Conversations with Boulez: Thoughts on Conducting (Amadeus)

a Giant Of Postwar Music And The Most Powerful Figure In The Contemporary French Music Scene, Pierre Boulez Talks About His Career As One Of The World's Most Controversial Conductors And Daring Programmers Of Musical Text. These Candid Interviews Give Us Vintage Boulez: His Bold Views, Enigmatic Wit, Practical Wisdom, And Uncompromising Beliefs. publishers Weekly timing Is Everything. Twenty Years Ago, When Pierre Boulez, The Preeminent French Composer-conductor Of His Generation, Was In The Midst Of His Controversial Tenure At The New York Philharmonic, This Book Would Have Been Eagerly Read. Now That He Is Again Spending Most Of His Time At The Podium Or In The Recording Studio, Mostly With The Chicago Symphony-and Showing Ever Greater Interpretive Powers-his Latest Thoughts Might Have Been Eagerly Sought Out. Unfortunately, However, This Book Doesn't Contain His Latest Thoughts. Originally Published In France, This Is A Series Of Q&a Interviews Conducted In 1988, A Time When Boulez Had Virtually Abandoned Conducting. His Views On The Conductor's Role, On The Importance Of Keeping Musical Culture Alive (most Contemporary Conductors, He Complains, Have Little Culture And Almost No Curiosity) And On His Own Remarkable Batonless Technique Are Always Worth Reading. But The Book Lacks Urgency, Partly Because It Reads Like The Thoughts Of A Man Who Has Stopped Working When, Since These Interviews Were Conducted, Boulez Has Stepped Back Onto The Stage. It Has, However, Been Updated With An Exhaustive (but Superfluous) Listing Of Boulez's Public Performances To The End Of 1995, And A Cd Discography Whose Chief Lack Is Any Mention Of The Orchestras Involved. Illustrated. (june) A giant of postwar music and the most powerful figure in the contemporary French music scene, Pierre Boulez is widely known to American and English audiences as both an important composer and as star conductor of the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. These candid interviews give us vintage Boulez - his bold views, enigmatic wit, practical wisdom, and uncompromising beliefs. Here the eminent composer, who has been called both "a wild man of the avant-garde" and "the last true maestro" (New York Times), talks about being one of the world's most controversial conductors and daring programmers of musical taste. Boulez sometimes locks horns with French author Jean Vermeil, who confronts him with his past and prods him to discuss the future of music and orchestras. Boulez tells how and why he chose his battles and lays out his vision of the conductor's mission. He tells what he learned - and didn't learn - from other conductors, and how he feels about the composers who compromise his repertoire, including Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Messiaen (with whom he studied), and, of course, Boulez himself.