSITEUR PIERRE BOULEZ VOL 8 Structures (Livre I) / Sonatine pour flûte et piano / [70’04] Sonate n°2 pour piano L’ÉCOLE DE VIENNE III. LE SÉRIALISME VOL 4 Arnold Schoenberg / Sérénade / [73’15] Suite pour sept instruments, opus 29 LES COMPAGNONS DE ROUTE Anton Webern / Variationen für Klavier Maurizio Kagel / Sextuor à cordes [Variations pour piano], opus 27 / Symphonie, opus 21 Luigi Nono / Incontri BONUS Hans Werner Henze / Concerto per il Marigny Henri Pousseur / Madrigal III / Mobiles pour 2 pianos VOL 9 [105’57] Karlheinz Stockhausen/ Zeitmasse, opus 5 / Une histoire d’amitiés / Entretien avec Pierre Boulez Klavierstück VI, opus 4/II réalisé par Claude Samuel VOL 5 Le tout premier enregistrement du Marteau sans maître [62’14] de Pierre Boulez réalisé en 1956 IGOR STRAVINSKY Giovanni Gabrieli / Canzone dalle “Sacrae Symphoniae” 5 & 3 Concertino pour douze instruments / Trois pièces pour Igor Stravinsky / Symphonies d’instruments à vent clarinette seule / Trois pièces pour quatuor à cordes / Jean-Claude Éloy / Équivalences Symphonies d’instruments à vent / Renard / Agon

Direction artistique de la collection : Claude Samuel, en collaboration avec Philippe Pauly et Nathalie Caloni. Réalisation : Magdalena Huebner et Rosalba Delfin. Artwork : Barilla.design. Photo couverture : Pierre Boulez. 1966 © akg-images.