Exquisite Labyrinth (4) - Hannigan/EIC/Lucerne Academy/Boulez

Royal Festival Hall

Barbara Hannigan (soprano)
Ensemble Intercontemporain
Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble
Pierre Boulez (conductor)


What an embarrassment of riches there has been over this weekend, opening with Rozenne Le Trionnaire’s fine account of the solo version of Domaines, and now climaxing in Pli selon pli, from Barbara Hannigan, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble (another Boulez initiative), and Pierre Boulez himself. This is a work, apparently now complete, whose stature appears to grow with every hearing: there can certainly now be no doubt that it is one of the towering masterpieces of post-war music. But alongside the revisions, it is equally interesting to note Boulez’s transformation of approach as a conductor. His reading certainly does not lack bite, as the ejaculating éclat of both opening and closing chords made clear, but the sonorities seem to have become still more ravishing. More than once I was put in mind of his recent conducting of Szymanowski, and of course his increasingly Romantic approach to the music of the Second Viennese School. For all Boulez’s talk of having devoted too much of his life to conducting, it has clearly enriched his compositional life so greatly that there really are no grounds for such regret and, once again, we heard a conducted performance that was more new composition in the light of recent experience than mere presentation of a work from the museum. (That, by no means incidentally, holds as much for his Wagner and Mahler, his Berlioz and Debussy, as for his own works.)


Following that extraordinary opening chord, we were bathed in the delectable light of Barbara Hannigan’s soprano, her breathing unabashedly sensual, and some truly gorgeous instrumental playing. The Szymanowski-like tapestry unfolded with a perfect balance between clarity and mystery, possibility and purpose: perhaps the essence of what Arnold Whittall has referred to as Boulez’s later ‘modern classicism’. There is something of that quality to his more recent conducting too: contrast the early, angry accounts of Le marteau sans maître and even Pli selon pli, with his more recent work. I do not necessarily prefer one above the other, but experience reaps an undeniably rich harvest. If I thought of Szymanowski, I also thought of Mozart: what ears to envisage such sounds, whether the latter’s Gran Partita, which Boulez has recently recorded with the EIC, or Pli selon pli, let alone to translate such aural imagination into reality! Strings evinced Messiaenesque sweetness, and I fancied that I heard something of a dawn chorus too. The pizzicati of ‘Don’ sounded almost balletic: ‘mellowing’ is not quite the right word to describe the conductor’s development, but a greater willingness to ravish is certainly present and welcome. At another extreme – I was going to say ‘the other’, but Boulez is always more complex than mere binary opposition would allow – there were occasional hints of a viol consort, refracted through the ages.


In the first Improvisation, Hannigan sounded as seductive, as erotic, as a Mélisande, a Salome even, whilst the orchestra surrounding her seemed clearly to draw upon Boulez’s readings of works as apparently different as Das Lied von der Erde – what a contrast with Lorin Maazel’s latest effort in that work! – and Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi. ‘Une dentelle s’abolit’ brought a primal scream upon ‘blême’, yet one whose instrumental aftermath both consoled and aroused. Percussion seemed to foreshadow, and yet in performance already go beyond, a work such as Rituel. Of course, the words are almost as beautiful as the music, and the melismatic writing of the third Improvisation heightened our sense of both, especially when so expertly delivered as by Hannigan. Percussion once again came to the fore, both a visual spectacular – the coordination of the players – as well as an aural banquet. ‘Tombeau’ sounded inevitable resonances with other tombeaux, whether Boulez’s own or those of other composers: again I thought of Das Lied von der Erde and Rituel, but also of the bells in Boris Godunov, rejoicing now turned to other ends. The final horn call seemed to evoke Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, one of many farewells to German Romanticism that are yet not quite farewells. For its æsthetic has probably never quite been negated, certainly not by Boulez; via Mallarmé, it may even have been dialectically reinstated, ‘aufgehoben’. Certainly the final blow, cataclysmic yet undeniably pleasurable, suggested less a final full circle than an Hegelian spiral.

