Pierre Boulez on John Cage

This is extract from the documentary 'Knots and Fields' by Andrew Chesher and David Ryan (2010). The full documentary is 75 mins in length and looks at the history and the contemporary relevance of the famous Summer Courses in New Music which have been held in Darmstadt, Germany since 1946. It was here that composers such as Boulez and Cage among many other key figures in modern music met in the 50s and 60s.
See more: http://vimeo.com/user3352130

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Darmstadt
• Pierre
• Boulez
• John
• Cage
• Ferienkurse
• Serialism
• Open
• Form
• Aleatoric
• Indeterminacy
• Chance
• composition
• Music
• Neue
• Musik
• Summer
• course

[DR592]

@NitramZiarreh - this last comment is out of context: it is a general statement - that composers such as C & B (seperately) in the 50s and 60s met at Darmstadt to discuss problems - not that C & B met there for the first time...as Boulez clearly staes.

[NitramZiarreh]

@knots46 "It was here that composers such as Boulez and Cage among many other key figures in modern music met in the 50s and 60s."

Boulez and Cage didn't meet in Darmstadt, as he explains in the video - Cage didn't go to Darmstadt before the late 50's. If you're interested in this kind of stuff, I would highly recommend reading the Boulez-Cage correspondence edited by Jean-Jacques Nattiez

[NitramZiarreh]

@Bruno53ification Yep, now is different, so it would be stupid to keep writing the same old music. If you don't like it it's one thing - strictly a matter of taste - but saying "music should be this or that way" and that everything else "is not music" (as though you were in any position to judge what should be and what isn't) just shows your narrow-mindedness and inability to keep up with your own times. It's just like saying that quantum physics is nonsense just because you can't understand it!

[Bruno53ification]

Take it or leave it. Anyway, not many people waste time listening to electronic noises as "music".

[DaCapo2010]

@Bruno53ification that's absolute nonsense.

[Bruno53ification]

@DaCapo2010 or Beethoven. But now is different.

[DaCapo2010]

@Bruno53ification its funny that that's what people thought of Mahler when Mahler was alive.

[Bruno53ification]

@whatwillyousayHA HA! I also think the guys who listen to this "avant garde" should also "grow up". Love the irony. Do all baseball fans are also "baseball players"?

[whatwillyousay]

@Bruno53ification Are you a performer or composer? Or do you just nick their anecdotes? I love and listen to all of the music you've listed above as well, I just prefer to add to the music I love rather than actively seek out that which I don't for the sake of trolling on YouTube.

Nearly 60 and a lot of growing up to do; you'd better get cracking.

[Bruno53ification]

But despite disliking Mr Boulez as a composer of "contemporary music", I'll giive him good credits that he is a very good conductor. See? I can be quite "fair".