Structures

1.Entstehungsjahr
Structures I (1952) , Structures II (1961)

2. Besetzung
two pianos

3. Kurze Notiz über das Stück

Composing of the 1 Structures: 1951-1952, 2 Structures: 1956-61

It consists of three movements, or "chapters", labelled Ia, Ib, and Ic.

The second chapter of S.2 includes three sets of variable elements, which are to be
arranged to make a performing version.

A partial premiere of book 2 was performed by the composer + Yvonne Loriod in

London, 1957. This was Boulez's first appearance in the UK as a performer.

Premiere of the complete second book, with two different versions of chapter 2-
Donaueschinger Musiktage, 1961.

Boulez, "the pupil intending to teach the master a lesson," adapted as an ordered series
Olivier Messiaen's “Mode de valeurs et d’intensités" highest of three unordered divisions
of the mode for his Structures Ia .

Structures I was the last and most successful of Boulez's works to use the technique of
integral serialism, wherein many parameters of a piece's construction are governed by
serial principles, rather than only pitch. Boulez devised scales of twelve dynamic levels
(later -reduced to ten)- twelve durations, and—from the outset—ten modes of
attack,each to be used in a manner analogous to a twelve-tone row.

4. Zu zwei selbst gewählten Stücken aus der obigen Liste eine eigene
Reflexion.
Integral serialism in those pieces sounds for me more relevant when i imagine if the both
pianos are automated by robots, - that method would more cut away the performers’
creative potential, leaving the precise text only. Maybe the performers can decide the
variable elements - and that would be the creativity limit.

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Le marteau sans maître

1.Entstehungsjahr
1953-55

2. Besetzung
contralto and six instrumentalists - (surreal text by René Char) - alto-flute, viola, guitar,
vibraphone, xylorimba, percussion. The purpose of the instruments’ choice is to allow a
graduated deconstruction of the voice into percussive noises, a compositional technique
which has been common throughout Boulez's work. Like in “Pierrot Lunaire” by
Schoenberg, every part has its own combination of instruments.

3. Kurze Notiz über das Stück

consists of three intermingled cycles(9 pieces in total), each based on a specific musical
setting of one of the three poems the composer has selected, surrounded by purely
instrumental "commentaries." He has deliberately avoided the term "variations" to
eliminate any confusion with traditional thematic development. The succession of the
movements appears as follows:

1.Avant "L'Artisanat furieux"


2. Commentaire I de "Bourreaux de solitude"

3. "L'Artisanat furieux"

4. Commentaire II de "Bourreaux de solitude"

5. "Bel édifice et les pressentiments," version première 6. "Bourreaux de solitude"

7. Après "L'Artisanat furieux"

8. Commentaire III de "Bourreaux de solitude"

9. "Bel édifice et les pressentiments," double

Boulez believes in strict control tempered with "local indiscipline", or rather, the freedom
to choose small, individual elements while still adhering to an overall structure
compatible with serialist principles. Boulez opts to change individual notes based on
sound or harmony, choosing to abandon adherence to the structure dictated by strict
serialism, making the detailed serial organization of the piece difficult for the listener to
discern

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4. Zu zwei selbst gewählten Stücken aus der obigen Liste eine eigene
Reflexion.
Sometimes while listening to mono-timbral pieces, I loose my active music perception
(with the score or without). After listening of this piece, I have thought, that the serialism
works for me better within multitimbral compositions, -the clever strategy on timbral
using brings for me the refreshing of my listening activity. The timbral diversity and, at
the same time, very well-thought arrays of timbral and formal strategies make the piece
working. Also, that is very wise of Boulez to use fermatas (over the baronies or rests)
very often,-so that I, as a listener, have time to reflect on the previous structure and bring
it together in my mind - those short analytic moments make the piece also “breathing”,
where i, as a listener, have time to perceive, reflect and maybe optimise the material in
my head.

