Salzburg Festival (3) - Le Balcon/Pascal: Nono, Boulez, and Stockhausen, 19 August 2025

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Nono: A Pierre. Dell’azzurro silenzio, inquietum
Boulez: sur Incises
Stockhausen: Klavierstück XIV – ‘Geburtstag-Formel’
Boulez: …explosante-fixe…

Julie Brunet-Jailly (flute)

Alphonse Cemin (piano)

Augustin Muller (IRCAM electronics)

Sylvain Cadars (IRCAM sound diffusion)

Le Balcon

Maxime Pascal (conductor)

Images: © SF/Marco Borrelli

Pierre Boulez’s broader musical-cultural legacy lies everywhere, both in what he achieved and what, sadly, he did not. Quite rightly, in this centenary year we are taking time to focus more specifically on his musical works. From his 1960 Salzburg debut (Stockhausen, Webern, and Boulez, in the presence of Herbert von Karajan), the Festival has long experienced and participated in both—and especially from 1992, at the invitation of Gerard Mortier and Hans Landesmann. I shall rue till my dying day having passed up the opportunity to hear his Moses und Aron, on my first, student visit. It was inevitable, given the choice of one opera, that I would opt for Mozart, yet nevertheless… Here, in any case, the Festival’s centenary tribute will focus on both strands, or rather on three or more, the third being the presence and influence even in non-presence of electronics both in his music and in that broader legacy, exemplified by IRCAM and represented here by Augustin Muller and Sylvain Cadars. 

The mini-series ‘A Pierre’ opened with this concert, which in turn opened in pleasing symmetry with Luigi Nono’s sixtieth birthday tribute for his colleague, A Pierre. Dell Azzurro silenzio, inquietum, for contrabass flute, contrabass clarinet, and live electronics. One instrument entered, then the other: were they playing together or separately? Had they merged? One asked that even before the advent of electronics, or was it? Differences were almost, yet never quite, imperceptible, a message dell-ascolto from the somewhat non-Boulezian world of Prometeo. One was drawn in to listen, in harmony, in polyphony, ever transforming, ever deeper. I could have sworn at one point I heard voices – as in vocal music – and perhaps, in a way, I did. The role of electronics was ‘for’ Pierre, at least, as the Venetian waves lapped and almost Mahlerian vistas opened up before our ears. 

It is an obvious point, but I do not think it had quite registered with me, at least experientially, quite how much difference the performing space would make to a performance of sur Incises. My ears, doubtless my eyes, associate it above all with Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal, where I have heard Daniel Barenboim conduct it more than once (including the hall’s opening concert) with his own created Boulez Ensemble. In a more conventional smallish hall, not in the round, lines seemed more obviously to lead from the conductor—and, in a sense, seated not far behind Maxime Pascal, from the ensemble too—with clear consequences for experience of many aspects of the work ‘itself’. Whether it was that, or the performances of Le Balcon and Pascal—it may have been both—that made the opening section sound quite so Debussyan, I am not sure. It came as a subsequent shock to my ears to hear quite so many floating roots, if you will, in Scriabin in the writing for pianos of the following section. Perhaps it was simply me; never underestimate the role of your own preoccupations or chance connections. However strictly organised, listening as well as composition and performance will break free. When rhythm took its place as first among equals, Stravinsky came most forcefully to mind and, a little more surprisingly, Prokofiev, although then I remember hearing Boulez express admiration for the piano writing in the composer’s concertos. These where ghosts, though, rather than definite influences, and soon one felt—at least I did—fully immersed, albeit actively immersed as, I flattered myself, a participant, enticed and welcomed by performers and work alike. What also struck me was the liminal passages in which not only classic parameters but time and music seemed stretched, even bent: Debussy again, perhaps, even Chopin. Resonance, in more than one sense, played its part too. Waves of a different kind were felt, not only heard, sound and music moving through space as well as time, as Gurnemanz might (not) have put it. 

Following some much needed fresh air, we returned to the hall (the same hall that hosted Boulez’s 1960 debut) for Stockhausen’s contribution to that same 1985 Baden-Baden birthday tribute: Klavierstück XIV, later to be heard as part of the composer’s Montag (for various reasons, a work Boulez was unlikely ever to have conducted). My heart went out to Alphonse Cemin when, just before he was about to begin, a lengthy telephonic intervention rang out. Such was its length that, at least for the audience, it became quite amusing. Was it Karlheinz himself, attempting to dial in from Sirius? When Cemin, a worthy successor to Pierre-Laurent Aimard, gave his fine performance, we were immediately in a different world from anything heard in the first half, though the whimsy of that introduction perhaps persisted a little in his verbal contributions. Here, unquestionably, was a miniature drama, though not only that, and in its ‘birthday formula’ mode, an intriguing set-up for Boulez’s own …explosante-fixe…, founded as it is on what has reasonably been considered a compositional ‘kit’. It was also music unquestionably ‘for’ the piano and to be enjoyed as such by performer and listeners alike in something not so very distant from what we know as music theatre. 

And so, to …explosante-fixe…, which I had not heard live for a little while: the last time, I think, ten years ago for Boulez’s 90^th anniversary, at the Proms. Julie Brunet-Jailly was joined by fellow, ‘shadow’ flautists and other members of Le Balcon in the fullest ensemble of the evening, as well of course as our friends from IRCAM and Pascal. It worked very differently, perhaps better, in the space than sur Incises; or maybe it was more that my ears had adjusted. The immediacy, even straightforward volume, nonetheless took a little getting used to, though only a little. The alchemy of sound in space proved quite magical, even seductive, as if presaging Boulez’s own, later Szymanowskian enchantment. Here was not only a labyrinth, but something between riot and delirium within a labyrinth that was always transforming before our ears: itself somewhere between Pli and pli and the orchestral Notations, which, I suppose, is where the work lies in Boulez’s œuvre. The bending of time I had felt in sur Incises continued, here in a world of very different, dazzling, (quasi-)orchestral fantasy that it was difficult not to think almost classically ‘French’. (Perhaps the presence of French performers contributed to that.) Dimming the lights for passages of ‘pure’ electronics was a theatrical touch, yet a winning one: in highlighting the organ pipes at the back of the stage, it almost suggested a role for that instrument, though alas not. I certainly heard things I could not recall from previous encounters: unexpected guests from The Rite of Spring, the sage’s procession turned post-Sixties psychedelic (or was that Messiaenic)? There was a sense, I fancied, of an almost Bachian mirroring and inversion in the electronics: not necessarily literally, but a quality felt or imagined. Other aspects comfortably, yet never too comfortably returned: those trills and tremolos, for instance. And I realised, only at the close, one thing that made this a relatively unusual soundworld for Boulez ensemble music. Obvious when you think about it: no percussion. So long as we continue to listen, we shall never cease to learn—even the most basic of things.