Exquisite Labyrinth (3) - Aimard/Stefanovich: the almost complete Boulez piano music

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Notations
Piano Sonata no.1
Piano Sonata no.2

Piano Sonata no.3
Incises
une page d’éphéméride

Structures: Book II

Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Tamara Stafanovich (pianos)


A ‘marathon’ indeed, as Pierre-Laurent Aimard put it, though what a marathon, and what a sense of achievement even for us listeners, let alone the performers! Boulez’s ‘complete’ piano music: well, not quite, since, even leaving aside the withdrawn movements of the Third Sonata, we also missed the first book of Structures (admittedly also withdrawn). I should love to hear it in performance: for all the brickbats, it is a high-water mark of post-war serialism and thus a true musico-historical monument. As I once heard Boulez explain, there was very much a feeling at the time that composers such as he, Berio, and Stockhausen, must go through a kind of purgatory, in which even the music of such extraordinary personalities would sound somewhat similar (I am not so sure that it ever did, but never mind…), in order that greater freedom could be achieved on the other side. Would it not have been a thing of wonder to find oneself burned in that purging fire, just once, even if, as Aimard put it, it is not exactly nice music for a Sunday afternoon? Anyway, enough of such rank ingratitude: we heard three concerts throughout that afternoon, in which everything else was present and correct.


Aimard’s contribution was pretty much peerless: what a joy it was to welcome him back to form, in music about which he so clearly, deeply cares. (His spoken introductions to each piece showed great understanding and verbal communication too.) I have certainly never heard the Notations better performed; indeed, I am not sure I have heard them so well performed. Sharply characterised individually, they were also welded in performance as well as in twelve-note organisation into a thoroughly convincing whole. The young composer’s delight in the piano was communicated as brilliantly as his evident delight in the music of Debussy, Bartók, and, perhaps more surprisingly, Schoenberg, especially the Schoenberg of the op.11 pieces. We were of course dazzled by the éclat, which was nevertheless so much more than that, by the staggering mechanisation of the tenth piece, but were equally mesmerised – I am sorry to be using that word again, yet it seems unavoidable in discussion of such music – by the stillness of the ninth, a foretaste in miniature, so it seemed, of the slow movement of the Second Sonata, its air as rare and bracing as that of a mountain lake. Aimard was equally persuasive in his expressively analytical account of the First Sonata. The dialectical games – his own description, so utterly fitting to this music and this mind – between the different types of material both scintillated and beguiled, sometimes both at once. (This is a dialectic, after all!) Even had the pianist not taken such care to explain that productive conflict in words, his musical characterisation would have rendered it vivid to any listener with ears to hear. Freer material – ‘freedom’ is always controlled in Boulez, even in ‘aleatory’ form, let alone here – came properly into conflict with that toccata-like strand in the composer’s piano writing we should hear further unleashed in Incises. Moreover, Schoenberg, I was tempted to say, remained, reports of his death having been grossly exaggerated.


To conclude the first concert, Tamara Stefanovich – still introduced by Aimard – took to the stage for the Second Sonata. One can only admire any pianist able to give an account of this truly titanic work. However, Stefanovich, at least at times, suffered from comparison either with Aimard in the earlier works or with memories of Maurizio Pollini earlier this year in London. Yes, the comparisons are even more than usually odious, yet they were equally unavoidable. I was intrigued to start with by the contrast in touch, Aimard’s echt-modernist Bauhaus gleam followed by hints, and sometimes more than hints, of a heavier, almost old-style ‘Russian’ style. Boulez’s music should by now be perfectly capable of surviving, indeed thriving upon, different interpretative and stylistic strategies. (He himself has shown as conductor what light might be shown upon other composers’ works when a non-traditional æsthetic stance is applied to them. Strauss and Janáček are recent examples that spring to mind.) Yet Boulez as Tchaikovsky became a little wearing, not so much on account of the style itself as the lack of chiaroscuro. There was much that was admirable: for instance, the sense of suspense, hesitancy, as to where the musical dialectic might lead at the opening of the fourth movement, prior to polyphonic disintegration. That betokened true musical understanding. And yet, the whole was not quite more than the sum of its corrosive, Adornian-Mephistophelian parts.


