BOULEZ, PIERRE

born March 26, 1925, Montbrison, France most significant French composer of his generation, as well as a noted conductor and music theorist. Boulez, the son of a steel manufacturer, majored in mathematics at the Collge de Saint-tienne, where he also studied music; he later studied mathematics, engineering, and music in Lyon. In 194445 he studied with the composer and organist Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire. Subsequently (194546), he studied the 12-tone technique with Ren Leibowitz, a pupil of its originator, Arnold Schoenberg. In 1954 Boulez founded a series of avant-garde concerts, the Concerts Marigny, later called Domaine Musicale. By the 1960s Boulez had gained an international reputation not only as a composer but also as a conductor, particularly of the 20th-century repertoire. He was affiliated with the Southwest (German) Radio Symphony Orchestra in Baden-Baden, West Germany, and from 1967 to 1972 he was principal guest conductor of the Cleveland (Ohio) Orchestra. He was named chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (London) and music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1971. He resigned after the 197677 season and returned to Paris to direct the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique, the experimental music centre in the Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou. During the 1960s and '70s he also conducted works of Richard Wagner at Bayreuth. Beginning in the early 1990s, Boulez appeared with the Cleveland and Chicago Symphony orchestras and undertook to rerecord several 20th-century masterworks with these groups. He also conducted part of the New York Philharmonic's 150th anniversary concert on Dec. 7, 1992. Boulez' complex, serialist music is marked by a sensitivity to the nuances of instrumental texture and colour, a concern also apparent in his conducting. His earlier compositions combine the influence of the 12-tone composers with that of Messiaen and, through him, of certain Oriental music. Boulez was also influenced by the work of the poets Stphane Mallarm and Ren Char. In his Sonatine (1946), for flute and piano, the 12-tone imitations and canons fly so fast as to leave an impression merely of movement and texture. In Structures, Book I (1952), for two pianos, the actual 12-tone series is simply taken from a work of Messiaen's; but Boulez elaborates it to a remarkable degree in strict permutations of pitch, duration, and dynamics. Le Marteau sans matre (The Hammer Without a Master, 1954) for voice and six instruments has florid decorative textures that flow into one another, with voice and instruments rising and falling with the utmost apparent spontaneity. Boulez' innovativeness was demonstrated in Pli selon pli (Fold According to Fold; first performed 1960), in which performers must orient themselves by maintaining a constant awareness of the structure of the work. In his Piano Sonata No. 3, as in Pli selon pli, he introduced elements of aleatory (chance) music. Boulez' other works include Le Visage nuptial (composed 194650) for two voices, women's chorus, and orchestra; Posie pour pouvoir (first performed 1958) for two orchestras; Structures, Book II (completed 1961), for two pianos; clat (published 1965) for chamber orchestra of 15 instruments; Domaines (1968) for solo clarinet and 21 instruments; and Rpons (first performed 1981), for chamber orchestra, six solo instruments, and computer. Boulez wrote a number of theoretical works on 20th-century music, including Penser la musique aujourd'hui (1964; Thinking of Music Today), Relevs d'apprenti (1966; Raised from Apprenticeship), and Par volont et par hasard (1975; By Choice and by Chance). His writings are collected in Points de repre (1981; Orientations).