My twenties were mostly spent in Montana, where new concert music was scarce. So I donned the mantle of the avant-garde, writing a few abrasive works and enjoying the disguise. Moving to the Twin Cities in 1989 was a compromise: it was half-way to New York and a musical center that acknowledged the new without surrendering to it. Yet I haven’t heard a Boulez work in concert in the Twin Cities during the years I’ve lived here.
Yesterday I listened to Le marteau sans maître, a song cycle—more properly, three song cycles within a cycle—for voice and ensemble, written 1953-1955. It was not quite what I remembered. René Char’s poems are too elusive to go into here. The various preludes and commentaries on the poems create a maze-like structure. The ensemble, mezzo-soprano with alto flute, viola, guitar and percussion, is mezzo-tinted in every way, and no two movements are scored for the same group of instruments. There is no real bass until tam-tam and gong enter toward the end. In its eager, spasmodic rhythms, Le marteau seems to belong to the natural world. In some ways it is most impressive in its silences, opportunities to listen to the background on which this rustle of leaves and cracking of boughs unfolds. It is as impressive—and to these ears as ephemeral—as a brief shower on a sunny day.
Like every composer trained in the past sixty years, I have written twelve-tone music. Boulez was interested in going even farther, extending serial technique to other parameters. What a way to travel! Like spending every meal with a different family: you quickly forget where you belong, what language you’ve been speaking, even what you’ve had to eat. As the world spins ever faster, I find myself taking pleasure and some comfort in the familiar. There are things worth hanging on to, and things worth letting go of. Which is why Boulez is growing fuzzy—and I’m off to practice a trio by Papa Haydn.
I heard Barb Leibundguth perform the Boulez Sonatine with Carl Witt one time. For me it would have been too much work with too little reward, but Barb and Carl were really into it. Flutists are always hungry for more music to perform so I guess I’ve heard it at flute conventions also. It’s just not my cup of tea. Eric was certainly not a fan of Boulez either, as you might expect.
Thanks for reminding me about this, Cynthia. I remember hearing about that performance. And they may have recorded it, too. My father and I only got as far as the Dutilleux and Le merle noir—my suggestion!—the end of which I remember we practiced together with the metronome a lot! And that’s only about 90′ of music.