Thematic Sessions > The 3 B's (Boulez, Berio, Boucourechliev)

Pierre Boulez as Conductor

Pierre Boulez is undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in modern music. In many domains, he left a profound and lasting impact, whether as a composer, conductor, writer, administrator, or public intellectual.

On the occasion of his centenary, to both honor and reassess his legacy in this new millennium, we propose the following themes:

• What are the key contributions of Pierre Boulez as a conductor?
• How can we describe his conducting technique, his approach to analysis, rehearsal, and interpretation of 20th-century repertoire and contemporary music (for example, Bartók, the Second Viennese School, Varèse, Debussy)?
• What approaches did Boulez adopt when conducting his own works or those of his contemporaries?
• How did the recording process and technical aspects of Boulez’s numerous albums as a conductor unfold? Did he collaborate closely with sound engineers?
• What relationships did Pierre Boulez, as a conductor, maintain with orchestral musicians?

Boulez, a Composer of the 21st Century

Many academic studies and historical accounts focus on the periods of Boulez’s works considered the most innovative and radical, such as Structures, Books I and II for Piano, Le Marteau sans Maître, Pli selon Pli, or his Piano Sonatas. However, with a composing career spanning several decades, Boulez’s music constantly evolved—this evolution even constituting a fundamental principle of his work, as he continuously revised, edited, and expanded earlier pieces.

More specifically, Boulez’s late works deeply integrate and explore major aspects of the musical landscape of the late 20th and early 21st centuries: real-time electronic technology (Répons, ...explosante-fixe..., Anthèmes 2), the notion of musical process (also found, for example, in post-spectral music, cf. Dérive 1, Sur Incises), technomorphism (the adaptation of electronic studio techniques into instrumental writing, cf. Messagesquisse), computer-assisted composition (Dérive 2), and citation and intertextuality (Dialogue de l’ombre double, Anthèmes).

• What are the main compositional strategies of Boulez’s late works?
• How do his composition techniques differ from and resemble those of his earlier periods?
• What new directions did Boulez explore in his final compositions?
• What unfinished or ongoing composition projects did he leave behind?
• How did he integrate elements from younger composers?
• What significant changes can be observed in his compositional approach throughout his career?
• Why and how did Boulez make the SACHER motif (E♭ – A – C – B – E – D) a recurring element in his musical language, including in works that were not explicitly tributes? What aesthetic and compositional stakes underlie this continuity?

Open and Mobile Works: Questioning Modernity

With his serial thinking and concept of “open form,” Boulez interrogates the possibility of music in perpetual transformation, where structures are no longer fixed but adaptable. Does the concept of indeterminacy still find resonance among today’s young composers? Does it still signify modernity?

Berio, in contrast, focused on the fusion of musical languages and their interaction with other artistic forms. His piece Sinfonia exemplifies the coexistence of tradition and modernity. Does it represent a claim to the postmodernity of today?

Finally, Boucourechliev introduced the idea of “mobile forms,” allowing performers to become true co-creators. This freedom opened new perspectives on interpretation and the notion of the work as a process. In the age of artificial intelligence, has such an experimental approach now become the norm?

The Legacy of Composers Born in 1925

• André Boucourechliev
• Luciano Berio
• Pierre Boulez
• Aldo Clementi
• B.B. King
• Georges Delerue
• Ivo Malec
• Mikis Theodorakis
• Daphne Oram
• Oscar Peterson
• Michel Philippot