Pierre Boulez RIP

[cuttime]

I suspect we'll be dealing with his legacy many years from now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/arts/ ... ss&emc=rss

[kgdrum]

What an amazing conductor & composer,Mr Boulez imo was one of the greatest champions of modern classical music. RIP

[crescentoon55]

He was conducting the Webern 6 pieces with an orchestra that I was in. He was not happy with the tuning of the oboe and proceeded to tune the whole orchestra with his ear... a truly amazing talented conductor and composer... sad to hear about his passing...

[mikehalloran]

Snuck into an orchestra rehearsal in the 1970s to watch him conduct and met him afterwards. Wow.

RIP

[Shooshie]

He was conducting the Webern 6 pieces with an orchestra that I was in. He was not happy with the tuning of the oboe and proceeded to tune the whole orchestra with his ear... a truly amazing talented conductor and composer... sad to hear about his passing...

Unless that oboist was really terrible, that's just arrogant, and probably not very productive. (tuning with his ear, just telling them "sharp... flat... sharp... flat...") What a tedious day that must have been.

But he was the enfante terrible of classical music of his time. And apparently a fine musician. I didn't know much about him, but it's time to learn.

Shooshie

[mhschmieder]

Oh man, another one of the greats has left us.

It was the recordings of Boulez that first introduced me to Stravinsky and Webern in my youth. I never had the chance to see him live, unfortunately.

Boulez was the founder of IRCAM, which itself begat Stanford's CCRMA, where FM synthesis (licensed by Yamaha for the DX7) began, alongside many thrusts of modeling (also done at IRCAM). So in the area of music technology, Boulez also left his mark.

I found a somewhat better obituary at Deutsche Welle:

http://www.dw.com/en/farewell-pierre-bo ... a-18263555

[Shooshie]

I found a somewhat better obituary at Deutsche Welle:

http://www.dw.com/en/farewell-pierre-bo ... a-18263555

That's a better-than-average obit for Mssr. Boulez. One of the reasons I never spent much time learning about him was because he was always raising eyebrows, and it was hard to tell how much substance there was behind some of that stuff. For example, in this obit, he says that anyone who hasn't experienced — experienced, not merely understood — how essential is dodecaphony, is useless to the art and profession of music. I have not composed in 12 tone serialism, but I've arranged and performed it. While I can easily see that it helped to break the stranglehold on serious music by ever-more-drippingly-sacharine romanticism, which condensed into popular music and film scores, a statement like that does nothing to serve it or anything else. It just creates zealots. I do not like zealots of any flavor.

He was always saying things like that. For me, that put him in the sidelines of music history, a popularizer or showman. But I'm impressed that he directed the Ring at Bayreuth for five seasons! Obviously, the man was a tremendous musician. I'd have been more interested without the serial outbursts of extremism. Let's hope that the opera houses are safe from latter-day zealots thinking they are doing the world a favor by blowing them up. (another of Boulez's requisitions for a better world) That kind of talk is just stupid. I'm sure he said it long ago when nobody would have seriously followed up on it, but times change, and we live in an age where someone just might do it. I certainly hope ALL musicians are smarter than that.

I most certainly DO appreciate all he did for music technology. Without him, we might not have what we have today. Or, it may be later developing, and would be different. OH wait... maybe we can blame MIDI on him! Mssr. Boulez, were you responsible for MIDI??? Oh, you dog! (but yes, a fabulous dog you were!)

Rest in peace, Mssr. Boulez. Or if you must, spin in your grave! But only 12 turns at a time. Then you must start again and do a different row. Throughout eternity! Bwaahahahha....

Shooshie

[mhschmieder]

Shooshie, can I hire you in advance to write my obit?

[mikehalloran]

Have you heard his reduction of The Ring for 60 piece orchestra? I remember when the Met did it with a staging based on the Shaw. Interesting concept — I even read my copy of The Perfect Wagnerite beforehand.

While I wouldn't have minded singing over an ensemble that size, it ok if I never see nor hear it again.

[Shooshie]

Shooshie, can I hire you in advance to write my obit?

Ha! You presume that I might outlive you! Unlikely at the rate calamities keep dropping in to visit me. Of course... I could WRITE it in advance! Someone might have to change the last sentence, or so.

Shoosh

[Shooshie]

Have you heard his reduction of The Ring for 60 piece orchestra? I remember when the Met did it with a staging based on the Shaw. Interesting concept — I even read my copy of The Perfect Wagnerite beforehand.

While I wouldn't have minded singing over an ensemble that size, it ok if I never see nor hear it again.

The Ring is one of the few pieces of music that I hold in such awe that I cannot even listen to a recording of the real thing, much less a transcription. That's odd for me, because I'm a believer in transcriptions. I can remember watching it play before me on stage almost as if I were still there. I remember it best with either a detailed synopsis or an actual score. But I save my ears only for the actual performance. I'm actually that way with most opera, though I've found good videos to be satisfactory for most. But not The Ring. I've got to be there. I've got to be craving coffee at the several intermissions, and aching to stand up before the final curtain. I need to see and feel the space around me, where the orchestra's voice creeps behind the action and tells me a different story than the characters are saying (or singing). I've got to see the stage magic, sets and props. Wagner, for all his wretched flaws, somehow pulled off four masterpieces in what I believe is the highest art form of all: opera. (Take that, Pierre Boulez!) In Wagner, it's hard for me to reconcile the art with the artist, but there it is. For whatever reasons, I take viewing the Ring cycle very seriously. Certainly not for the story; it's a mythological fantasy, laced with Germanic cultural superlatives and hyperbole, and once you've seen the story, you know it. Yet somehow the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. The experience of being there for The Ring is simply overwhelming. Hearing it through speakers just does not do it for me. And to think that people were watching essentially the same thing, having the same experience, over 100 years ago just brings it all home.

