12 Eylül 2013 Perşembe

The Quest for Voice: Music, Politics, and the Limits of Philosophy

Book - The Quest for VoiceMusicPolitics, and the Limits of Philosophy by Lydia Goehr



What is musical meaning? Where does it reside and how can it be known? Does it make a difference to its meaning if the music is composed with or without words, as a symphony or a song? Why is it claimed that music can express human feelings with an immediacy not possible in other languages or arts? What is contained in the claim that music is autonomous, or that it is prophetic and can articulate a 'politics for the future'?
Concentrating on the music, politics, and philosophy of Richard Wagner, Lydia Goehr addresses these classic questions of German Romanticism. On the way, she offers an account of the peculiar relation that was established between philosophy and music in the nineteenth century; a philosophical and political reading of Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger; an account of the Wagner-Hanslick debate on musical formalism; an argument for resituating musical autonomy, in the spirit of Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk; an account of the competing performance ideals embodied in Wagner's Bayreuth, and an interpretation of Wagner's legacy as experienced by composers exiled from Nazi Germany.

Goehr's historical and musicological enquiries are unified by a philosophical study of the impact of the transcendental or critical perspective on philosophical theory. She argues that philosophy needs to take its limits seriously to accommodate the primacy of music's practice.

Interview: Meredith Monk [Part 2] by BRIAN HOWE on OCTOBER 25, 2012

Meredith Monk

As the great and unclassifiable performing artist Meredith Monk ramps up a residency with her Vocal Ensemble at Duke Performances—offering a talk at the Nasher tonight and two performances next weekend—we continue our exclusive in-depth interview. On Tuesday, we discussed how Monk developed singing, dance, theater and more into a form of her own. Today we learn about the formation of Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, the new remix album of her work, and the differences betweenEducation of the Girlchild, originally performed in 1972, and Education of the Girlchild Revisited, the new version she brings to Duke Performances.
The Thread: When you started Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble in 1978, was it because the specialized demands of your music needed specialized musicians?
MEREDITH MONK: I first had another group called the House, a wonderful ensemble, when I was making what you would now call musical theater pieces. I was doing most of the complicated singing and playing, working more from a theater or dance background. So I would make very simple things for them and more complex things for myself, in a large tapestry of images and movement and music and objects and light. I never used to audition in those days, but after Quarry, an opera I did about World War II, I did audition for a chorus of about 28 young people who were really good singers and movers. I got very inspired because I realized I could explore more complex textures by not always doing solos myself. I chose three women from that group and developed a piece I had begun as a solo, called Tablet, and I made the four parts equal in complexity, each voice a very different color. That was the beginning of Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble.

Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble
A year later I added three men, and that’s when I made Dolmen Music. Through the late-‘70s and most of the ‘80s, I was doing some theater, but I was really working more with this ensemble, touring all over the world. I think I intuitively knew that this music was going to have to be organically made. In those days, I never handed a score to these people; I basically made the piece on those particular voices. It’s a really hands-on way of making music, which I like. Sometimes we do bring in scores if we don’t have much time, but it’s still a lot of work to bring those pieces to life. I know what the contrast is now because I’ve written, in the last ten years, orchestra pieces and string quartets. In those situations, you have to have a score because there’s hardly any rehearsal. My way of doing things is very labor intensive; the music is just in the bones.
Do your pieces typically begin with gradual deliberation or sudden inspiration?
Each one is different. Education of the Girlchild, the solo that I’ll do down at Duke, is one of the only times in my life where, I think I was lying down, and I got the whole image and structure of the piece in my mind. That’s very unusual. There’s one other piece called Do You Be where I felt like it just came from another power, and in one afternoon the piece was there. But usually, I work more like a mosaicist —I have a little tile over here, a little tile over there, trying to understand the structure of the big mosaic over a long period of time. It takes a lot of patience to put these different elements together. Musical structure is like that for me too.
double-album of remixes of your work is coming up. How did that happen?
Paul Miller, who is DJ Spooky, came to me around 2005, in my 40th year of working. We did a four-hour marathon at Carnegie Hall where a number of people were doing their versions of my music. I had never done that before. Some people were just playing my music, interpreting it, and some were really making things that I had never heard. Some worked and some didn’t, but it was very exciting to see what people did with the music to make it into their own. From that, Paul said, “I know a lot of remix people and they would love to remix your music.” I think it took awhile for me to open to it. Little by little, particularly after that concert, I realized that’s part of the joy of being surprised. So Paul had people he wanted to ask and I had people I wanted to ask. I also proposed that it would not just be remixes, but also people’s interpretations, like Björk’s interpretation of “Gotham Lullaby.” She really kept the integrity of the piece but found her own way of doing it.
So you weren’t necessarily into remix culture at the time.
No, I didn’t know that much about it, to be honest. The idea of it is interesting. I like the idea of passing on this energy to another generation of musicians, letting them get inside this way of doing things and find their own way in it. I think the ones that are really successful on the remix CD are the people who stayed with the feel or atmosphere of the composition but found their own way of expanding in another direction; I think those are really beautiful.
Education of the Girlchild Revisited, which you’re bringing to Duke Performances—has the solo or your perspective on it changed since you first mounted it in the ‘70s?

Meredith Monk in "Education of the Girl Child," 1973
Uh, yeah. [Laughs] In the original, it started with a group piece, with six women main characters, and the second half was a solo. In this “revisited” version, the solo comes first. When I made the solo, which is kind of a journey or reverie of one’s person life starting from old age and going back to a young woman, I was more the young woman’s age. Now I’m somewhere between the middle-aged woman and the old woman. So it’s very interesting, because in 1972, it was like my fantasy of what my old age would be, and now, the piece is more like my memory of what my body and voice felt like as a young woman. It just keeps on changing and changing as I go along.
It’s so interesting to go back to it. It’s an extremely intense piece, an almost no-drama piece, with very slow movement, very meditative but physically intense. Where it was like, “Oh well, that wouldn’t be so hard to do,” now it’s like, “Oh gosh, my body!” [Laughs] I can jump around and move pretty easily, but to get that concentrated control is really challenging and fascinating. When I feel that I’m on top of it, there are really three characters in that solo, and those personas are coming through me, and there’s a sense of transmutation or something. It’s a sustained 35 minute solo with no break at all.
And then the second half, Shards—we were going to Paris and they were very interested in that late-‘60s, early-‘70s period, as a lot of people in Europe are. I knew I couldn’t do the Girlchildgroup piece because it was too big a production. So I took the music I was writing around the time of Girlchild, such as from Key, my first album from 1971, as well as some music fromGirlchild itself, and I made a new form with three other women that are in my ensemble now. It was so exciting to come back to the material with them and make a brand new form. We love doing the piece, which is more like a music concert with simple images and movement.
You’re giving a talk at the Nasher tonight called “Archaeology of an Artist”—is discussing the work a meaningful part of your process?