3
Pli selon pli, portrait de Mallarmé

1.Entstehungsjahr
1957-62

2. Besetzung
solo soprano and orchestra (texts of three sonnets of French symbolist poet Stéphane
Mallarmé)

3. Kurze Notiz über das Stück

The composition is in five movements, the first and last using a line from a Mallarmé
poem, the three middle movements using the entire text of a Mallarmé sonnet.The
movements and their associated poems are:

1. Don – "Don du poème"

2. Improvisation I sur Mallarmé – "Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui"

3. Improvisation II sur Mallarmé – "Une dentelle s'abolit"

4. Improvisation III sur Mallarmé – "A la nue accablante tu"

5. Tombeau – “Tombeau”

4. Zu zwei selbst gewählten Stücken aus der obigen Liste eine eigene
Reflexion.
I’m very impressed by the textures’ mixtures of the piece, mostly in the #5. Slow tempos
and static elements, as well as ostinatos, make the serialism more perceptible and
logically measured. Also it is very interesting, that my ear catches the repeated pitches
of dynamics on the distance of 5 sec and groups them in one element.

4
Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna

1.Entstehungsjahr
1974–75

2. Besetzung
large chamber ensemble in eight groups

3. Kurze Notiz über das Stück

after the death of Boulez's fellow composer Bruno Maderna, and Boulez describes it as
"A ceremony of memory, in which there are numerous repetitions of the same formulas,
in constantly changing profiles and perspectives”.

Boulez based the tonal structure of Rituel largely on a set of seven tones, corresponding
to the number of the letters in the name "Maderna".These are the same pitches used in
the row of …explosante-fixe….

The work divides the players into eight groups, that are widely separated across the
performance space. Each group features a different category of instruments and a
different number of players (one oboe, two clarinets, three flutes, etc.). Except in the
case of the brass group, which is the largest, a percussionist is assigned to each group
to maintain its specific tempo, since the groups are independent of one another in terms
of rhythm, while the conductor maintains a larger scale organization. The use of groups
and their spacing reflects many of Maderna's works, such as Quadrivium (1969).

4. Zu zwei selbst gewählten Stücken aus der obigen Liste eine eigene
Reflexion.
This piece is very inspiring in the way how the big composer’s “brush” is used. For me it
sounds as if we have chamber ensemble with different percussion, where each member
of ensemble is represented with the instrumental group mix. I would be happy to hear
the piece in the live concert or at least in binaural recording, because the spacing of the
groups are crucial for the material perception in this context.

5
Sur Incises

1.Entstehungsjahr
Incises (1994/2001) and Sur Incises (1996/1998)

2. Besetzung
three pianos, three harps, and three percussion parts, which use a variety of tuned
percussion instruments: vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, steel drums, tubular bells,
and crotales.

3. Kurze Notiz über das Stück

The pitches of the row used in Incises and Sur Incises are based on the Sacher
hexachord, the same as those used in the rows for Répons, Messagesquisse, and
Dérive 1.

The Sacher hexachord (6-Z11, musical cryptogram on the name of Swiss conductor
Paul Sacher) is a hexachord notable for its use in a set of twelve compositions (12
Hommages à Paul Sacher) created at the invitation of Mstislav Rostropovich for
Sacher's seventieth birthday in 1976.

The twelve compositions include Pierre Boulez's Messagesquisse, Hans Werner

Henze's Capriccio, Witold Lutosławski's Sacher Variation, and Henri Dutilleux's Trois
strophes sur le nom de Sacher. Messagesquisse is dedicated to Sacher, but Boulez's
Répons, Dérive 1, Incises, and Sur Incises all use rows with the same pitches.

Two-movement work (the movements are called "Moment I" and "Moment II”).

4. Zu zwei selbst gewählten Stücken aus der obigen Liste eine eigene
Reflexion.
the piece impressed me the most from all those above (i have listened to the whole
durations of all the pieces). The monotimbral decisions are here influenced by electronic
music first of all in the perception of the space and space movements, I think. The
rhythmical “nerve” and changing “modes” of regularity are make somehow way more
easier the perception of any kind of music, which fits into the “grid”.

