Main content

Pierre Boulez

Tom Service presents a tribute to the French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez who died on 5 January at the age of 90.

Available now

45 minutes

Pierre Boulez: 1925 - 2016

Tom Service presents a tribute to the French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who died on 5 January at the age of 90.

It鈥檚 a moment when that phrase 鈥榯he end of an era鈥 is actually true. Boulez transformed the way that orchestras and ensembles all over the world programme and perform contemporary music. As arguably the most powerful cultural politician in musical history in the 20th and 21st centuries, as mentor, as youthful firebrand and later as an establishment figure, Boulez influenced the fabric of our musical lives. Whether you agreed or disagreed with him, Boulez the icon is impossible to ignore.

Born in 1925, Pierre Boulez studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Olivier Messiaen. The 鈥渁ngry young man鈥 and enfant terrible is as renowned for his words as much as his music: he once declared the best thing to do with opera houses was to blow them up, and that any musician who 鈥渉as not experienced... the necessity of 12-tone system is USELESS.鈥 But his music is celebrated and influential, and his influence as a conductor is even broader, taking in the 大象传媒 Proms with the 大象传媒 Symphony Orchestra, and 鈥渞ug concerts鈥 with the New York Philharmonic, as well as the founding of Ensemble Intercontemporain in 1976, and IRCAM in 1977.

With 大象传媒 archive of Boulez himself talking, from a lifetime thinking and speaking about聽music, and specially recorded interviews with contributors, including pianist and long-term collaborator Pierre-Laurent Aimard, composer Oliver Knussen, Michael Haefliger (Executive and Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival), and Herv茅 Boutry, General Manager of Ensemble InterContemporain. Plus extracts from Boulez's last major 大象传媒 interview which he recorded with Tom for Music Matters in 2011.

More information:






Broadcasts

  • Sat 9 Jan 2016 12:15
  • Mon 11 Jan 2016 22:00

Featured in...

Knock on wood 鈥 six stunning wooden concert halls around the world

Steel and concrete can't beat good old wood to produce the best sounds for music.

The evolution of video game music

Tom Service traces the rise of an exciting new genre, from bleeps to responsive scores.

Why music can literally make us lose track of time

Try our psychoacoustic experiment to see how tempo can affect your timekeeping abilities.

Podcast