Meredith Monk leads a workshop in Paris
I’m really enjoying passing on to a younger audience what this process has been, encouraging them to really follow their own path, because it’s a difficult time in history to be an artist, to have the courage to do what you believe in. It’s not that it isn’t still a struggle for me, but maybe I’m someone who can tell them in a certain way, “You can do this, it will manifest in a different way than it did for me, but you can do what you dream.”
Is the concept of mythic postures recurring over time important in your work?
Absolutely. Archetype, personal myth, universal myth, all those layers. I think what my work says a lot is that life always goes on, and there is this cyclical or spiral aspect of life.
You have so many means of expression at your disposal; how do you decide which combination is right for a given piece?
Sometimes I don’t really know what the form is until I’ve done the piece. There’s a piece calledThe Politics of Quiet where I had the music already when I walked into rehearsal, but I just could not find the theatrical images. I tried everything for months on end. The music was very simple, geometric formations of the ensemble in space, and I realized after we had done the piece that it was like a nonverbal oratorio form. So that’s part of the process, trying to understand what the balance of elements is, what the piece wants and what it needs, what’s extraneous. It’s not an easy process. Hanging out in the unknown is really painful, and you have to be able to live with that. It’s almost like being a detective or something, and you just try to follow the clues.

An Interview with Meredith Monk

 


Mountain Record: When you were starting out after college and had a calling to explore and develop your art — what were some of the questions that propelled you to move forward?
Meredith Monk: I had a number of interests that were all strands of my childhood. I come from a musical family — I’m a fourth generation singer. My mother was a commercial singer and my grandfather had been a bass baritone who came from Russia to the United States, so music was very strong in my family. I loved to sing; even before I spoke words I was singing melodies. And I had some movement background because I was not very coordinated as a child so I studied Dalcroze eurhythmics. That was my first study of movement. I also did a lot of theater. I needed to try to weave those multiple interests together, so when I was at Sarah Lawrence College I designed a combined performing arts program for myself.
When I first came to New York — I had already done a lot of performing and had done some work while I was still in school — I started performing mostly in art galleries and other kinds of alternative performing spaces in New York. And so those pieces were mostly solo pieces combining gesture with image and a little bit of sound. I somehow sensed when I was a teenager that I wanted to do my own work. I was quite clear that I didn’t want to be an interpretative kind of artist. I had an intuition about wanting to create my own form, in one way or another, whatever that would be.
After about the first year in New York, I really missed singing, so I started sitting at the piano and vocalizing again — regular Western European vocalizing. And I had a revelation that the voice could be like the body and that it could have a kind of articulation and flexibility and fluidity like the body has. That I could find my own way of singing that was built on my own voice — that I could find my own vocabulary. And because I had already, as a choreographer, found my way of finding movement, even being quite limited in my technical abilities as a dancer, I already knew that process of how to dig into oneself and find a kind of essential expression.
By taking that same principle and applying that to singing I was able to open up a whole world. Or, I would say, that the whole world of sound opened up to me, that within the voice are male, female, and different ages and landscapes and textures and colors and ways of producing sound. That was one of those moments — I think my whole life path evolved from that.
MR: Once you had found that principle, were there any key issues or areas where you felt compelled to explore and discover how to express your understanding of it?
Meredith Monk: That has been the journey, the path. It’s a continual excavation process, you could say. It’s like being an archeologist of your own instrument as a kind of microcosm of the human voice, of human utterance, of sound itself. By digging into my own voice I’m uncovering feelings and energies for which we don’t have words — it’s like shades of feeling, early human utterance, and essential human nature. All these years, I’ve tried to keep renewing, keep risking and keep trying to find new things.
MR: When you’re looking for new things — what happens when you don’t feel the muse, or the spirit propelling you? Here at the monastery, art practice is an important part of training for many people. One of the challenges for people is to engage the creative process on a schedule, always trying to discover something meaningful.
Meredith Monk: I think about that “empty” space a lot. That emptiness is what allows for something to actually evolve in a natural way. I’ve had to learn that over the years — because one of the traps of being an artist is to always want to be creating, always wanting to produce.
I remember once I had a long period when I thought; “I’ll never have another idea again! I’ve explored everything.” You’ve got this backpack of your history that you’re carrying around — how do you throw that off and really start from beginner’s mind? That gets trickier and trickier as you go along, to not fall into your habitual patterns in the way that you create, in the work itself, or anything.
Well, during that long period when I was feeling really down I read about the Taos pueblo in a book by Mabel Dodge Luhan. She was a society woman in the early twentieth century, and she ended up going to Taos and marrying a Native American from the pueblo. During the winter she wondered why everyone tiptoed around wearing soft moccasins and there was a keeping of so much silence in the pueblo. She asked about it and they said, “We have to make sure that Mother Nature gets her rest. She needs her rest so that everything will bloom in the spring.” I was so touched by that and I realized that that’s the nurturing of those periods that you think are fallow but are actually rich with possibility. You’re alive then and part of the ebb and flow of creation.
MR: When you are working on a new piece how do you find its authentic voice?
Meredith Monk: I think that it is an uncovering process, and I try not to necessarily accept the first or easiest solution. Making a work is a digging down process. I was thinking about it last night — how one of the things in practice is to really be in the moment and accept things as they are. And I was wondering about that in terms of the dissatisfaction aspect, because often one of the problems in art is that people are too easily satisfied. There needs to be some kind of sifting process, where you take the time and patience to work through the easiest and most superficial solutions in order to discover something deeper.