Aimard returned at the beginning of the second concert, to perform the Third Sonata. It remains a formidably difficult to work to come to terms with, not least on account of its incompletion. (Even if one might think differently were one not to know, one cannot, or I cannot, quite erase that knowledge.) This was perhaps a harder-edged performance than that of the First, or indeed the Notations. There was, however, no gainsaying the musical and again dramatic command, as the work’s – and performance’s – twists and turns were navigated. Stefanovich impressed in the opening of Incises, the parallels with Ravel (Gaspard especially apparent) but sadly, there was a sense of skating upon the surface during much of the toccata material. The 2005 une page d’éphémeride, whose Austrian premiere I heard in 2009, remained as full of promise: where will this latest piano project lead? What we have so far sounded suggestively Debussyan here.


Finally came the second book of Structures. Here it seemed to me that Stefanovich was on far better form. Perhaps the extraordinary drama of the work, in which decisions must be signalled by one player to another and then responded to (or not), appealed more to her strengths; perhaps playing with Aimard summoned her to greater heights. Whatever the explanation, this was an unforgettable performance, on a knife-edge – those dialectical games again – but expressive in a way that the trivial Boulez detractors will never understand, since they never actually seem to have the courage to listen to the music, let alone to think about it. The music does not so much move beyond ‘Darmstadt’ serialism as incorporate it and yet show us something new. That ever-expanding universe of serial possibilities is musically and even visually dramatised here, arguably more so than in much of Stockhausen. As for the rumbling, volcano-like ‘cadenza’ with which Stefanovich brought us to the close, that was a tour de force of neo-Lisztian pianism - Funérailles? - to which Aimard could respond with a tentative yet sure Mozartian seduction that pointed the way to the evening’s Pli selon pli.

Exquisite Labyrinth (2) - Gould/Cox/IRCAM/London Sinfonietta/Eötvös, 1 October 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Anthèmes 2
…explosante-fixe


Michael Cox (flute)
Clio Gould (violin)
Sound Intermedia
Carlo Laurenzi (IRCAM computer production)
Jérémie Henrot (IRCAM sound engineer)
London Sinfonietta
Péter Eötvös (conductor)

The second day of the Southbank Centre’s Boulez celebration was composed of a conference, with contributors ranging from Pierre-Laurent Aimard to Arnold Whittall, and this evening concert, focusing on works with live electronics. The derivation from – or perhaps better, expansion and proliferation of – Anthèmes 2 from the original Anthèmes for violin solo, itself derived from the violin part to a realisation of …explosante-fixe..., imparted strong material coherence to the programme as a whole, though just as striking was the astonishing explosion of variety from a single source (ultimately a 1971 kit), arguably still further than that, a single E-flat (German ‘Es’) as a memorial to Stravinsky – and surely also a nod to the opening E-flat of Das Rheingold). If only we could have heard the related Répons too…


First, however we were treated to a conversation between Aimard and Boulez himself. The warmth of initial applause for the composer, suffering from a cold, was striking: a fitting tribute to a career, whether as composer, conductor, essayist, educator, administrator, or simply musical conscience, which continues to dwarf those of so many who have assumed but one of those roles. It was enlightening, especially as a prelude to such a programme, to be reminded of how Boulez has considered electronics above all in terms of a conception of space to clarify polyphony (as opposed to a kind of spectacular spatial tennis, though that may sometimes come into the work relatively incidentally). The method of comparing material whose implications, or many of its implications, Boulez has worked through with those which he has not was delineated as crucial to the composition of those works to be performed – and others, too. Far from coincidentally, the beginning of such explorations was related to his work on the Ring at Bayreuth; indeed, Boulez commented on the inspiration he derived from Wagner: ideas stated in Das Rheingold, only fully exploited in Götterdämmerung. Though this may be more strongly evinced in the orchestral Notations, there is surely precedent for this series of electronic works too. (As a young man, Boulez commented, one has many ideas, but one does not always yet know what to do with them.) Pli selon pli was also discussed, Boulez insisting – and who would need to be convinced?! – that he was not writing algebra, but composing according to the meaning of Mallarmé’s verse, for instance the importance of the number eight, and the dialectic between ornamented and syllabic vocal writing. That, however, was really a story for another day. On all occasions, however, we were to hear how to a certain extent Boulez’s experience as a conductor might, as he put it, have helped ‘destroy’ his experience as a composer. For, as Bakunin, Dresden comrade-in-arms to Wagner, famously remarked, the urge to destroy is fundamentally creative.


