Hommage à Boulez West-Eastern Divan Orchestra & Daniel Barenboim

• Pierre Boulez (1925 - 2016): Dérive 2 (1988–2006/2009):
• 1 Dérive 2 48:59
• Dialogue de l’ombre double (1984):
• 2 Sigle initial 01:05
• 3 Strophe I 02:21
• 4 Transition I à II 00:59
• 5 Strophe II 01:38
• 6 Transition II à III 01:47
• 7 Strophe III 01:19
• 8 Transition III à IV 00:46
• 9 Strophe IV 01:56
• 10 Transition IV à V 00:26
• 11 Strophe V 01:18
• 12 Transition V à VI 00:54
• 13 Strophe VI 01:45
• 14 Sigle final 03:00
• Mémoriale (1985/1993):
• 15 Mémoriale 05:49
• Le Marteau sans maître (1953/1955):
• 16 Avant l'artisanat furieux. Rapide 01:56
• 17 Commentaire I de bourreaux de solitude. Lent 04:43
• 18 L'artisanat furieux. Modéré sans rigeur 02:27
• 19 Commentaire II de bourreaux de solitude. Rapide 04:21
• 20 Bel edifice et les pressentiments – Version première. Assez vif 04:10
• 21 Bourreaux de solitude. Assez lent 04:40
• 22 Aprés l'artisanat furieux. Rapide 01:08
• 23 Commentaire III de bourreaux de solitude. Assez lent 06:06
• 24 Bel édifice et les pressentiments – Double. Tempo libre de récit 08:34
• Anthèmes 2 (1997):
• 25 Lent - /I Libre 00:29
• 26 I.Très lent, avec beaucoup de flexibilité – I/ II Libre 01:16
• 27 II. Rapide, dynamique, très rythmique, rigide – II/ III Libre 02:18
• 28 III. Lent, régulier - Nerveux, irrégulier – III/ IV Libre 01:49
• 29 IV. Agité, instable – IV/V Libre 01:48
• 30 V. Très lent, avec beaucoup de flexibilité - Subitement nerveux et extrêmement irrégulier – V/VI Libre 01:23
• 31 VI. 1. Allant, assez serré dans le tempo 02:24
• 32 VI. 2. Calme, régulier - Agité - Brusque 05:18
• 33 VI. 3. Calme, sans traîner, d'un mouvement très régulier - Libre 02:59
• Messagesquisse (1976/1977):
• 34 Très lent 03:06
• 35 Très rapide 02:12
• 36 Sans tempo, libre 04:17
• 37 Aussi rapide que possible 00:56
• Total Runtime 02:22:22

Info for Hommage à Boulez

Hommage à Boulez celebrates Daniel Barenboim’s and Pierre Boulez’ association, starting in June 1964, that for length and multifariousness, has few parallels in the history of music.

Pierre Boulez, one of the most distinguished musical personalities of our time, was honored with a very special gift on his 85th birthday. His close friend and artistic collaborator Daniel Barenboim arranged a concert with three key compositions by Boulez. the works were performed by members of Barenboim’s West-eastern Divan Orchestra at the Berlin Staatsoper “Unter den Linden”. at the helm was, next to Barenboim, the vigorous and highly concentrated Boulez himself.

the concert opens with “Messagesquisse” (1976), which is typical of Boulez’ late 1970s period. it leaves behind the strict serialism of the 1950s and opts for a more emotional musical idiom. Written in 1997, “Anthèmes 2” for solo violin and live electronics is a perfect example of the fusion of traditional instrumental colors and new electronic sounds. the closing work is Boulez’ early masterpiece, the work with which he made his international break- through as one of the leading gures of the young avant-garde generation: “le Marteau sans maître”. the nine-movement work pays tribute to the music of Schoenberg and Webern and is regarded as a “keystone of 20th-century music” (G. W. Hopkins in the new Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians).