I always think of the way that I work as similar to making a soup. You have vegetables and then you put them in the water and then the vegetables stay vegetables for a while. You just allow them to be separate — the carrots are carrots, the peas are peas and everything is just simmering. You’re working very slowly, and little by little the vegetables start boiling down, and then little by little the soup becomes absolutely essentialized. That’s what I really think the process is about. And that takes some time and patience.
I think I still have some confusion about the critical mind. But it seems that there’s a difference between the critical mind, which is a kind of judgment, and has a harshness built in, cutting off impulses before they can develop, and discriminating intelligence, which can differentiate between what is authentic or genuine and what is contrived or forced. That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.
MR: Last night you said it had been a while since you had performed “Our Lady of the Late.” When you revisit old works do you often find that more is revealed?
Meredith Monk: Sometimes in the past when I was going to perform a piece again I would listen to old recordings and try to reproduce the material. This time I realized that carrying around old information, trying to get everything in, and still be in the moment just doesn’t work.
So this time I didn’t do that. I did listen to an old recording, once, to familiarize myself with the music. But then I rehearsed singing with the glass, exploring the world of each song and went into the performance feeling prepared but with a sense of trust in the moment, rather than saying to myself, ‘I have to remember this little piece of material and that little piece of material.’ Last night I was beginning from a place of freedom and newness in the music. Not having sung it for so many years, I felt like I was really open to discoveries. That’s what the beauty of live performance is, it’s that you’re always in process.
For example, I must have sung the song cycle “Songs from the Hill,” more than a thousand times — I mean I’ve just sung it and sung it and sung it. But every single time there’s something new in it. It’s so interesting, different aspects just reveal themselves every performance; it changes all the time. Even within forms, the form is very disciplined, it’s very precise, but within those forms is incredible freedom. So it’s a kind of balance between discipline and freedom.
MR: That sounds similar to the senior monks’ descriptions of monastic life. There’s this form, this container — the Monastery — and they talk about the freedom within it. Not so different.
Meredith Monk: Yes, the more I go through life I realize that there’s really no separation between practice and art at all. The two things more and more become one rather than two different aspects of my life. Originally, when I started practice I didn’t see how it affected my art particularly, in terms of sheer artistry. I did feel that it affected the way that I worked with other people and the way I viewed my whole life. When I was young I was very developed as an artist but I never really paid much attention to the life part of my life. I was doing my own work by the time I was twenty years old, and I was very driven and very intense. So before I began practice there was this separation — it was like figure/ground. My art was the figure and the ground was the times I wasn’t doing art. So, when I began practicing I was working consciously on the ground, but now its become just one thing. There’s no figure, no ground, or they shift back and forth all the time.
MR: One of the things you’re working on is called the “Impermanence Project.” I was wondering if you could talk about that a bit.
Meredith Monk: A group called Rosetta Life, that sends artists out to hospices in England, came to talk to me in February 2003. I lost my partner of 22 years in November 2002, so I was really in my grieving process — I still am — but I was thinking of nothing but impermanence then.
This organization sends artists to hospices and they work with people who would like to create something of their own, artwork of some kind — it could be photographs, it could be videos, about the dying process. They have a web site where every person that wants to be in the program has their own web page and they make poems. It’s unbelievable. And it’s people from all different classes, even people that are not literate, old, young, all kinds of people in this program.
They were doing a festival in London and they wanted me to contribute something. They said my music could express the voice of the dying. I wasn’t sure whether they wanted me to make a score for work that they were doing with the people in hospice, but I said, “It seems it would be better if I tried to make my own piece, because I do multimedia kind of work and I’d like to try to make my own piece.” And they said, “We’d like the hospice people to recognize themselves in your piece.” And I said, “I’m not sure that I am able to do that because I can’t really make pieces to order. I’m not sure that I could work with other people’s material, because I’m not a storyteller or playwright or something like that.” So I said, “I’ll go there and speak to some of the patients” — that was the first part of the process — “and we’ll see what happens.”
So I went last October. We had a group of six people the first day and six people the second day. The foundation had gotten participants to come to an arts center in London from different hospices. It was a neutral ground. Some of them had never met each other. It was beautiful because they were very supportive of each other’s process. And I sang for them a little bit and we talked about their process, almost as a catalyst, as an inspiration for energy.
My partner sometimes liked to go into the studio and improvise voice things just for fun. When I returned from England I transcribed one of her melodies, and had some of the hospice participants sing it, because they said they liked to sing. Their singing is very raw, but I’m going to use it for the final work. The first half will be a music concert with the Ensemble. After intermission with the house lights up you will hear the hospice patients singing my partner’s melody one by one. Then the house lights go down and the piece begins with a video of extreme close-ups of their faces just looking out, being. There will be very slow dissolves between their faces. Then John Hollenbeck, who’s a wonderful percussionist, will intermittently and softly play the spokes of a bicycle wheel. It’s unbelievable, the sound of the spokes going around and around. Then at the end of the piece, we sing the melody again, but I’ve added harmony and counterpoint to it, and you hear my partner’s voice on tape singing over the voices of the Ensemble at the very end. So, it comes full circle. Within the piece I also sing a solo called “Last Song” with words by James Hillman. The words are a list of phrases using the word “last” in ways that we take for granted — some of them are ironic and some of them are very profound. They are recognizable as words but then they become more and more abstract, dissolving into pure sound.
I’m sure that some of the hospice participants will be in the audience. One of them has already died. And, you know, all of us have impermanence in common. It’s something that all human beings share. We don’t know when, but we do know that we’ll die. So my big aspiration is that whatever we do in July, it will honor these particular people as well as acknowledge that we are all part of the same process of living and dying.