Anthèmes 2 was mesmerizingly performed by Clio Gould, Sound Intermedia, and the IRCAM team of Carlo Laurenzi and Jérémie Henriot. I was more or less immediately struck by the Messiaenesque cast of some of the harmonies: something I did not recall noticing before. (Perhaps it was partly a matter of Messiaen having featured so strongly in some of the conference papers.) One hears different things at different times, of course, or at least one does in music worthy of repeated hearings. And from the very outset, I could not help but be seduced by Gould’s exquisite tone, arguably more Gallic in sonority than earlier performances I had heard from Michael Barenboim in Berlin and Carolin Widmann in Salzburg. Actually, there was something of the tennis match spectacular to the electronic to-and-froing, for instance in the second, pizzicato section, but only something, and this was certainly never a sonic ‘spectacular’ for its own sake. Electronics did not merely impress, though; they haunted, too, providing an endlessly fascinating envelope and penumbra for the soloist. Gould’s reading was sharply characterised, offering both contrast and unity, within a fine narrative – for this is, amongst many other things, musical drama – framework: it was playful; it was still; it was so much in between, often all at the same time. One sensed composer and musicians reaching for the skies, very much in line with Boulez’s conception of serialism as an endlessly expanding universe. Instrumentally, one could sense the potential for a full-scale concerto (Anthèmes 3, for violin, orchestra, and electronics, is eagerly awaited), yet at other times one heard a solo work, at others a duet, at others still a successor to the Bach sonatas for violin and continuo. Horizons are for Boulez always there to be expanded. The Queen Elizabeth Hall proved an excellent space for the work and its projection: superior, at least in that respect, both to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (hardly surprisingly!) and to the the Salzburg Mozarteum’s Solitär space.

This would also be the evening when, long having been fascinated by …explosante-fixe…, I came truly to fall in love with it: surely at least in part a consequence of an equally mesmerising performance from John Cox, electronics again, the London Sinfonietta (including flautists, Helen Keen and Rebecca Larsen), and Péter Eötvös. It might have been a much smaller ensemble than that Boulez employs for his ongoing Notations, but such were the initial and subsequent exultancy that it did not necessarily sound so. Throughout, this would prove a veritable garden of delights – and of almost Haydn-like invention: so many possibilities, some taken, some doubtless remaining. The flute is an instrument I can soon tire of, but not here, not in the slightest. One of the conference papers had suggested that we might profitably understood much of Boulez’s music as being ‘about’ music, but that was not how it sounded here; if anything, this was closer to the ‘absolute’ music of German Romantic æsthetics: music, pure if far from simple. Arnold Whittall’s description of Boulez’s latter-day ‘modern classicism’ came to mind. If Stockhausen in his electronic music claimed to be writing from, for, or to outer space, Boulez proved more evocative of another world, aspirant, fantastic – and, of course, seductive. By the time we returned, or rather turned, to the final ‘Originel’ – generative, but concluding – we seemed to hark back to the delicacy of earlier tombeaux: Debussy, Ravel, even Rameau. The material was transformed by what it had earlier become. Lighting – or rather dimming – was sensitively employed for the ‘purely’ electronic music: it made a point without becoming the point. This must qualify as one of the most exciting Boulez performances I have heard, showing up the nasty carping, whether in France or elsewhere, Boulez and his music still endure, as the risible product of ignorance and envy.

