Pierre Boulez - a Hurwitz masterstroke!

[Mark Thomas]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3VDGnxq8sk - ROFL, as they say  .

[Alan Howe]

It's not funny...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSwFQl7UI9Y
IT'S PAINFUL!
But Elmo thinks DH is funny...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5saiwm_zuo

[der79sebas]

Boulez is neither painful nor funny but - boring (also as conductor).

[Gareth Vaughan]

I don't like Hurvitz much. I find his manner patronising (and a bit weird) even when I find what he says interesting. But I forgive him everything for this video. Brilliant and IMHO, right.

[adriano]

Please don't generalize der79 sebas!
Just listen to Boulez's last Ravel and Debussy recordings he made for Deutsche Grammophon. He has never before been as sensual and imaginative as that in his whole life! These recordings are a revelation! I also find his Bartok box for DGG and his earlier Schoenberg and Webern collections for CBS milestones. I am only disappointed by his Mahler.
And in my opinion, he made one of the best recordings of Stravinsky's "Sacre" and "Firebird" (in both earlier CBS and later DGG versions). Although I find Bernstein's "Sacre" (both CBS versions, not the later DGG one) a stroke of genius, Boulez stuns me every time I follow them with the scores, to be surprised what everything he was able to "sort out" with his orchestras - and with what great precision!
And some of Boulez's original compositions are very valuable and important too. "Le Marteau sans Maître" and "Le Soleil des eauxs" are masterworks - at the same time very original and epoch-making. They are just not of your taste, that's why perhaps you find them "boring".

[Gareth Vaughan]

I don't find Boulez boring as a conductor - but I do find his music very difficult (and I have tried hard). A lot of 12-tone and aleatoric music is worth persevering with - Schoenberg, for example, Stockhausen, Hans Werner Henze... but Boulez I just can't seem to grasp.

[sdtom]

I had the '60s recording he made of the Rite of Spring and Firebird which was my introduction to Stravinsky. A fine recording indeed.

[eschiss1]

This thread disappoints but does not surprise me. There's always been an unwritten codicil to our (last-few-years) rules that one may not praise, analyze, talk about, discuss etc. music sufficiently outside of our orbit here _except to disparage it_.

[adriano]

Unwritten laws, eschiss1, can be a weapon for both Liberals and Tyrants... :-)

[der79sebas]

Thanks Adriano for the recommendations. I only know the conductor Boulez with Mahler and never bothered to go any further; so I will try his Ravel!

[adriano]

The 3-CD DGG album "Pierre Boulez, 3 Classic Albums" has been deleted in the meantime, but there is a 2-CD low-priced album available, which excludes the Piano Concertos and Valses nobles et sentimentales:

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Maurice-Ravel-1875-1937-Daphnis-et-Chloe-Ges-Aufn/hnum/9699128

On the other hand, there is a Debussy-Ravel box, which includes all his DGG recordings:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Pierre-Boulez-dirigert-Ravel-Debussy/hnum/2350129

Still, Boulez's earlier CBS Debussy and Ravel recordings are very valuabe too!
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/conducts-ravel/hnum/8278530
(The Debussy has been deleted too)

[Ilja]

I remember Boulez' recording of the Ravel piano concertos with Zimerman. Much as I appreciate Zimerman, he seemed so unsuited for this repertoire and the orchestral accompaniment was just leaden.

[Alan Howe]

Ahem! This thread is about Boulez the composer, as disparaged by DH. Not Boulez the conductor!

[Wheesht]

I freely admit that I don't know very much about Boulez the composer, but I would never have expected to be reading about him on a forum

for the open-minded lover of music from the romantic era

...

[Mark Thomas]

I seem to have opened a can of worms here, for which I apologise. I just thought Hurwitz' video funny, in the context of all his others...