Meredith Monk is a pioneer of extended vocal technique and an entire genre of musical expression, creating works that combine music with movement, image and object, light and sound, in an effort to discover and weave together new modes of perception.

Zeena Parkins - Interview

Harpist Zeena Parkins Is Bringing Her "Disney Sun Ra" Band, The Adorables, to Oakland


Zeena.More-Press.jpg
Zeena Parkins
Zeena Parkins is a quintessential 21st century musician, equally adept as a performer (her custom harp is augmented with a whammy bar), composer, and bandleader. She takes on a remarkably diverse array of roles, including touring with Björk, composing for dance troupes, improvising with electronic artist Ikue Mori in Phantom Orchard, and teaching at Mills College in Oakland.
That job led somewhat indirectly to her current muse The Adorables, a band with percussionist Shayna Dunkelman, electronic musician Preshish Moments (né Michael Carter), and drummer Jordan Glenn, all Mills alums. Parkins describes the band as "Disney Sun Ra," and while it's an apt description, there's quite a bit more going on with their music than any three words can encapsulate. An enchanting mix of exotica, pop, contemporary classical, and electronic beats, The Adorables is at once tranquil in its affect and restless in its construction, an ideal way to soundtrack (or trigger) your most pleasing half-conscious daydreams.
The band, with the exception of drummer Glenn, are based in New York, but will return to their source with a concert at Mills College this Friday, Feb. 1, highlighting selections from their upcoming debut. A few days before their West Coast debut, Parkins spoke with All Shook Down about the genesis of the band, the importance of staying busy, and her work with Björk.
So you're all [the bandmembers] living in New York presently, right?
Yes! In fact, living in the same building. It's turned into a cult.
Tell me how this West Coast excursion came about.
I have been teaching at Mills for four years. I replace Fred Frith['s post] every Spring. I teach one semester a year and just do regular freelance stuff. Mills asked me if I wanted to do a concert this semester and I immediately knew I wanted to do it with The Adorables.
You were working on a more traditional piece when you were invited to perform as The Adorables instead. Can you explain how that worked?
Well, I should say that my whole experience before this band is doing commissions for dance. I'm really connected to that community, and it offers a constant flow of work in different styles. This group came about when a choreographer named Neil Greenberg needed a piece and I decided I wanted a real band onstage with the dancers. I didn't know Mike (Preshish Moments) yet, but I knew Shayna and I knew I wanted that orchestral percussion [that she does]. I also knew I wanted electronics and I wanted beats. So Shayna told me about Mikey and the whole thing kind of fell onto the plate.
I wrote a set of music and we performed it for two weeks with the dance troupe in 2010. By the time it was over, it was clear, 'oh, this is a band.' I knew I wanted to keep writing for this group. And then gigs just kept coming in -- we played Victoriaville [Canadian avant-garde music festival], we did this Undead Festival in New York, and we were getting this great response. It sort of became itself really quickly.
And has this been collaborative or has it been you guiding the material?
So far it's just been me writing all the material, but this kind of psychic communication between me, Mikey, and Shayna has been a big part of how these songs came to be. I'll probably continue to do at least 75 percent of the writing but I'll open it up a bit for the next set we write.
How much of a financial challenge is it to bring a band from one coast to another in this day and age?
Well, it's a near impossibility to have a band. Initially I got enough to pay the other three musicians -- I'm not taking a cut -- and cover the travel. Originally, I wanted to do a West Coast tour, but that wasn't gonna be feasible. You just find ways to make what you have work. It all depends on where you are in your career and how much you're willing to sacrifice. For me, I would like us to get paid for gigs. That's probably going to be more at festival shows than one-off gigs.
Most musicians are defining success right now as not losing money, especially when you're playing music that's hard to categorize. If you're playing something that doesn't fall into a neat category, you're probably doing other things for income.
Right. The thing is I made it doubly harder for myself by insisting on super-lush orchestration. We're not just going out with drums, bass, and guitar. We're going out with not one but two harps, and vibes, and concert bass drums, and glockenspiel, and tams! So even though in some ways it's kind of a rock band, it's more of a mini-orchestra. The inspiration is definitely Disney Sun Ra. Like a big band playing super-lush film music.
Did you say Disney Sun Ra?
Yeah, I did. He did some music for Disney that was super-inspirational. So that orchestral lushness combined with electronics.
You have this 21st century musical career that John Zorn sort of pioneered where you do a little bit of everything: composing, performing, collaborating, and teaching. What else is on your plate right now?
I'm writing for this "Body Photography" choreography and working with Neil Greenberg again. I'm also working on a new solo harp project, for electric harp. I also finished a piece called "Scatterings" for the Eclipse Quartet and [percussionist] William Winant that I'm super excited about. And I just did this commission for a group in New York called Ne(x)tworks based on the Walter Benjamin Archives, using a different method of communicating with players through a moving graphic score, objects, and regular notation.
So you're kinda busy.
Yeah. And my duo with Ikue Mori, Phantom Orchard, just released an orchestral record of our music. So there's no lack of wonderful projects. Oh, and I'm still playing with Björk. It's not 100 percent confirmed but we're supposed to play shows in May and June in SF.
What are your impressions of the Bay Area versus New York.
Well, since I've been here [in California] I've been kind of a hermit. I'm in my beautiful Mills campus bubble.
Are you more social in New York or is that also a time for hermitage?
Definitely more social. The lines between my friends and collaborators are blurrier.
The vibe is so different out here, though. This is the world of running out and taking a hike near a volcano and seeing mountain lions and eating incredible food.
There's definitely a big emphasis corporeal satisfaction out here.
Yeah, and I feel those urges tugging at me when I'm here, challenging my workaholic nature!

Interview Pierre-Henry Gagey Louis Jadot


Louis Jadot is one of the most well-known houses in Burgundy. Louis Jadot is famous for the quality and the regularity of its wines. Louis Jadot provides a wide range of Burgundy wines able to satisfy all wine lovers. A good opportunity to meet Louis Jadot chairman, Pierre-Henry Gagey.
 
You followed after your father André Gagey at Louis Jadot's head about a dozen of years ago, what did he bring to you?
I joined Louis Jadot in 1985. My studies and professional life were completely outside of the wine business. In fact, it brought me great advantages and allowed me to develop a vision very different from the world of wine and a more open-minded spirit.
My father, who managed Louis Jadot since 1962 taught me almost everything about wine. He played an essential role in the life of Louis Jadot because the spirit of Louis Jadot's house was created around him and nowadays the same spirit still prevails.

And what have you brought yourself that was different?
My goal from the first beginning was very clear: continue and try to improve the model which had been set up by three generations of Jadot then by my father. This model worked perfectly well. Quality first. One brand. Only one label. An idea to reasonably grow without putting first quantity or profit instead of quality.
When I joined Louis Jadot, my father worked with a senior accountant and with Jacques Lardière as technical manager. That's all. We then tried to set up a team in order to prevent Louis Jadot from relying only on two persons, as qualified as they may be. Today, it is the team behind Louis Jadot that is the important asset and is enabling us to develop harmoniously throughout the world.

Louis Jadot is currently owned by an American family (the Kopf family) who are your US importer through Korbrand. What are the benefits and what do you expect in the future?
Louis Jadot has the chance to be a family company which belonged to the Jadot family between 1859 and 1985 and which was bought by the Kopf family. Actually three American sisters. It was at the time when I joined my father. It is a great chance for us because our shareholders are in love with Burgundy and have always wanted to give to Louis Jadot the means to express great quality wines with no compromise. Louis Jadot would not be what it is today without these shareholders, either Jadot or Kopf. They are always listening to our needs and are very proud to produce the best possible wine.

Pierre Henry interview


For years the list of people who I wanted to interview was headed by Pierre Henry. Together with Pierre Schaeffer, Henry was one of the founding fathers of musique concrète. He was especially interesting to me because after an initial close relationship with the "official teachings" of musique concrète Henry chose his own path. Having left the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (G.R.M.), Henry successfully set up his own studio and pursued his own career.
His latest release is L'Homme a le Camera, based on the film by Dziga Vertov with the same title. For this interview the questions were faxed to M. Henry. For his answers he set up a little sketch, his assistant assuming the role of interviewer. This fake interview was recorded and the tape returned.

