Pierre Boulez | WatchedThis
Pierre Boulez
Acting
Biography
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montbrison, in the Loire department of France, the son of an engineer, Boulez studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Olivier Messiaen, and privately with Andrée Vaurabourg and René Leibowitz. He began his professional career in the late 1940s as music director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company in Paris. He was a leading figure in avant-garde music, playing an important role in the development of integral serialism in the 1950s, controlled chance music in the 1960s and the electronic transformation of instrumental music in real time from the 1970s onwards. His tendency to revise earlier compositions meant that his body of work was relatively small, but it included pieces considered landmarks of twentieth-century music, such as Le Marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli and Répons. His uncompromising commitment to modernism and the trenchant, polemical tone in which he expressed his views on music led some to criticise him as a dogmatist. Boulez was also one of the most prominent conductors of his generation. In a career lasting more than sixty years, he was music director of the New York Philharmonic, chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. He made frequent appearances with many other orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. He was known for his performances of the music of the first half of the twentieth century—including Debussy and Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartók, and the Second Viennese School—as well as that of his contemporaries, such as Ligeti, Berio and Carter. His work in the opera house included the production of Wagner's Ring cycle for the centenary of the Bayreuth Festival, and the world premiere of the three-act version of Berg's opera Lulu. His recorded legacy is extensive. He also founded several musical institutions. In Paris he set up the Domaine musical in the 1950s to promote new music; in the 1970s he established the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique (IRCAM), to foster research and innovation in music, and the Ensemble intercontemporain, a chamber orchestra specialising in contemporary music. Later he co-founded the Cité de la musique, a concert hall, museum and library dedicated to music in the Parc de la Villette in Paris and, in Switzerland, the Lucerne Festival Academy, an international orchestra of young musicians, with which he gave first performances of many new works. ... Source: Article "Pierre Boulez" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Filmography Movies
Acting
The Seventh Door
A documentary about the life and work of the Hungarian composer and conductor, Peter Eotvos.
Frank Zappa: The Present-Day Composer Refuses To Die
Frank Zappa: The Present-Day Composer Refuses To Die is a 2000 documentary about Frank Zappa.
Frank Zappa: Phase II - The Big Note
Frank Zappa: Phase Two is a 2002 documentary about Frank Zappa. It features a lot of footage from Scheffer's previous film, but new material from Malcolm McNab's private achive.
Zappa
With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.
For Art's Sake: The Story of Ballets Russes
In the centenary year since the founding of the Ballets Russe, this documentary looks back at Sergei Diaghilev and the company he created, what they did and the influence they had, even a 100 years later.
The Great Rehearsals: Homage to Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse died on 6 November 1965, a few days before the filming of the rehearsal of his work "Déserts" which he had to attend.
Sur incises: A lesson by Pierre Boulez
With warmth, modesty and infectious enthusiasm, Boulez explains the hidden architecture of his most recent work, Sur Incises, to a non-specialized young audience. On a number of occasions, Pierre Boulez has shown that he can come up with the right words and gestures to throw a light on complex musical scores. Here he demonstrates his teaching talents in talking about his work as a composer: after conducting the nine soloists of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, who follow him with visible pleasure through the mysteries of a spectacular score, he offers a witty exposition of the musical movements that make up its construction.
Frank Zappa: Peefeeyatko
For the past ten years Zappa in composing has turned away from Rock and Roll music - for which he first became famous - and has been working on new, contemporary, orchestral electronic music; in solitude and beyond any commercial conventions or commitments. It is the first time that Zappa has allowed a film crew to study him during compositional work, actually filming the first moments of a new compositional process. By contrast, in a staged interview Zappa gives comments on music. This film seeks to reveal the sensetivities of Zappa's personality and character also beyond narrative content.
Pierre Boulez at the BBC: Master and Maverick
Tom Service presents 40 years of great BBC archive featuring the French composer, conductor and musical icon Pierre Boulez, who died on 5th January 2016 at the age of 90
Production
Wagner: Das Rheingold
This is a beautifully conducted and thoughtfully staged performance of the first opera (the prologue) in Wagner's Ring Cycle. As soon as the clouds of mist have dissipated, while the daring, long-held opening chord is still reverberating, the screen clears to show not only the River Rhine and the three maidens (dressed like prostitutes in this production) assigned to guard the gold hidden there. It also shows an enormous dam (not mentioned in Wagner's text). This is the underwater base of a hydroelectric plant, and its presence tells us two things immediately: that this production takes the story out of the vaguely medieval fantasy world in which Wagner had placed it, and that a basic theme of the four-opera cycle would be power. Alberich, the Nibelung, is willing to renounce the love of women, after stealing the gold from the Rhine, to become the ruler of the world. Another basic theme is greed.
Wagner: Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung, the fourth of Richard Wagner's four Ring operas. The cast features Manfred Jung as Siegfried and Gwyneth Jones as Brünnhilde, with music provided by Bayreuther Festspiele Orchester conducted by Pierre Boulez. This title is available in a boxed set with the other Ring operas, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried.
Wagner: Siegfried
The third opera in Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle, Siegfried follows the adventures of the son of demigods Siegmund and Sieglinde as he conquers his enemies and rescues the beauteous Brunnhilde with the help of his magic sword. This video preserves the controversial 1976 Bayreuth Centenary production, with Pierre Boulez leading the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. Manfred Jung leads the cast as Siegfried, with Gwyneth Jones as Brunnhilde, Donald McIntyre as the Wanderer, and Hermann Becht as Alberich.
Wagner: Die Walküre
The second part of Patrice Chérau's epoch-making Bayreuth Ring is a radical re-imagining of Die Walküre, unprecedented in its psychological penetration. This production of " Die Walkure," staged as part of Patrice Chereau's Centenary celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the completion of the "Ring," this lavish performance features Donald McIntyre as Wotan, Peter Hofmann as Siegmund, and Gweneth Jones as Brunnhilde; Pierre Boulez conducts the Orchester Der Bayreuther Festspiel.
Rituel
Music performed by The New York Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Pierre Boulez. Schwartz manipulates by computer, in real-time the images of the Maestro to realize a unity between his music and the picture.
Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (Pelléas and Mélisande) is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande. It premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 30 April 1902 with Jean Périer as Pelléas and Mary Garden as Mélisande in a performance conducted by André Messager, who was instrumental in getting the Opéra-Comique to stage the work. The only opera Debussy ever completed, it is considered a landmark in 20th-century music.
Boulez-Répons
In this vivid transposition of contemporary music for television, Cahen "responds" to the complex musical transitions of Répons, a work by French composer Pierre Boulez. Performed by the Ensemble InterContemporain and conducted by Boulez, the intricate Répons was designed for an ensemble of twenty-four musicians, six soloists and a "real-time" digital processor. In Cahen's re-composed interpretation, he responds with visual and temporal transformations, "opening" the images in space and time and applying electronic techniques to engulf the instrumentalists in ocean, sky, and trees. Mirage-like superimpositions, temporal shifts, mirroring effects and de-synchronization result in a rhythmic confluence of the illusory and the real. Immersing the viewer in image and sound, Cahen mirrors the transformative process of Boulez's music.
The Amazing Mr. Bickford
Several pieces of Frank Zappa's music are set against clay animation by Bruce Bickford.
Ma Mere l'Oye
A dance set to Pierre Boulez's recording of Ravel's Ma Mere l'Oye
Gallery