Apparently Mssr. Boulez secretly knew this and believed it. His anti-opera statements meant something in context, but he was certainly not an opera hater.

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

I agree and disagree. We have season tickets to SFO and have caught Der Ring in Seattle and LA as well.

For listening pleasure, I do like opera recordings. Unless I am at a FathomEvents performance in the theater, I rarely watch film or video. I like FathomEvents but am looking for the Bay Area theater with the best sound—the one in Palo Alto was disappointing when I watched the Met Ring there in 2014.

I like opera recordings except when trying to learn a role. I learn roles from scores and will walk out of the room if a recording is played (fortunately, never an issue with rehearsal). Likewise, the recording no longer exists if I agree to conduct. if it's a recording of an opera that I am in or have conducted, I'll wait 10-20 years or more before listening.

I recently found a recording of an opera I conducted in 1982 after the company told me there was none made. No one remembered that I made a multitrack recording of every performance—the final version was a complete performance except for an overture that I flew in from another night. I will enjoy listening when I remaster in DP for their archives and then am unlikely to ever hear it again again.

Anyway, back to Boulez. I liked his tempi even if I considered his transcriptions unsatisfactory. Historically, it's interesting what he did but I'll leave that to the scholars to argue its importance if any.

[Shooshie]

I agree and disagree. We have season tickets to SFO and have caught Der Ring in Seattle and LA as well.

For listening pleasure, I do like opera recordings. Unless I am at a FathomEvents performance in the theater, I rarely watch film or video. I like FathomEvents but am looking for the Bay Area theater with the best sound—the one in Palo Alto was disappointing when I watched the Met Ring there in 2014.

I like opera recordings except when trying to learn a role. I learn roles from scores and will walk out of the room if a recording is played (fortunately, never an issue with rehearsal). Likewise, the recording no longer exists if I agree to conduct. if it's a recording of an opera that I am in or have conducted, I'll wait 10-20 years or more before listening.

I recently found a recording of an opera I conducted in 1982 after the company told me there was none made. No one remembered that I made a multitrack recording of every performance—the final version was a complete performance except for an overture that I flew in from another night. I will enjoy listening when I remaster in DP for their archives and then am unlikely to ever hear it again again.

Anyway, back to Boulez. I liked his tempi even if I considered his transcriptions unsatisfactory. Historically, it's interesting what he did but I'll leave that to the scholars to argue its importance if any.

Interesting comments, Mike. I wait at least 6 months before listening to a recording of myself. Well, truth be told, I often listen to it the next day, then put it away for 6 months to a year. When I listen after time has passed, I can hear it as I'd hear someone else, without all the performance notes going through my head like "crap, that note isn't the same tessitura as the rest of the line," or "Frack! Missed THAT one!" But if I start listening to it several times in a row, that's exactly what starts happening. "Ooooo... rushed that note!" Of course, nobody else hears those things. I'm sometimes not sure I hear them or if I'm just making them up. I beat myself up royally when I hear recordings of me. Gads! I'd be a basket case if I listened to myself all the time, though I really enjoy those recordings when enough time has passed.

As today went by, I thought and thought about WHY I don't listen to opera recordings. I think I figured it out. In fact I'm sure of it. Opera is my musical refuge. Though I've played in pit orchestras, there aren't that many sax parts out there in the opera oeuvre. Opera is a place I can go and hear things without the running dialogs in my head. Pretty much everything else I've got a dozen recordings on file in my brain, and I'm hearing it from 12 different reference points, possibly including my own performances of it, and it's just not the same experience as someone who is hearing it for the first time. We musicians give up the one thing we really crave: the ability to hear things with fresh ears. To just get lost in the music without a thought in the world. Well... maybe that's not 100% true, but it sure happens to me a lot. I can listen to many things and remain lost in it after many hearings.

But opera is something I keep "pristine." I don't listen to recordings of it. I love recordings of art songs, and spent the night a couple nights ago listening to about 3 hours of Debussy songs. Incredible stuff. I've performed many of them on soprano sax, and transcribe them guilt-free. But I won't listen to opera. Not even band transcriptions like "Entry of the Gods into Valhalla." It's out of context, for one thing. It's like listening to TV with the picture off, for another. But most of all, I don't want 6 competing recordings playing through my head when I go hear the real thing. My Ring Cycles have been about 15 years apart, which is time enough for them to fade so that you aren't comparing them so much as just losing yourself in them.

Losing yourself in the music. THAT's why I don't listen to the recordings. I want to go into the opera hall, marvel at the architecture, enjoy what the ladies are wearing, chuckle at some of the dandy-fied men, listen to the sounds as the orchestra warms up and someone practices those solos that scare them, then watch the lights dim, see the conductor walk out (often just the top of his head visible in the pit), and hear those first chords as though they were just for me. From that moment until the final curtain, I'm a living fixture within that opera hall. Soaking it all up, being a part of it, and letting my emotions flow with the music, story, and characters.

It may seem like a small or silly thing, but by not listening to the recordings, it makes the opera hall a hallowed ground. That's the zenith of western stage art, and it's probably the only music I can listen to and know that all the inner dialogs will immediately shut down, and I can just —be—.

Shoosh

[mhschmieder]

Most obituaries are written in advance.

The press does this so that they can INSTANTLY post an obit as soon as someone dies.

Oh, wait, that's just for FAMOUS people, not us peons.

But yikes, the New York Times and BBC early obits for David Bowie were shockingly disrespectful and ignorant, as well as completely dismissive of his non-Ziggy and non-Let's Dance material.