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Peter Neville on Pierre Boulez

My first brush with the works of Pierre Boulez came in the mid-80's, when I was asked by my former teacher and revered Melbourne percussionist Barry Quinn to take part in what would be the Australian premiere of Le Marteau Sans Maitre - Boulez's breakthrough work from 1955. Barry had frequently worked under Boulez with the BBC Symphony during his time in London in the 60's, a period when they were championing contemporary music. The 80's was a different time for new music in Melbourne, with the "style wars" well underway; the so-called "New Romantics" tilting swords at the so-called "New-Complexists". The Boulez work came with a reputation, with reports of the Viennese premiere requiring dozens of rehearsals. It is one of the cornerstones of the repertoire of the twentieth century and - for a young percussionist, recently graduated from my VCA studies - the difficulty of the part was certainly confronting. But after months of preparation, the performance is still etched in my memory and remains a true career highlight, especially given its significance as the premiere in this country, some 30 years after its world premiere.

 

Since then, I've had the pleasure of also performing Boulez's Derive II and the work shortly to be presented by ANAM; Sur Incise, each of them equally challenging and exhilerating and each a vibrant masterpiece.
 
Like Derive II, Sur Incises is based on an earlier work, in this case Incises for solo piano, written in 1994 for the Umberto Micheli Piano Competition and a work of less than 10 minutes compared with 45 for Sur Incises. Composed in 1996 Sur Incises uses the idiosynchratic combination of three pianos, three harps and three percussion, unique in the literature. Boulez's original intent had been to transform Incises into a piano concerto for Maurizio Pollini but he lost interest in that form. Feeling that a there were enough works in the canon using two pianos and that using four would invite reference to Stravinsky's Les Noces, Boulez settled on three pianos, added the three percussionists he had available in his Ensemble Intercontemporain and only then thought of completing the orchestration with three harps. Le Marteau Sans Maitre is also written for three percussionsists, performing on xylorimba, vibraphone and a mixed set-up including instruments from a range of geographical sources. In his program notes Boulez describes how: "the xylorimba is a transposition of the African balafon (and) the vibraphone refers to the Balinese gendér", both examples of musical cultures which influenced him, but he points out that he has not attempted to recreate or invoke any element of their traditional performance practice or context. Similarly, his use of steel drums in Sur Incises is intended to extend the range of percussive colour in the work, not to impart a sense of "exoticism" or invoke their Carribean homeland. In Sur Incises the percussion instruments are entirely pitched, as well as the steel drums he uses two vibraphones, marimba, glockenspiel, crotales, tubular bells and timpani. One of the challenges for the first percussionist is having to get around the number of bass steel drums needed to cover Boulez's writing, something that most players performing the part will likely be doing for the first time in their career!
 
Regarding the instrumentation and its physical distribution, the writer Paul Griffiths comments: 

[Boulez's] "choice of like but distinct instruments, with the percussionists playing vibraphones and marimba most of the time and the ensemble well spread out, allows him to use his astonishing ear to recreate effects of harmonic, timbral and spatial echo for which in earlier works he had needed electronic means." 

Boulez himself describes it thus: "I have emphasised the different sound character of the instruments by positioning them in a characteristic way. Thus, you can see what you hear." 
 
Sur Incises received its world premiere on the 27th of April 1996, in Basel, with the Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by the composer. It is dedicated to the businessman, conductor and philanthropist Paul Sacher, on the occasiona of his 90th birthday. Sacher was one of the most important commissioners of new music from the 1930's until his death in 1999, supporting a literal who's-who of 20th and 21st century composers. In 2015, I was lucky enough to take part in the second Australian performance of the work at the now-defunct - but still legendary - BIFEM (Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music) with an almost exclusively ANAM cast of musicians.

The forthcoming performance at ANAM as part of Boulez Rules provides an extrememly rare opportunity to hear this incredible work, one which the composer himself described as his most important; "because it is the freest". 
 

Pierre Boulez working at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris, 1953 © Daniel Frasnay
Photo taken from pierreboulez.org

A personal reflection on Le Marteau sans Maitre by ANAM supporter Jeannie Marsh, who sang in the Australian premiere performance mentioned

The conductor was Michel Swierczewski,  who had worked closely with Boulez, and was visiting Melbourne in order to conduct the work. I remember him as being extremely well prepared, clear, calm, and efficient. He was also extremely enthusiastic about the music, conveying to us in his conducting and his words his deep understanding of the phrasing, colour, expressive world, and overall flow of the piece. I remember finding this incredibly useful, as it had been a long, lonely, difficult road learning the score on my own, and it was only when we started rehearsing with him that I started to understand how to engage expressively with this challenging musical language. I can't imagine performing this piece successfully without such a wonderful conductor helping me find ways into the complexity and sound-world of the piece, and ways to express the vocal line within the many challenges it presented.  

As a young singer in my late 20s, I had already found my natural musical home in 20th-century vocal music, and I had been specialising enthusiastically in this field for some years. I had already performed Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schönberg, Circles and Sequenza 3 by Luciano Berio, works by Michael Finnissy, and many new Australian works. As my career went on, I continued this specialisation, singing (and memorising, in the case of music-theatre and opera) many complex, virtuosic and challenging scores in many styles. However, Le Marteau sans Maitre remains the most challenging piece I've ever learnt and performed. For singers without perfect pitch (that's the vast majority of singers), the pitching in this piece, plus the rhythmic complexity, lead me to classify this as the singer's equivalent of an "extreme sport"! Perhaps if I'd returned to it later as a more mature and experienced singer I might have found it less terrifying, but this opportunity did not come up, so I'll never know...

Having the privilege of rehearsing and performing this work with an ensemble of extraordinary, virtuosic instrumentalists, and an inspiring conductor, made this an unforgettable experience.

Words by Peter Neville, Faculty, Head Of Percussion (supported By Kerry Landman) and ANAM supporter Jeannie Marsh.

You can hear the remarkable Sur Incises as part of our celebration of 100 years since the birth of Pierre Boulez on 11 April.

BOULEZ RULES!

Friday 11 Apr 2025, 6pm, 8pm, 10pm

Venue Rosina Auditorium, Abbotsford Convent
Tickets A Little Extra $60 Standard $40 A Little Less $20

BOOK NOW

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