The composer: Pierre Henry

After your musical training you started to investigate the nature of sounds. When was that and why?
Why did I suddenly want to start to work with a new musical universe? This was at practically the end of my formal musical studies. I have said it many times and I will tell it again now: I started to listen to the world around me, outside and in my parents' garden, inside the house where I had started my musical studies at the piano and vocal scales. Well, all of it must have been due to my fondness for noises. I had started my career as a percussionist quite early, beating on anything around me; furniture, the tables, the drums. I arrived at the moment of creating a noise, and went on to create something entirely new, an unheard sound that was much more complex and extraordinary. At the beginning I wanted very much to create something strange.
Henry loved the theatrical presentation of music, admiring Wagner for example. He also became an ardent admirer of the ballet of Maurice Bejart. With Bejart's group Henry travelled the world as sound engineer. He also composed many works for ballet. La Messe Pour Le Temps Present became a very popular piece of music that was scored for ballet. He expressed this fondness for dramatic theatre in compositions, staged in large halls, that had the atmosphere of (pagan?) masses, lasting at least three hours without a break.
In the 60s you worked with the rock group Spooky Tooth on Ceremony. Why was that?
The reason for this was much more commercial than artistic. The great success of La Messe Pour Le Temps Present and Les Jerks Electroniques with Michel Colombier gave my editor at Philips the idea that I should work together with an English group to make a thematic album, based on the idea of the Mass. When this started, I didn't know these people at all, and I accepted for a number of reasons which would not interest me now, but to me this enterprise was totally without any result for years. I am planning a new work with a rock group, but I can't say anything about that now.
Henry went to London to supervise the recordings. He brought the tapes home and began the editing process. "He didn't like the heavy basses and the voice drowned in reverb, so he composed a sort of counterpart Ceremony II. This work is a myriad of little additional movements based on concrete sounds, beaten tam-tams, carillons, forming little pagan rites for an imaginary savage religion." (Michel Chion). Perhaps that shows how Henry looks at pop music; a pagan ritual.
Were you interested in the popular side of electronic music?
To me that is not a big deal, because my music has never been truly electronic. It's music for tape, an electro-acoustic music. It leaves me a bit cold. A creator does not search for immediate success.
But do you look around you at what happens with electronics in popular music?
Well, actually, I don't have the time to have a pressing curiosity in that area. I hold tight to my own formulae and my system. Moreover, I think this music becomes more and more polluted ... this music is absolutely disgraceful on the radio, at the cinema, in adverts. And I see that at the moment there is one sound. Not sounds. One single sound, everywhere. It's a sound that has been standardised. It's a sound that is produced digitally, and it all comes down to the same sound, which is a painful thing at this end of the century.
What was the effect on you, when you scored a number 1 hit single in the French charts?
But I haven't been number one in the hit parade! That is a big misunderstanding! The record was released in a category of classical music, and I was judged by the standards of classical music, not of pop or rock music. In the same list, 2nd and 3rd, were the Concerto de AranjuezThe Four Seasons, Albinoni. So, all in all, the young people were right to buy La Messe Pour Le Temps Present and Le Voyage, La Porte Et Un Soupir. But it was a list of classical music.
You did attract large audiences at your live concerts. Did you feel like a rock star?
I have met with the appreciation of a large public that was interested in my concerts. I believe that everywhere where I have performed interpretations of my work, I received an immediate response from the audience. Whereas, with the release of records, the reactions of the audience are quite remote. Now it is more interesting for the audience, because the records are copied, and less interesting for the composer. But overall, the music gets everywhere which is basically a good thing. But don't forget that as well as discs, there is also radio. I have renewed my acquaintance with the radio waves recently.
I think it must have been an awkward experience to suddenly see masses of people crazed over your music.
I was not very much embarrassed by this because I was always occupied by my music. And by its continuity.
Could one say that your reputation from the 70s is what has brought you into the Mantra label's catalogue?
I don't think so, because Mantra has a catalogue that features music that differs from mine, even though that music too is outside of the norm. The label believes in my music. No, there's nothing to be astonished about. These people happen to like my music. They're nice people and they want to release my work. I'm quite content with this label.

Basis: music / sound

Using non-musical sounds inside a traditionally musical context is one thing. In the 50s (and 60s) we saw electronic composers work with electronic sounds inside a classical musical structure. Do new sounds require, or even lead to new compositional structures? Michel Chion, in his book "L'Art des Sons Fixés" advocates a compositional approach that is different from the classical (notated) manner. Not (only) work according to a preconceived structure and sound-palette but adopting the approach that the material induces as well. That is, improvising in the studio. Working by trial and error.
How do you set to work? Do you work like the classical composer, writing things down and then executing them (collect sound material, equipment, record, and edit)?
Like you say ... these new structures, the way you say it, that's like putting the horse behind the cart. One of course has to compose with a direction, a lucid idea. One has to have in mind a certain construction, a form. But that form differs according to the theme, to the character of the work and of course according to the material. A work like Le Voyage [a piece based almost entirely on feedback - IS]has a form, another like La Porte another one. And another work that requires a voice or chanting ... every work has its form, but this form is there in the art of creation. I think that from the beginning of my work I have been more original in my form than in my material.
Pierre Schaeffer wanted to educate composers (and as a result of that, of course, audiences, too) to find a new way of experiencing music, a sort of "pure listening experience" somehow even coming close to the theories of John Cage. It has become clear, through the years, that you do not see things that way. Although you use sounds 'clean' (with a very clear relationship and association to its source), you use it in such a manner (by encapsulating it in a structure, or combining it with other sounds) that it becomes disassociated from its source, or perhaps becomes an icon, a metaphor. Sometimes this leads towards a solemn, and theatrical atmosphere. What is the function of a sound in your composition? Is it a metaphor?
No, but as you already say in your words it is certain ... my work is so varied that there are works where sounds are exposed with their tempered notes like La Noire à Soixante and others which are truly life; the development of sound and its multiplication, its transformation, its mutation, I think that is the better word for it, like in Le Livre de Morts Egyptien. There are sometimes no laws, basically. My sounds are sometimes ideograms. The sounds need to disclose an idea, a symbol ... I often very much like a psychological approach in my work, I want it to be a psychological action, with a dramatic or poetic construction or association of timbre or, in relation to painting, of colour. Sounds are everywhere. They do not have to come from a library, a museum. The grand richness of a sound palette basically determines the atmosphere. At the moment I try to manufacture a certain 'tablature de serie'. I won't talk about it. I almost become a late serialist. After a big vehement expressive period, post-romantic, I think that now I'm going into a period of pure ideas. It all reminds me very much of my work of the 50s.
Can you tell something about what sound is, and/or what it means in your work?
It is more a phrase. Contemporary digital sound is very realistic, but also very impersonal, it's not a word but an atom, almost virtual. The words together become phrases. These phrases are combined by me.