6
Répons

1.Entstehungsjahr
1981(1985)

2. Besetzung
large chamber orchestra with six percussion soloists(harp, cimbalom, vibraphone,
glockenspiel/xylophone, and two pianos) and live electronics

3. Kurze Notiz über das Stück

dedicated to Alfred Schlee (german music scientist).

Répons was the first significant work to come out of Boulez's endeavors at IRCAM.

Its title, Répons, reflects the fact that the composition is constructed on various types of
responses: the acoustic sounds and electronic responses to them as well as the
medieval idea of responsorial mirroring between players and speakers in different parts
of the concert hall.

The musical ensemble is constituted by 24 musicians in the centre of the hall organized
in three groups. The audience is placed around this central scene and finally six soloists
are placed around the audience and their sound is processed in real time. A series of
loudspeakers are placed between the soloists and sound may be fixed in space or
moving among the loudspeakers with different predefined trajectories. The work is
organised as an alternation between the central group and the performance of the
soloists, establishing dialogues between the group, the soloists and the electronics. The
listener is in the centre of the listening space, which is open to all directions.

5. Zu einem selbst gewählten Stück (ebenfalls aus der obigen Liste)

fertigen Sie eine Höranalyse an.
For me, the most prominent aspect of the piece, which I could define by listening, is the
system of responses. Those responses could be separated according to the following
levels:

- notated responses,
- live-electronics responses,
- physical responses.

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To the first category ,to my mind, belong the different kinds of instrumental/timbral/
rhythmical imitation, which are heard (usually, distanced in time).

The second category connects :

1) pre-recorded + processed sounds

2) recorded sounds during the performance,

3) delayed, cropped (in duration) and filtered playback of those sounds.

Here I would like to mention, that it seems, that Boulez had a strategy for the usage and
perception of the live-electronics throughout the whole piece:

• almost no electronics -> integrated electronics in the complex timbral system of

instrumental responses - > much electronics and separated instrument-electronics
dialogues

• processed electronics, changed sound timbre -> almost not processed sound, just
amplitude is changed, trying to imitate acoustical reflections.

Also I would like to mention, that amplification of instruments, as a concept, has

consequences of changing the amount of the timbral presence and further amount of
physical reflections’ space.

The third category is acoustical space responses, reverberation- initially big acoustical
space, which contains the central scene, 4 corner-soloists , 24 speakers , directed
towards audience.

Unfortunately, due to the limited available recordings, I could not have a possibility to
listen at least to the binaural one, which makes the thoughts about the panning of the
processed and acoustical sound being not that exact.

While listening to the stereo version of “Répons” I have tried my best to listen to the
positions of the instruments in the space, as well as the trajectories of movement of the
recorded/processed material through the loudspeakers’ array. Obviously, i have heard
the exact responses (maybe, slow “ping-pong” delays?) , coming from the loudspeakers,
between the left and right channel of my headphones in the stereo mix. I assume, that
not only linear movements between the members of the loudspeaker’s pair was realised,
but also mixed X-like movements and other figures, imitating the reflections’ figures of
the sound in the square space.

Speaking about the material, which constructs the whole piece, i would like to mention,
that the density of the events and tempo decreases towards the end, making the listener
to be focused not only on the events in the space, but on the space as an event.

8
The instrumental texture should be treated as the one, composed with the chamber
music approach. Additionally , the amplification “bends” the acoustical characteristics
and mixing possibilities in the listener’s perception of the amplified instrument.

Concluding the written above, the system of loudspeakers could be treated (still, I’m not
sure, because of the stereo format) as:

• soloists,

• groups,

• artificial “amplified” room.

Those perceptual functions , to my mind, have the mixed strategy from the additional
soloists’ approach to the speakers -> groups of the soloists -> “evaporation” of the initial
function in the concept of the filtered (artificially amplified) room reflections.