Exquisite Labyrinth (1) - RAM Manson Ensemble/Mälkki

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Domaines (both versions)
Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna

Rozenne Le Trionnaire, Elaine Ruby (clarinets)
Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble
Susanna Mälkki (conductor)


The Southbank Centre’s Boulez weekend, Exquisite Labyrinth, opened promisingly with this concert from the conservatoire players of the RAM Manson Ensemble, if without the blazing assurance that crack professional groups such as the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Ensemble Modern, and the London Sinfonietta, would most likely have imparted to the music. (That, incidentally, or rather far from incidentally, is one of the many far-reaching legacies of Boulez as conductor from his Domaine musical days onwards: the extraordinary rise in standards of performance for new music.) Still, to have student performers tackling works such as Domaines and Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna at all, is a heartening reminder of how standards have risen at all levels.

Domaines was heard first, in both versions. In the solo version, Rozeen Le Trionnaire proved an excellent guide, as sure of purpose as one must be, in order to bring off a very difficult task indeed. For the soloist must here not only perform, but determine the order of performance, selecting both the placing of the score pages around the stage and one of the two possible ‘pathways’ offered by the passages upon each page: the ‘mobile form’ that was in some respects the composer’s answer to Cage, initiated in the Third Piano Sonata.

In the later version for clarinet and ensemble, Elaine Ruby proved a worthy successor. Indeed, so impressive was the continuity, I did not immediately realise that there had been a change of clarinettist. The visual drama here becomes if not stronger – for monodramas, as Boulez the conductor of Erwartung knows very well, is a searing experience – then perhaps more wide-ranging. (I am not quite sure that is the right word, but at the moment cannot think what is!) The ensemble is split into six groups, of varying size, ranging from the clarinettist, who remains mobile, to sextet. All of the players shone, but the duo of double bass and marimba perhaps especially so. Though electronics are not used, one sensed the foreshadowing of that world in some of the composer’s – and performers’ – timbres. The mirrored enhancement of mobile form was rendered visually and aurally apparent in the finely judged cooperation and mutual incitement from Ruby and Susanna Mälkki. There was a true sense of soloist and conductor sparking music off one another – the former chooses the order the first time around, the latter in the mirrored transformation – and of course off the ensemble too. Boulez may yet have to write an opera, but we were left in no doubt as to his stature as a dramatist.

Rituel is an extraordinary work, of course, another extension of ‘mobile form’, which manages both to sound dramatically spontaneous and predetermined as compositional processional. Perhaps that is not a bad way of considering the possibilities ‘controlled chance’ in Boulez’s æsthetic: it is an opening of doors for the composer as well as the performer. It was here that the RAM players sometimes sounded a little more than stretched: not that anything fell apart, Mälkki’s guiding hand being far too strong for that, more that the demands of keeping together could preclude fuller portrayal of the music’s expressive qualities. One can exaggerate the proximity to Messiaen, but at times it is there. (I was also put in mind of Boulez’s conducting in Munich for the Musica Viva concerts the mediæval Messe de Tournai as a dialogue between ancient and modern, which also took in works such as Bartók’s Cantata profana and Stravinsky’s The Flood: a concert available on Col Legno.) Oboe and percussion, however, were especially impressive throughout. If the music did not quite overwhelm as it might, perhaps it will do so next time, for these players certainly should tackle it again, until it becomes fully embedded in their musical bloodstream.

Exquisite Labyrinth: The Music of Pierre Boulez, Southbank Centre

It would be remiss, to put it mildly, were this of all blogs not to cover the Southbank Centre's coming celebration of the music of Pierre Boulez. Have no fear: I shall be reporting from all of the events. (Click here for a full programme.) The Southbank Centre has been in touch with a podcast heralding what is to come, with contributions from Gillian Moore, Pierre-Laurent Aimard (the series curator), Nico Muhly, and Clio Gould:

Exquisite Labyrinth: The Music of Pierre Boulez by southbankcentre

See also this and many other postings from Classical Iconcolast (here).