Material: themes

The atmosphere and themes of your work have changed through the years. When we listen to your early work it is noticeable that humour plays a part. This is hardly ever present in the work (that I know) of the last 20 years. I also notice that in the early days you regarded yourself as a man of modern times, who wants to break with the history of music, become a composer with modern means. This unruly, stubborn attitude later on seems less emphatically present.
What do think of that yourself? Do you still think one should destroy all music?
Well, the things that one says at the age of 20 are, of course, not the same as those one would say at the age of 60 ... I believe that every day one destroys their past. My earlier works are not literally destroyed of course, but when I listen to one after the other they are non-existent now. I don't regard myself as more or less revolutionary now than in the beginning, but now I compose works that are less spontaneous, and more reflective on the things that I see around me, comprising issues of philosophy and metaphysics, radiating a certain serenity which is, I think, a natural thing for an artist. After years of hard work one arrives at a sort of peace and one tries to restrain one's language.
Death is an important issue in your work. I think of Le VoyageLe Livre des Morts Egyptien and Le Livre des Morts Thibetain. Why are you so fascinated with the theme?
That's very difficult to say. I think it is the emotional part of my self. I have had many relations who have died. I think that the loss of a friend or a loved one invoke emotions and these emotions are also the emotions that come from tragedies or stories. Death is a great subject for a work. On the other hand I prefer birth, but to me, artistically, I like very much the notion of death, more than birth. I believe that one departs from the end and works towards the beginning.

The composer and the field of electroacoustic composition

In 1964 you made a prophecy for a newspaper. Fifty years later there would be less other music, but more electronic music. We are now 30 years on the way to 2014. Indeed electronics play an important part in the production of music of these days. What do you think of the developments?
I have said that these developments were an inflation of the imagination musically and soundwise because ... I believe that the dressing up of electronics by CD-ROM and all the communications techniques, I think that this adventure will turn back at the music made with a twisted voice ... that's a pity because, for example, people with a fantastic creative mind will be submerged in showbiz. They will be overloaded with synthesizers. I now have strong confidence that we will reach a musical life.
You are a film enthusiast. Brigitte Massin once said that in your studio you sometimes write down your composition like a filmscript. Does the notion of "acousmatism" [the musical equivalent of cinematography - Ed.] appeal to you?
I can't see the relation between film and the acousmatic. I think that cinema is a way of imagining life, the rhythm, whereas the acousmatic is a way of catching it. One should not confuse a cinema with the film that is projected.
When I listen to contemporary electronic and electroacoustic music I see that to many composers one aspect is very important: the use of technology and the meaning it has to the composer. Of course the management of the machine/instrument that one plays is quite important. And composers of electronic or electroacoustic music have the disadvantage of having to learn to play new (and improved?) instruments every month. When listening to many contemporary compositions I hear a composer who is still impressed by his machinery. As a result we hear beautiful sounds that only function as a catalogue of the capabilities of the equipment used. Creative aesthetic statement seems to have become of minor importance. I see that in this regard you stand out from the crowd of composers. Why is it that in your music this pre-occupation with machinery in most cases is absent? And (having asked you about your relation with sound): what is your attitude towards your machinery?
That's very simple. I have always had a battle with the machines; not for aesthetic reasons but for reasons of quality. At the beginning of music concrète we worked with discs, but the result of copying a piece of sound was quite poor. So I have always struggled to have the sounds retain their transparency. Now I have conquered these problems, thanks to digital techniques. It is possible to make a perfect copy, but I am worried about the machines doing the work that I should be doing. This is the case with many of the logical catalogues that are available to which one can subscribe. The computer works instead of you. The computer has decided. I think that we now live in a dangerous age because the composer should certainly not work with a tap, that he can open or close. That's a very bad development.
I try to work without any specific machinery and when I find a machine ... I find a machine interesting when I have twisted it without knowing. That's same thing like in painting. I love it when the objects have been led away from their function. When working with a filter, and this filter turns a sound into something entirely new and unexpected, that interests me more because I am less connected to the style of the machine and its function than to the source of the sound. The source of a sound interests me because that's the adventure of mind's world. There are particular sounds that interest me because they have been cut in certain fashion, because they have a certain roughness, because perhaps there are these stories that have not been entirely excised. An analogy: Raymond Roussel wrote his books with mirrored images with coded words and I use coded sounds and shallow sounds and sounds that tell a story. And these latter sounds to me are The Sound.
The second aspect is a direct consequence of the first one: your music is able to express a clear-cut statement, just because you concentrate on what you want to express. You make quite dramatic statements. Is that caused by a passion for stage presentations?
It is not easy. It is a passion for the dramaturgy and also for the psychological problems of this age, the suspense and the curiosity as to where society will go. Music to me is also finding a solution. I am very much interested by the language of sounds and more still to make with the sounds a personal theatre where there are actors who meet and then fight or embrace.
Is it an emotion?
It's an emotion, but ... it's me who steers them and they stem from myself. They do not necessarily have to be emotional. They exist.
The electronic/electroacoustic composer is often a lonely man, sitting behind his desk with his tools. In your case, most of the photographs I have seen picture you in a live situation. You did some large scale live performances. Were these the consequence of your popularity in the 60s and 70s? Did you attract a large and broad audience?
Well, I wanted an audience that was adapted to a certain condition. I wanted a concert that was made theatrical by decoration, light, glass, sounds. Certainly also by the spatialisation of the sounds that were made audible. These concerts were given in boxing venues, churches and concert halls. I certainly had a long period of well-attended concerts but now it is different because the audience now has the radio and the discs.
Nowadays many people hear music at home. Electronic music has certainly drawn back inside the cocoon of the living room. Many of your works have been designed for stage performance. How do you feel about this situation? Why is stage performance so important to you?
The concert is an artistic performance. A concert work must be re-recorded and re-edited for home listening. When I make a version for home, this version is aimed at a close listening, but it must be more profound and richer. Both situations and both versions are interesting. Practically all my important works have been released on disc but only the future will tell what will happen in the area of concerts.

