When Pierre Boulez
started the Domaine Musical concerts
at the Petit Marigny Théâtre
in January 1954 he let off the equivalent
of a small nuclear device in the moribund
world of post-war Parisian music. A
composer with several noteworthy first
performances already, and acting as
musical director for a theatre company
run by Madeleine Renaud and Jean-Louis
Barrault, the concerts were a logical
extension of the major threads of his
musical life. His experiences in Germany
at the Donaueschingen Festivals and
Darmstadt Summer Schools, his contacts
with the radical music departments of
the West German Radio stations and his
immersion in the music of the New Viennese
School of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern
could scarcely have been better calculated
to make him an apostle of the avant-garde
in a Paris which had turned its back
politically as well as culturally on
the Austro-German tradition. For 12
years, his series of concerts – usually
between four and six each year – scandalised
critics and the establishment, proved
revelatory to a generation of students
and radical artists and established
a bridgehead for contemporary music.
Boulez’s trademark rigorously precise
standards of execution, that would set
the foundation for his international
conducting career, on the one hand,
and the likes of the Ensemble Intercontemporain
and IRCAM, on the other.
Astonishingly for so
marginal and fledgling an enterprise,
many of the concerts were recorded by
the Adès and Vega record companies
and over the years some works have been
occasionally available on disc. What
Accord have done here, however, is to
collect eight discs’ worth (eight-and-a-half,
counting the bonus disc in Volume 1,
of which more below) of recordings from
right across the spectrum of the series’
existence, from their third season in
1956 to the last involving Boulez in
1966-7. The result is a treasure trove
of musical wonders, from 20th
century classics - as they seem now
but of course were not then - like Schoenberg’s
Verklärte Nacht and First
Chamber Symphony, Berg’s Orchestra Pieces,
Op 6, to the first tentative performance
of Le Marteau sans maître,
in its initial 1955 version - featured
on that bonus disc in Volume 1, coupled
with a long interview in French between
Claude Samuel and Boulez, recorded last
year; an English translation is provided
in a supplementary booklet.
The layout of the discs
is as logical as one would expect from
an enterprise seeking to celebrate –
or should that be commemorate? – Boulez’s
pioneering work. Volume 1 is the contemporary
section, featuring works mostly by Boulez
himself and his colleagues and ‘companions
along the way’, Stockhausen, Berio,
Kagel, Nono, Pousseur and Henze: no
mention here of their dramatic falling-out
in 1958. There are also some seminal
French influences: Debussy – represented
by the tiny Syrinx beautifully
played by Severino Gazzelloni – Varèse
and Messiaen.
The second volume broadens
the scale to the foreign giants: Stravinsky,
with Boulez the only composer to have
a whole disc devoted to him, and the
New Vienna School, who receive three
discs with Schoenberg having the lion’s
share of the playing time (approximately
two-thirds of the three discs), Webern
the largest number of completed works
(7).
The performers involved
include many famous names. Gazzelloni
also plays Berio’s spiky Serenata
I (1957), Varèse’s Densité
21.5 and Boulez’s 1947 Sonatina
as well as taking part in Le Marteau
sans maître. Yvonne Loriod
brings steely, vibrant virtuosity to
her husband’s Oiseaux exotiques
(1955-6) and Cantéyodjayâ
(1949), sonatas by Berg and Boulez
(No 2, 1948), the Webern Op 27 Variations
and Henze’s Concerto per il Marigny
(1956) while the Kontarsky brothers,
Alfons and Aloys, provide probably only
the second or third ever performance
of Boulez’s Structures, Livre I
(1951-2; probably only its) as well
as Kagel’s Mobile (1958). Most
of the performances are by the variable
membership of the Orchestre du Domaine
musical, predominantly conducted by
Boulez himself – amazing to learn that
he felt conducting was not innate in
him, but something he had to work hard
at – with a few directed by Rudolf Albert.
The now celebrated Les Percussions de
Strasbourg make an early appearance
in a scintillating account of Messiaen’s
Sept Haïkai (1962). The
visit of the South-West German Radio
Orchestra under their chief conductor
Hans Rosbaud to Paris in 1958 and 1961
permitted Boulez to stage a rare full-orchestral
concert – the economics of the Domaine’s
circumstances meant that the vast majority
of performances had to be solo instrumental
or for chamber combinations – and so
programme Stravinsky’s Agon (1953-7),
Berg’s 3 Pieces, Op 6, and Webern’s
6 Pieces, Op 6.
The sound quality throughout
is somewhat variable, as might be expected
for recordings covering such a crucial
period in recording techniques, but
Accord’s remastering is very fine, the
resulting sound is clear if at best
two-dimensional. The earliest recordings
– that of the very opening item on Disc
1 Volume 1, Stockhausen’s Op 1, Kontra-Punkte
– dating from 1956 are flat and
rather lifeless, but those from the
1960s show a gathering improvement in
quality. The production values overall
are very good, despite a few minor infelicities
and inconsistencies in the booklet -
such as a few confused composition dates.