Composer, conductor, musical thinker, writer, experimenter and administrator, Boulez began his career as a free-thinking revolutionary who demanded that opera houses be burned down. in the course of time, however, he reconciled with the musical establishment and, though unwaveringly pursuing his course as a composer, also became an internationally acclaimed conductor, especially of works from the late-romantic era (Wagner and Mahler) and the 20th century. His musical direction of Wagner’s “Chéreau Ring” from Bayreuth (available from Unitel) is a historical achievement.

Hilary Summers, mezzosopran
Hassan Moataz el Molla, Cello
Michael Barenboim, Violine, Electronics
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim, Dirigent
Pierre Boulez, Dirigent

Pierre Boulez
was born in 1925 in Montbrison, France. He first studied mathematics, then music at the Paris Conservatory (CNSM), where his teachers included Olivier Messiaen and René Leibowitz. In 1954, with the support of Jean-Louis Barrault, he founded the Domaine musical in Paris – one of the first concert series dedicated entirely to the performance of modern music – and remained their director until 1967. Boulez began his conducting career in 1958 with the Südwestfunk Orchestra in Baden-Baden, Germany. From 1960 to 1962 he taught composition at the Music Academy in Basel. As a composer, conductor and teacher, Pierre Boulez has made a decisive contribution to the development of music in the 20th century and inspired generations of young musicians with his pioneering spirit. His recordings have earned him a total of 26 Grammys and vast numbers of other prestigious awards.

Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim, one of the outstanding musical figures of our time, was born in Buenos Aires to parents of Russian-Jewish descent. He began piano lessons at the age of five with his mother, continued musical studies with his father, and gave his first official concert in Buenos Aires when he was seven. In 1952, the family moved to Israel, and two years later his parents took Daniel to Salzburg to take part in Igor Markevitch’s conducting classes. In 1955 and 1956, he studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.

Following his debut in Vienna and Rome in 1952, Barenboim soon became known as one of the most versatile pianists of his generation. Major debuts followed in Paris (1955), London (1956) and New York (1957), where he performed with Leopold Stokowski. His recording career began in 1954. In the 1960s, he set down the Beethoven concertos with Otto Klemperer, the Brahms concertos with Sir John Barbirolli, and, as both pianist and conductor, all the Mozart with the English Chamber Orchestra. Always active as a chamber musician, he performed most frequently with his late wife, cellist Jacqueline du Pré, and violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman. In song recitals, he has accompanied such artists as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Dame Janet Baker, Jessye Norman, Thomas Quasthoff, Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Jonas Kaufmann and Magdalena Kožená.

From the mid-1960s, Barenboim began to devote more time to conducting. From 1975 to 1989 he was chief conductor of the Orchestre de Paris, with whom he often performed contemporary works by composers such as Lutosławski, Berio, Boulez, Henze, Dutilleux and Takemitsu. In 1973 he made his opera debut at the Edinburgh Festival and in 1981 his debut at the Bayreuth Festival, where over 18 consecutive summers he conducted Tristan und Isolde, the Ring, Parsifal and Die Meistersinger. In 1991, he succeeded Solti as music director of the Chicago Symphony and in 2006 was named “honorary conductor for life”. In 1992, he became general music director of Berlin’s Deutsche Staatsoper, and in 2000, the Berlin Staatskapelle appointed him “chief conductor for life”. He also appears regularly with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Wiener Philharmoniker, with whom he led the 2009 and 2014 New Year’s Concerts.

In 2007, Barenboim began a close relationship with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he conducts opera and concerts as well as playing chamber music. In 2011 he was appointed music director of the legendary Milan institution. Both there and in Berlin, beginning in 2010, he has conducted Guy Cassier’s new staging of the Ring (he also conducted the complete cycle with the Berlin Staatskapelle during the 2013 BBC Proms at London’s Albert Hall). With the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala his projects have included the Verdi Requiem in Milan and on tour to the Lucerne and Salzburg festivals and the Berlin Philharmonie, as well as at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, where he also conducted Don Giovanni with the Scala forces….

Booklet for Hommage à Boulez