Context

Henry was almost the opposite of Pierre Schaeffer, the godfather of musique concrète. Schaeffer was a thinker, a theoretician, and not a musician. Schaeffer was interested in concrete sounds from a theoretical point of view. Henry on the other hand was a trained composer, and most of all audacious, ready to set about things. Concrete sounds were interesting to him as a means for composing music. The two Frenchmen had in common their curiosity and a maniacal search for order. But whereas Schaeffer got stuck in ordering his thoughts about sound and instrumentation, in search for a totally experience of music, Henry in 1958 left the Paris institute to set up his private studio, where he could work with his sounds without being bothered by bureaucratic rules and regulations.

History

Pierre Henry was born in Paris in 1927. He never went to school; his teachers came to his house. Being of feeble health he had to do gymnastic excercises and perhaps that is the reason that he developed a strong feeling for rhythm. In 1944 he studied at the conservatory; piano and percussion with Passeronne, composition with Nadia Boulanger and harmony with Olivier Messiaen. Henry is an ardent film lover and visits the cinema two or three times a week. "Le Ballet Mecanique" by Fernand Leger is a great inspiration because of the direct link between sound and vision. In 1949 he received a commission to write music for a television documentary called "Seeing the Invisible". He then started working with the 'disque souple', the writable record. The tape recorder was not yet available in a practical model. He by then had already made acquaintance with Pierre Schaeffer and with the music of Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Walter Ruttmann etc. When Schaeffer asked Henry, because of his skills as a percussionist and at the piano, to assist him with the Symphonie pour un Homme Seul in 1950, the career as a composer of musique concrète or, better, electroacoustic music has taken a lift-off.
The early electroacoustic compositions, dating from 1950, show Henry dabbling about with sounds recorded with the disque souple recorder, much in the same vein as Schaeffer. The structure, however, is much more complicated. Whereas Schaeffer keeps to simple classical and rhythmical structures, Henry shows much more insight into complex composition.
In 1964 Henry produced his Jerks Electronique with a 'song' called Psyche Rock under the pseudonym Yper Sound. It sold some 150,000 copies. It made Henry instantly famous, not only with connoisseurs of avant garde art but also with the man in the street. A few years ago its echo was to be heard in the background of a house music record. Anyway, it enabled Henry to make a good deal with the Philips label. Although always following his own path, Henry has never been a solitary closed man. His friendship with dancer Maurice Bejart has taken him all over the world. Henry has produced music for films and advertisements.
Another difference between Schaeffer (and the disciples of his theories) and Henry was that Henry did not follow the Husserlian ideas about music. To Henry sound has never been interesting as a phenomenon as such. That's why he denies the existence of noise; there is only sound. The sound that is there for music. To Henry, emotion, he calls it nature, is to be captured in music. That's a fundamental step over the line that Schaeffer had drawn.
Towards the end of the 70s the public attention died down, but Henry continued to develop his music. Through the years Henry's work has gradually changed from spikey, and sometimes even anarchistic (certainly for the well-behaved musical society of the 50s) towards themes that are more sincere and more reflective. Perhaps it is because of these themes, not fit for a society that welcomes the energy and ideas of punk-rock and anarchy, that Henry has remained more in the background. In 1989 however, the WDR broadcast a radio-play in three episodes, each lasting 180 minutes, on Proust's "A La Recherche...". In 1990 a new work was released: Le Livre des Morts Egyptien. Henry has been invited to perform the work on several occasions around the world. Let us listen to Henry's music from a cool distance.

Recordings

Henry's works have in the past been released on vinyl by Philips, all of which have been long deleted. Much to my regret because what I did know of his work I have been able to purchase at fleamarkets. But sound quality was poor of course. Philips only rereleased the Variations pour Une Porte et Un Soupir on CD a couple of years ago. Now French label Mantra has rereleased a series of works by Henry. I was amazed to see this because the Mantra catalogue for the most part features New Age, Krautrock and hippy music. Henry however doesn't seem to be worried by this marketing anomaly. So why should we? The quality of the releases is excellent.

Les Années 50 (3CD)

This trio surveys the early works of Henry when he still worked with Pierre Schaeffer. As with many creative people the early work in hindsight reveals the core of the later work. The core of Henry's work are the piano (snares) and percussion. They are abundantly present on these three discs. The later solemnity of the work of Henry is completely absent in these works. Humour plays a part (Vocalises), and we hear comments on jazz music (Tabou Clairon). Now and again there is a wildness and freakiness that Nurse With Wound could only dream of (the hilarious Kesquidi, something like a Marx Bros film on tape).

Messe de Liverpool / Pierres Reflechies

A time warp and arriving in 1967 brings us to Liverpool, with its monstrous concrete cathedral. Henry had been asked to compose music for the inaugurational mass. Henry by that time already wore the aura of being a composer with a deep affection for public performances of a mass-like character. Messe de Liverpool is structured as a classical Catholic mass. Starting with a Kyrie, moving on with Gloria,SanctusAgnus Dei, and finishing with Communion. The work consists of recitation of the traditional texts in a way that is definitely Buddhist. These voices are supported by traditional musical instruments that are traditionally played at first but after some ten minutes they are played in a typically Henry-esque fashion: plucking and scratching the snares. Pierres Reflechies, composed in 1982, bears all the characteristics of the contemporary Henry: ostinatos of a certain number of instruments that are placed, superimposed over each other in thousands of combinations that differ only slightly. This description makes one think of minimal music. But this is much more anarchistic, more undisciplined. Here the ideograms that Henry speaks of in the interview are applied. Some parts reminded me very much of theCristal-Memoires radio-play that he composed for the German radio (which is to my opinion, next to the Apocalypse is the best he ever did). In this composition Proust's work is translated in sound, which of course has all to do with ideogrammes and synaesthesia. Pierres Reflechies is dedicated to the late Pierre Schaeffer.

Mouvement, Rhythme, Etude

This work is dedicated to a close friend of Henry: Maurice Bejart, the famous dancer. Henry has composed numerous works for ballet, which were staged by the dancers of Bejart. In the early days Henry even accompanied the dance group all over the world. This work is exactly what the title says: it's a study of movement and rhythm. Starting of with very simple beats that meet with the reversed sound of scraped metal wires. Track 2 is a play for blowing balloons and a person saying: 'pssh' and 'psst'. Talking about humour. Track 3 is instrumental and quite acoustic whereas track 4 is entirely electronic. And that's how it continues. The whole things consists of 21 etudes for a ballet dancer.