It is a shame no texts were included
of the sung texts. The notes are in
French and English and are fulsome.
Each disc is contained in a card slip-case.
So how then does the
music itself sound after four and five
decades? There are several seminal works
included, by composers whose work has
now become the bedrock of the present-day
avant garde.
Volume 1, CD
1: This is a recreation
of the Domaine’s Tenth Anniversary Concert
in 1964, however with the exception
of Le Marteau sans maître
- which has a much brighter and more
precise aural image - the recordings
appear to date from 1956. Stockhausen’s
Kontra-Punkte (1952-3), labelled
here as Opus 1, does sound as dry and
antiquated as the recording, but that
should not detract from its contemporary
importance. The performance by the Domaine’s
house band of soloists is committed
and stripped of extraneous expression,
which perhaps accounts for its desiccated
atmosphere now. Berio’s Serenata
I (1957) fares better, due largely
to the vivid virtuosity of Gazzelloni,
a musician who kept technical precision
and expression in perfect harmony. An
early work undoubtedly, Serenata
I is worth getting to know. So,
too, of course, is Le Marteau,
the performance of which burns with
all the intensity of a new-found modern
classic. The first disc concludes with
what appears to be at least the Parisian
premiere of Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques,
played (of course) by the composer’s
wife, Yvonne Loriod. The sound again
is rather flat but there’s no denying
the hectic, edge-of-the-seat excitement
of the playing, with Rudolf Albert directing
the winds and percussion of the Domaine
orchestra.
CD2:
This bears the title "French
references" and harks back to one
of the original tenets of the series,
to present new music in the context
of three ‘plans’: a ‘reference’ plan
of old masters such as Dufay, Gesualdo
- neither of whose music was as well
known as we now take for granted - and
Bach; a ‘knowledge’ plan of music by
more recent figures such as Debussy,
Stravinsky, Varèse and the New
Viennese School; and a ‘research’ plan
– the new music itself. Disc 2 then
concentrates on some of the French references
in the widest sense of the term, with
Debussy’s Syrinx and four works
by Varèse set next to two recent
pieces by Messiaen. This perhaps is
the best-played disc overall in Volume
1, opening with Gazzelloni in top form
in Syrinx and Densité
21.5 and proceeding with scintillating
performances of Hyperprism (1922-3),
the percussion-less nonet Octandre
(1923) and Intégrales
(1923-5). Yvonne Loriod’s provides a
marvellous interpretation of Messiaen’s
magical yet curiously overlooked piano
scores, Cantéyodjayâ,
and the disc concludes with a brilliantly
delivered account of Sept Haïkai
(1948), featuring the young Les
Percussions de Strasbourg.
CD3:
spotlights Boulez himself as composer.
His works featured prominently but not
exhaustively in the concerts; Stockhausen
received more platform time. This disc,
too, features top quality performances,
though is more monochrome since only
two instruments are used: piano (throughout)
and flute, in Boulez’s unofficial opus
1, the Sonatina (1946). This telescoped
single-span sonata-in-miniature is played
by Gazzelloni accompanied by the American
composer (a collaborator of John Cage)
and pianist, David Tudor, and separates
the Kontarsky brothers’ virtuosic guide
through Book 1 of Structures (1951-2)
and Loriod’s intense reading of the
Second Sonata (1948), Boulez’s handbook
on the destruction of traditional forms
ancient and modern, here the sonata
genre itself and Schoenbergian twelve-note
practice. Whether it is a ‘portrait
of the young 22-year-old’ composer is
open to question, but it undoubtedly
represents something of an artistic
manifesto.
CD4:
There is more splendid pianism on
the final disc of Volume 1, entitled
"Companions along the way",
featuring music by some of Boulez’s
like-minded colleagues from the times.
