Pierre Boulez

Two musicians frequently recognized for their passion for hard-edged modern and contemporary music take on the music of modern pioneer Maurice Ravel. The Ravel piano concertos come off as brilliant and sparkling in the hands of Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Pierre Boulez, along with the Cleveland Orchestra. Boulez and the orchestra make Ravel's orchestral writing sparkle in the Concerto for Left Hand, and in the Concerto in G they highlight not only the sassy jazz references, but also the references to Stravinsky, and do it without drawing attention away from the rest of the music.

Pierre Boulez has been an exclusive artist with Deutsche Grammophon for over 20 years; his recording legacy with the label is immense. DG celebrate his 90th birthday with a 44-CD box set of his complete DG 20th century music recordings – an aspect of his work that lies at the heart of his achievement. ”The aim of music is not to express feelings but to express music. It is not a vessel into which the composer distills his soul drop by drop, but a labyrinth with no beginning and no end, full of new paths to discover, where mystery remains eternal.” – Pierre Boulez

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was arguably THE pivotal composer who launched the 20th century avant-garde in classical music. Along with his students Alban Berg, Anton Webern, and Hanns Eisler - the Second Vienna School - Schoenberg exploded the late Romantic soundworld and opened up new worlds of possibilities, first with atonal expressionism, and later with the innovative serialist system of composition.

Amazon.com Customer Review
This Erato disc contains six generally minor works by Pierre Boulez. These works are minor in that they are less grand in their proportions but they are generally not minor in quality. The collection reminds me vaguely of the concept of "b-sides" in rock music, and just as with many rock acts, one feels that some gems are unfairly neglected. Two of the pieces here are among Boulez's earliest acknowledged works. The Sonatine for Flute and Piano and the Piano Sonata No. 1 both date from 1946, when Boulez was still trying to find his own sound going beyond the basis he found in the Second Viennese School. The Sonatine is inspired by Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony op. 9 in form and by Berg in its serial material, while both the Sonatine and the Piano Sonata find inspiration in Webern and Schoenberg for the virtuoso and "delirious" piano parts. The former is a rather unexciting work, I'd call it juvenalia even if Boulez thinks it worthy of preservation. However, the latter is a rich piece which displays new sides of itself on every listen. I quite enjoy Pierre-Laurent Aimard's performance here, it has a savagery to it unlike the methodical touch of Jumppanen or the nimbleness of Biret. The Ensemble Intercontemporain and BBC Singers perform, conducted by the composer himself. The pieces were recorded in the projection space at IRCAM, and so the sound quality is very good indeed. I heartily recommend this to the Boulez fan.

The three works presented here reveal distinctly different phases of Arnold Schoenberg's development, each a critical point of departure. In the Pieces (5) for Orchestra (1909), Schoenberg's atonal language appears full-blown and marks a clear break with tonality. For the first time, Schoenberg places content over form and dispenses with any pretenses toward classical objectivity or balance.