Pierre Boulez - Livre pour cordes - Wiener Philharmoniker

[TassiloDavid]

Does anybody know the date of this performance? Merci donc.

[fctchk]

The Wieners, not one female amongst them, in all their sexist glory. Et tu, Boulez?

[elvira2262]

love it (Pierre boulez)

[FilmComposeRaHoppe]

Could somebody please tell me if this is serial music and how it is set up I have to hand out a little paper soon but I I am a bit confused about this kind of music.

[fabianidhesona]

@FilmComposeRaHoppe this is not serial music. Boulez used serial technque in the 50's and thats it. serialism was very en vogue until the 50's.

[sieracki001]

The 4th volinist looks weird. And oh yeah I love this music. See, I am both a typical you-tube idiot and a sophisticated music listerner.

[Mikka2007]

@SchwanMusic1 Honestly I don't see any melody or sense ! Beethoven, Haydn or Mozart ? You dare compare with them ??? Honestly ?!!!

[MGENCOUNTERS]

serial killer...

[japanesesweet]

Very beautiful indeed- -this has a nice elusive feel to it. He seemed to lose the touch with sur incises which is all surface glamour and interminable.

[Mikka2007]

@japanesesweet oui, inter-minable...

[japanesesweet]

@Mikka2007 I'm looking forward to hearing Pollini play Boulez's 2nd sonata in a few weeks time

[lovesGenet]

I love to see all these natural rhythms on a page.The question is is a n experience memorable. This recent stuff has more of a traditional narrative feel. Something is happening after and before. The 3 sonatas have so much event I dont know how anyone memorizes them. Parts are full of imagination and his system I guess. It's great sounding .This is easier to follow. It sounds like music in our contemp world should sound!

[stamstuff]

where is the music?

[ptram]

This music touches both mind and soul. As someone else notes, it is sometimes as sensual and mesmerizing as Debussy.

[Mikka2007]

@ptram Poor Debussy...

[Haeronthegreat]

This is wonderful.



[75classix]

Welch ein differenzierter Klang! Ich bin sehr beindruckt...

[herma57]

Luv de Boulez

[lovesGenet]

thanks.I didn't know Boulez didn't use serial methods anymore.

[122222rg]

God this is gorgeous - I hear impressionistic influences a tiny bit of Mahler all filtered through a late 20th/21st century lens. It is really not that far our of a piece.

[sergeuleski1]

Pour rebondir...

[NOUCHINI]

Les créateurs sont les biens venus dans ce monde stéréotypé!!!!!!!

Alors musique des sphères, musique quantique pourquoi pas, ça change des mièvreries et des cons singes savants de la musique!!!!!

l'homme est à l'image de Dieu Créateur et curieux.

Comme le monde changerait si le commun des mortels devenait curieux et passionné des possibilités musicales ou autre qui s'offre à lui.

Chapeau Monsieur Boulez!!!!!

[Whiskybar23]

The orchestral treatment sometimes remind me Debussy, especially the fluid texture of some passages. Wonderful Boulez's music.

[revions]

Yes SchwanMusic, you are absolutely right!

[googlekopfkind]

i luv this

[AntiProUltra]

a lot of boulez's stuff sounds old-fashioned these days, but this is verging on lyrical, like webern only with more notes.  anyone who has trouble following this needs to stay well away from varese or xenakis. they will blow your motherfucking mind

[Bolenderable]

I like both, but I find Varese easier to listen to than this. In Varese's music, it is not hard to hear how the music divides into sentences and phrases. In Livre, I can hear some phrase-like units, but it is harder to grasp the structure. Livre is more like an unbroken tissue of sound. I agree though that Livre is much smoother and more mellow sounding than most of Varese's music.

[aniroe]

That would be true only if you measure difficulty by the surface level of sonic effect, impact and novelty (e.g. lyricism/smoothness vs. dissonance, how typically 'avant-garde' or 'old-fashioned' it sounds) rather than by the complexity and uniqueness of deep structure, at which level the aforementioned markers might be deceptive or downright misleading.

[aniroe]

(contd from reply to AntiProUltra's comment below) I mean, an apparently 'old'-sounding piece might reveal more uniqueness of thought and complexity than typically 'avant-garde' sounding ones that go for the 'effect' (and am Not indicating varese or xenakis here, who are brilliant, just to be clear). But perhaps its time one stopped so easily categorizing music on the basis of surface effect and predictable markers like 'avant-garde', 'old-fashioned' etc.

[BuckshotLaFunke]

aniroe, did you read Jacques Derrida? ;-)

[aniroe]

Yes, and I know Derrida can be rather conveniently and broadly invoked to critique my use of 'surface'-'depth' hermeneutics - but a) rather lazily, one might say that deconstruction also teaches us that no binary can be completely undone and the trick is to operate from their 'inside' strategically, b) to give a somewhat more rigorous answer, Derrida's (and Foucault's - in The Order of Discourse among other places) critique of the 'depth' model interrogates the presumption of inexhaustible

[aniroe]

(contd.) and rich meanings 'behind' the text in the theological and ensuing humanistic traditions; whereas my evocation of 'depth' here is not to impute inexhaustible impenetrability as much as to (hopefully) provoke more rigorous attention to the thickness ('depth') of the musical weave or fabric rather than jump at easy and immediate ('surface') markers like how lyrical, how dissonant etc. Maybe if I had used a Geertz-(ian?) phrase like 'thick description' Derrida might not have come to mind

[aniroe]

(contd) and somehow I don't think Derrida or Foucault would have any objections to more rigorous and thorough readings (in the documentary on Derrida he says something like - and I quote from memory so please pardon - 'I have read a few books but I have read them well').

