Want to destroy Pierre Boulez?

the schoenburg 1st chamber concerto was the last thing they played, and maybe the most well known work that still shared enough accessible ideas over repeated listenings, i dunno -- anyway the audience, knowing full well when and how it ended, started applauding, cheering and screaming about five seconds before it ended (on that very heavy set of orchestra like slabs) -- it was new to me then, but the more i've listened to chamber concerto #1 the more i've loved it, so i can understand the attitude of 'audience riots at classical gig' -- here was a chance to hear "20th c. music greats" delivered by a real 20th c. ensemble in an actual opera house (ie not on the stereo) -- and i think the evening really rocked like few strictly classical or rock gigs i've been to (here in nz anyway -- like i say i'm assuming the audience weren't applauding early because the show was ending)

so boulez said "destroy" etc., probably about the same time he was saying "blow up the opera houses" -- well the germans detained him for questioning for three hours as part of "the war on terrorism" in 2001, based on what he'd said on file when he was an angry young post-graduate, but despite whatever ideas he's spread in his international proselytizing over many years, they've let him go

boulez's writings just kinda ruined my fun night of reading caetano veloso and listening to bossa nova. "what do the feelings of some rag-and-bone man matter to me? my opinion counts a thousand times more than his; mine is the one which will last." what a dick!

tbf to him he didn't just come an intervene in my other activities, i myself decided it would be a good idea to read him before bed.

Boulez's writings ruined my 20s and two relationships

damn yall don't read him

"what do the feelings of some rag-and-bone man matter to me? my opinion counts a thousand times more than his; mine is the one which will last."

That's Harold Steptoe firmly put in his place

tbf boulez was like 20 at his most uncompromising modernistic phase (incidentally when he was writing his best music)

READING THIS IS MAKING ME SO MAD BUT I HAVE TO DO IT. sorry pierre but my only course of action to redress the balance when i'm done will be to murder you. 50 years ago.

lol Tom.

Clouds otm, reminds you of some petulant 'star' but he probably came up with his three sonatas and Marteau... at that time he ws talking like this so..

Today is almost an apology by comparison, quite sad how some idiot journalist is all here is the man who said he wanted all opera houses burnt omg! and finds him to be the most pleasant man, etc.

How did he go down at The Proms this year? (sandwiched between all the Beethoven symphonies).

Boulez for me is first and foremost a fucking fantastic conductor, one of the very few whose style you can identify by ear alone. I don't really GAF about his writings and opinions much-- he is brilliant, of course, and really funny, but he's way too hung up. Some of his compositions amaze me when I do listen to them-- Marteau, Explosante-fixe-- but I'm so seldom moved to actually put them on.

"Shostakovich plays with clichés most of the time," Boulez told the London Times. "It's like olive oil, you have a second and even third pressing, and I think of Shostakovich as the second, or even third, pressing of Mahler. I think, with Shostakovich, people are influenced by the autobiographical dimension of his music."

I'm so seldom moved to actually put them on.

Oddly enough, I'm actually able to throw on Boulez, even casually, e.g. while doing dishes, and respond to it in a visceral way. The piano sonatas, Le Marteau.

That Shostakovich quote is ridiculous though.

pull this thread and walk away

he's not completely wrong but i like DSCH anyway.

the second part is completely right the first is just boulez doing what he does