L'Apocalypse de Jean (2CD)

This is Henry's masterpiece. Actually there is nothing much to say about the composition when one decides not to dissect the work in exegesis. The apocalypse, spooky already in the literary form, is performed in a fashion that makes the hair on your back stand up. Henry's translation of the different scenes, using no doubt the ideograms, is more than perfect and the narration that accompanies the auditive scenery brings shivers down your spine. When your French is below average I advise you to read along with the music in your own language. Try to find a Bible somewhere. John's apocalypse inspired Clive Barker too, you know.

Le Livre Des Morts Eqyptien

Death is an important theme in Henry's work. The Egytian book of the Dead therefore is an ideal theme for Henry to work on. The ideograms that are essential in this composition are magnificently worked out. The course that the sounds take is quite dramatic and theatrical. The introduction is awe-inspiring. Henry follows in the subsequent scenes quite exactly the course that the dead person will go when on his/her trip towards the realm of the dead. The associations with large pyramids and ancient Egypt are but one layer in this 'spectacle'.

L'Homme A La Camera

Based on the film by Dziga Vertov. Here again Henry's love for the filmic genre is shown. Actually this work should not be listened to without seeing the images. The titles give a clue about the scenery but that's hardly enough. Indeed, we can hear Henry go back to what he calls the pure composition that he favoured in his early works. In this soundtrack the large and dramatic movements are absent. The music is as machine-like as the film is. It tries to abstract the concrete.

Contact

Pierre Henry, Studio Son Re, 32 rue de Toul, 75012 Paris, FRANCE
Mantra, FGL, 45 rue Brancian, 75015 Paris, FRANCE
Ios Smolders, Molenstraat 84, 5014 NE Tilburg, HOLLAND
The majority of these recordings are available in the UK from Ultima Thule, 1 Conduit St., Leicester LE2 0JN; or via distributors such as Harmonia Mundi.

This interview was made possible thanks to Jerome Noetinger of Metamkine. For those who would like to read more on the life of Pierre Henry, Michel Chion wrote a biography in 1980, published by Fayard in Paris, and available from Metamkine, 13 rue de la Drague, 38600 Fontaine, France. The interview and text are by and © Ios Smolders, and originally appeared in issue 44 of Vital magazine, in 1995. This version has been slightly edited by Brian Duguid; some quotes by Ios, Henry and Michel Chion have been altered to make them read better in English.

Pierre Boulez talks to Peter Culshaw

Pierre Boulez: 'I was a bully, I’m not ashamed'

Composer Pierre Boulez, one of the greatest and most controversial figures in classical music, is as combative and unrepentant as ever. He talks to Peter Culshaw .



Is Pierre Boulez a bully? Earlier this year, Boulez, one of the most distinguished figures in contemporary music, was accused of being one by the American writer Alex Ross in his award-winning book The Rest is Noise, a survey of 20th-century music.
“Certainly I was a bully,” Boulez says in his languid French accent when I meet him at his office in IRCAM, the experimental music institute he oversees in Paris. “I’m not ashamed of it at all. The hostility of the establishment to what you were able to do in the Forties and Fifties was very strong. Sometimes you have to fight against your society.”
Ross, among other things, accuses Boulez of intimidating Stravinsky, and disrupting his concerts in the Fifties.
“I may have booed at one of his concerts, but the incident he is referring to was some of my fellow students of Messaien rather than me. We all felt that Stravinsky’s neo-classical period was a dead-end street, a waste of time.”
After meeting Boulez, Stravinsky started to write in a more atonal, serialist manner. “Well, he was actually quite independent and open-minded, and decided he didn’t want to be left on the side of the street.”
At 83, Boulez, a celebrated composer, conductor and musical activist, is still a controversial figure. Even if he no longer believes as he once did that opera houses should be burnt down, he is as opinionated and energetic as ever. There is a certain lofty amusement about his pronouncements: he wields the knife with a smile these days.
He’s rather delighted when I tell him I was looking at a YouTube recording of his composition Sur Incises, which he performed this week at the Southbank with his Ensemble Intercontemporain; the audience reaction is passionately split between those who see it as “preposterous drivel” perpetrated by a “state-funded fraud”, and others talking of its “gorgeous timbres” and one raving about its “diamond-like clarity”.
Many, perhaps most, well-known modern composers get short shift from Boulez. The minimalists like Glass and Reich “are too simple to be interesting”. John Adams? “I cannot say I will spit on his music, but I cannot admire it either. His opera The Death of Klinghoffer sounded like bad film music.” John Cage, whom he knew in the Forties, was “very trivial”. Erik Satie “could be funny, but was a small man.”
This week in London, he is celebrating the centenaries of Oliver Messiaen and Elliott Carter, two composers he does, with reservations, rate. He is performing several works of Carter, who is still, remarkably, composing.
“He found his style with effort. First, he was impressed by Charles Ives, then he went to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and went in for a neo-classical style. But eventually he found his own style, which was rather complex. His recent works are more simple, and easier to grasp, but still interesting.”
As for Messiaen, “he found his voice very quickly, even before the war. He was a very good teacher, and I liked his more adventurous works. But then you find a conventional or even banal melodic phrase, or he finished with a C major chord, which I found puzzling.” Perhaps that was to do with his religious mysticism? “You don’t need C major to find eternity.”
A comment someone made about the music of the Fifties, when Boulez established his enduring influence, was that after the war “it was necessary to be ugly”. Boulez agrees that his generation hated the stirring, transcendent music encouraged by the totalitarian societies in Germany and Russia during the war and were reacting strongly against it. Boulez says he also hates most pop music for similar reasons. “Some of it is lively, but the 1-2-3-4 of the rhythms reminds me of marching music.”
One strong influence he does admit to is his studies of African drumming, Balinese and Japanese music in the 1940s at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris.
“I almost chose the career of an ethnomusicologist because I was so fascinated by that music. It gives a different feeling of time.”
It’s one element that gives some of his, especially later, music a certain sensuality and rhythmic appeal amid the atonal harshness.
“People see me as a theoretician, but my music is also seductive, even spiritual.” He does comment, however, that he has yet to find God.
Boulez still does a limited amount of teaching, something he feels is best done as a “short and violent” activity, and even his musical enemies such as John Adams (who called Boulez “a mannerist… a niche composer… a master with a very small hammer”) acknowledge his prowess as a conductor, especially of contemporary works, which he has performed with many of the great orchestras of the world.
He still works on new compositions, but how does he keep fresh and stop becoming a grand old man, a “pompous bore” (as he said Duchamp, for example, became). “A lot of it is keeping in touch with new composers. I encourage them, and then I find out if there’s anything they are doing that is worth stealing”.
• Ensemble Intercontemporain performs works of Elliott Carter and Boulez at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (0871 663 2500) on Thursday night.