[jsb1724]

When was this concert ?

jsb1724

[NosledCire]

Wonderful clip - great piece.  Thanks for posting.

[jansma11]

Does anyone know where I can purchase the score for this at a reasonable price? I've only been able to find one venue online and it was something like 170 euro.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mikka2007]

@jansma11 Do you wana use it for toilet paper ?

[Astron278]

Quite horrible, thank you.

Avant-garde is not for me, and serial music especially.

[KarlMartel1]

try john adams

[lifeisart37]

he was a post-minimalist, which was a counter movement. personally, I find minimalism much more lush and beautiful

[KarlMartel1]

he is a post.minimalism

[audiobuttmaster]

Shut up, arsefucker.

[Serduun]

wiener

[paulcopeland]

Beautiful music. And quite an honour to seeBoulez conduct. Thank you for posting.

[guitarleg1002]

how is that its his own music he cant be bad at conducting his own music

[TheNewFella93]

well, he is a bit of a "Wiener". I'll give him that much....

[muslit]

i love the chord in harmonics in the cellos that comes into focus around 10:12 -

even when the strings are slightly amiss, the vienna philharmonic sound great -

[tijo240881]

A wonderful piece of music of one the greatest artist of the twentieth century.

[TheNewFella93]

forgettin Fallout Boy m8?

[outis1953]

After 83 years, it's time Boulez got rid of that comb-over...

[gaiboyy]

c'est d'une grande froideur cette musique, j'y suis mal à l'aise. Dutilleux est plus agréable

[Whiskybar23]

surprenant de la part de boulez... je me demande si c'est du sériel intégral. en tout cas d'une rare sensualité.

[PCPTPCPT]

It's not proper serial music. It's a dodecaphonic piece, with a particular attention to rythmic construction (this can be better appreciated in the string quartet original version). It seems Boulez doesn't like too much the string orchestra version (because of the "tamer" sound), but rythmic complexity makes the quartet version quite difficult to play.

[rmelofranco]

J'en ai peur ... La sensualité de Boulez doit avoir quelquechose de bizarre. Not my cup of tea.

[sshuck]

This music is very sensual. I love his harmonies that are altered gradually, note by note.

[aldebussy]

I'm sorry, but Boulez is quite a master of modern gimmickry. This is BULLSHIT. Music is not about the theoretical concepts behind it, but how it actually sounds. I don't care if chance music has got tons of theory supporting it, IT'S BS when performed.

So is this.

[sequenzaVII]

Chance music, really? And hadn't the thought "someone may actually like the sound of this" occur to you? Well, I like the sound of it. Boulez actually moved away from serial composition quite some time ago, after the third piano sonata I think...

[ad80ad]

It is STRUCTURALISTIC music that is the OPPOSITE of chance music.If you don't like how the music sound don't mean that the composition of the work is guided by chance. Here, every note is calculated and weighted in all its parameters. So it is MODERN music.if YOU don't like modern music listen ancient music, or compose ancient music.But please don't compose by chance like neoclassical musician,use well the rules of tonality or of ancient modality,even more severe than those of serial music. ;-)

[laurion69]

Yes, every note is calculated in all its parameters... sophisticated rules of composition has been used ... maybe Boulez did also the Pythagorean Theorem with the notes... but this does not mean in this crap there is beauty.

This piece is simply horrible with all its rules, parameters and all the rest!

[ad80ad]

Nothing to say: but don't say that is "chance music". It depends of what is "beauty" for you. If "Beauty" is the same that Rimbaud took on his knees, there is not that beauty in this piece. There is not Beauty as an academic matter. If beauty for you is simply a beautiful sunset, or a beautiful girl, here there is a lot.

[revions]

Well, beauty for some people is Pavarotti singing christmas carols with amplified famous popstars. He at least knew how to reach a 'non-adiabatic' audience.

Who cares if you have to 'sing crap' to get the attention of the listener?

And for the more sofisticated listener, there will always be the more evolved music, like that of Boulez and others.

[Mikka2007]

@laurion69 I agree fully with you !

[MGENCOUNTERS]

@ad80ad it is not "modern" music... it is contemporary music... learn your basics

[Mikka2007]

@aldebussy I play actually this "music" and it is horrible bullshit, true !

[schschubert]

It is good that this peace is posted on YouTubes, becaurse mr. Bouleze is the most important composer of art-music of our times. I' am sorry to say, that I don't like it very much.

[atralfalgar]

c'est de la pure nulité totale

[Mikka2007]

@atralfalgar désagréable a jouer et à écouter ! La politique dans la musique c'est comme la religion dans le gouvernement...

[allascolto]

L'art musical au plus haut!

[Mikka2007]

@allascolto sans blague !

[billy676767]

c'est vraiment de la merde

[vitesenzafine]

Anyone knows what the time signature is at the starting of this piece?

[mantora06]

superbe document. voir un des derniers grand créateur du xxème siècle. un hommage à l'école de Vienne.

[gt001g]

composition is of great quality. wonderful, elegant performance and conducting. thanks for posting.

[herma57]

very luminous, greet work to work a string section for modernity, great study in colour, I still like the original quartet.