David Tudor closes the disc with a coruscating
performance of Stockhausen’s Klavierstück
VI, Op 4/II (1956), in the extended
version Tudor himself requested from
the composer. If not quite a single-span
sonata, it is closer to the conventional
form than Boulez’s Second, albeit more
what might be termed a fantasia. The
same approach to form is evident also
in Henri Pousseur’s Mobile for
2 pianos (1956-8), again winningly delivered
by the Kontarskys, and the same composer’s
Madrigal III for clarinet and
an accompanying ensemble of piano trio
and 2 percussionists (1962). Whereas
the former piece is a freely evolving
mosaic of ten sections played continuously,
using serial procedures more strictly
than in Madrigal III. In the
same general area technically are Maurizio
Kagel’s bright but brief String Sextet
(1953-7) and Nono’s Incontri ("Encounters"),
for 24 instruments composed in 1955
and performed the following year. Both
works deal with the implications of
the collision and co-existence of structures
within the music, to rather different
expressive results. Worlds away from
either, though, is Henze’s tiny Concerto
per il Marigny, for piano and seven
instruments (1956), a seven-minute chamber
concertino that plays tag with the serious
business of serial organisation so dear
to the Domaine’s organiser. No wonder
they fell out two years later.
Bonus disc:
As mentioned above, this covers
Samuel’s interview with Boulez from
September 2005 along with the 1956 premiere
of Le Marteau. The tentative
nature of the performance is overshadowed
by the caution with which the work itself
seems to grope its way forward; comparing
it with the 1957 revision shows how
much more confident Boulez had become
in such a short time.
Volume 2 CD1:
The first disc here is the only
other devoted to a single composer,
Stravinsky - although Schoenberg’s pieces
included in this second set would fill
more than one disc. The Russian hardly
needed such advocacy, but he spanned
both the ‘knowledge’ and ‘research’
plans in Boulez’s scheme. His tastes
rejected the neo-classical scores so
it was the works of the Swiss period,
such as Renard (1917), and pieces
such as the Symphonies of wind instruments
(1920) which acted as reference
works, if for no other reason than their
revolutionary treatment of rhythm. By
contrast, Agon – Stravinsky’s
first serial - or, more accurately,
part-serial – score was ‘new’ music
as were the Messiaen pieces in Volume
1. Yet with the benefit of hindsight,
one realises that Boulez was not truly
able to avoid either overtly nationalist
elements or the neo-classical in the
Stravinsky works he selected. Both the
Concertino for 12 instruments of 1920
– however much his re-arrangement of
it in 1952 provided a spikier sound
palette – and the two sets of Three
Pieces - one for unaccompanied clarinet
(1919), the other for string quartet
(1914) – seem now quintessentially Russian,
while in his Debussy memorial Symphonies
of wind instruments (1920, given
here in its 1947 revision), he revisited
for the last time the textural landscape
of The Rite of Spring. Renard,
too, was based on a Russian folk-tale
and points the way to what is probably
Stravinsky’s most Russian score of all,
Les Noces Villageoises, sadly
beyond the resources of the Domaine
to mount. Which just leaves Agon
– composed at the same time Kagel was
writing his Sextet – whose serial core
is framed by another leave-taking, of
the neo-classical sound world of Apollo
and Orpheus. The performances
are all splendid, not least that of
Guy Deplus in the clarinet pieces, though
the variable recorded images require
a little adjustment when playing the
disc through as a whole. If Renard
is the brightest, that of Agon
is the most recessed, reflecting the
earlier date - 1958 as opposed to 1962
for the other works - and different
location, the Salle Pleyel.
CD2:
If the Stravinsky disc features
consistently the most approachable music
- for the general listener, for whom
the Russian is no longer a radical figure
- the opening item of Disc 2 brings
back the world of over-ripe late nineteenth-century
romanticism, in the string sextet Verklärte
Nacht (1899), Schoenberg’s fervid
chamber-tone-poem on a poem by Richard
Dehmel. The work is given here in the
revised version of 1917 and played with
commendable ardour (in 1966) by the
expanded Parennin Quartet, fully alive
to its drama and beauty. The contrast
with Webern’s 6 Pieces, Op 6 – as Boulez
realised, the Austrian’s most "appealing"
work full of "straightforward beauty"
and "rarefaction of musical atmosphere"
– is intriguing, Webern’s concision
markedly different to the sextet’s fulsome
richness, though just as expressive.
Rosbaud’s well-prepared account of the
1928 scaled-down version, not (apparently)
the original large orchestral set is
well done and still makes a powerful
impression, even if later conductors
(including Karajan, Metzmacher and Boulez
himself) have surpassed it. Primarily
a series of delicate, precisely scored
vignettes (none of which exceeds forty
bars in length), the fulcrum of the
set is the funeral march fourth, running
to well over four minutes, and paced
perfectly to its shattering, percussion-laden
climax. Heavily influenced by Schoenberg,
it is fascinating to then listen to
the latter’s own set of 3 Pieces, composed
the year after Webern’s set. Only discovered
after Schoenberg’s death in 1951 by
Josef Rufer, what is apparent is that
the little triptych (which in toto
lasts a mere 2 minutes) does not
form so coherent a set as his pupil’s.
The opening Rasch is particularly
at odds with the succeeding pair, but
they provide a fascinating glimpse into
Schoenberg’s compositional methods (of
klangfarbenmelodie especially),
the year before his Harmonielehre
was published. As Claude Samuel notes,
the writing looks towards Pierrot
Lunaire (1912), a splendid performance
of which concludes the disc. Helga Pilarczyk
is the vocal soloist, charting a neat
course between speech and song and the
instrumental quintet includes flautist
Jacques Castagner and clarinettist Guy
Deplus with Maria Bergmann at the piano.
CD3: Yvonne
Loriod returns to the keyboard to open
the third disc with Berg’s Sonata in
B minor (1908), one of the most accomplished
Opus 1s ever penned in its concision
of form and power of expression. Berg
originally considered adding further
movements to it but Schoenberg rightly
judged it complete in its own right.
Given that this is repertoire not (now)
normally associated with her, Loriod’s
lyrical performance is well-thought-through
and thoroughly convincing, though is
ultimately overshadowed by Rosbaud’s
thrilling – if occasionally slightly
ragged – account of the 3 Pieces, Op
6 (1913-4). The epitome of the New Vienna
School’s collection of abstractly titled
sets, it almost overshadows Schoenberg’s
First Chamber Symphony, Op 9, but the
sheer quality of the Domaine players’
performance – and a higher quality recording
– ensure that these seminal works do
not eclipse each other. Written eight
years before the Berg, the Chamber Symphony
is somewhat out of the broadly chronological
sequence in this volume and might have
been better placed opening the disc,
followed by the two Berg pieces and
then the succeeding Webern songs and
cantatas which conclude this disc. The
2 Songs, op 8 (composed in 1910 and
rescored/revised in 1925) and 4 Songs,
Op 13 (written at various times between
1914 and 1918 but only completed in
score in 1922) are both exquisitely
sung by Jeanne Hericard, though after
the heavyweight music-making preceding
them the change of pace, texture and
style is jarring. Nonetheless, Webern’s
pointillist scoring opens the way into
his rarefied sound-world. It is a shame
the sound quality is so flat for these
nicely paced performances. The sound
quality is a factor also in the two
late cantatas, relatively expansive
creations at 8 and 12 minutes plus respectively.
I must confess their virtues have eluded
me in the past more than most Webern
scores and the slightly awkward recorded
balance here has not helped me find
a way in; but that is more my problem
than that of these committed renditions.
CD4: The
final disc concentrates on four of the
most important works from the New Vienna
School, two apiece by Schoenberg and
Webern. At first glance, the succession
of Schoenberg’s ground-breaking Serenade,
Op 24, and Suite for seven instruments,
Op 29, followed by Webern’s piano Variations
and solitary Symphony might seem forbidding.
These are works still probably more
talked and written about than actually
listened to and their critical standing
is almost reverential. The Serenade
(1920-3) is the work in which – not
unlike Stravinsky in Agon three
decades later – one can hear Schoenberg
finally let dodecaphony take hold at
the work’s heart then ebb away again.
In the Suite (1925-6), the twelve-note
method took hold, the result being a
more rigorous and serious four-movement
work whose expressive world is much
harder to penetrate.
Yet these are musical
works, designed to be heard not studied,
so it may seem strange that the Serenade,
Suite and Symphony barely muster a dozen
currently available recordings between
them, at time of writing (September
2006; the Variations have no less than
17, with 3 more of the orchestral arrangement).
In the case of the Serenade, this may
be due in part to its curious scoring:
clarinet and bass clarinet, mandolin,
guitar and string trio with a baritone
solo in the fourth of its seven movements.
At around half-an-hour in length it
is difficult to programme, but its lightness
of touch and instrumental polish give
it greater appeal than the Suite – for
another unconventional ensemble of piano,
soprano clarinet in E flat, clarinet,
bass clarinet and string trio. The performances
are also highly polished, that of the
Serenade in 1962 being particularly
fine and in the best sound; the Suite
dating from three years before, sounds
just a touch cramped. They are succeeded
by an extraordinary performance of Webern’s
Variations by Yvonne Loriod – even further
from perceived notions of her normal
repertoire than in the Berg – each section
beautifully delineated. The concluding
account of the Symphony, Op 21 (1927-8),
is the earliest on the disc, from 1958.
Requiring only nine performers (plus
conductor) if a string quartet was used
rather than an orchestral body, this
was well within the Domaine’s resources
and Boulez and his Domaine ‘orchestra’
relished the challenge. What Parisian
audiences thought of it in 1956 can
only be guessed at; fifty years on its
musical quality still resonates through
contemporary music.
Guy Rickards
