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18 June
This is a review of A Pierre Dream : A Portrait of Pierre Boulez at Aldeburgh Festival on Wednesday 17 June at 7.30 p.m.
A Pierre Dream : A Portrait of Pierre Boulez at @aldeburghmusic was excellent - excerpts from works and him talking pic.twitter.com/NHCpwqVBnd
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 17, 2015
Actors with placards, at times a little too noisy on their castors, protested not student issues from the late 1960s, but with the face, image and message of Boulez, in this unbroken evening, dedicated to his music and his (often literary*) influences.
Images of Boulez from 1968 onwards, such as projected during A Pierre Dream at @aldeburghmusic last night... pic.twitter.com/wty9Ul2UXu
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 18, 2015
At times, he was heard translated, possibly when he spoke in French more (or his English had not been so strong**, or he resisted talking in it ?), but very often not. And his face, whether in stills or footage, spilled onto – or was caught on – assemblages or groupings, or discrete arrays, of placards***, along with pages from his scores, or shots of places, or even images that were redolent of natural growth or of the rain. (One can taste the production a little here.)
Soprano Anna Sideris adeptly gave us Improvisations sur Mallarmé I and II (from Pli selon pli : Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui… (Improvisation I) and Une dentelle s’abolit… (Improvisation II)), and Charlotte Betts-Dean Le marteau. Elly Condron, credited as a speaking actor (and all in white – as a Muse ?), was clear, definite, and, deliberately, a little cool and detached in rendering English translations of French texts for his Mallarmé and René Clair settings (in Le marteau).
Pianists, and artistic director Gerard McBurney, were keenly applauded at @aldeburghmusic, as were singers, actors, @RoyalAcadMusic ensemble
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 17, 2015
From excerpts of the intimate sound of piano**** (or doubled piano) to pieces for eleven players or more, such as Dérive 2 or Le marteau sans maître, writer and composer Gerard McBurney’s staging ranged over Boulez’ work, thought and utterance in this intense show. Hearing, and re-hearing, his texts and instrumental and vocal settings, his voice changed, but was always Boulez, just as he changed from his arrival in Paris to contemporary footage.
Do not take one's word for it : this review in The Times now Tweeted :
★★★★ from @thetimes for last night's A Pierre Dream - "an illuminating portrait of a still powerful figure". https://t.co/SsP0oFXIVJ
— Aldeburgh Music (@aldeburghmusic) June 18, 2015
End-notes
* Proust, Mallarmé, and René Clair.
** Striking up a conversation with him at Aldeburgh Festival’s Boulez at 85, with a friend who wanted to know his thoughts about Keith Jarrett (after enquiring about, which he denied, the influence of Messiaen’s teaching, thought to have been heard in works that he conducted the night before), one can testify to his English.
*** The fact that they were non-speaking actors, or that there were screens on the stage that acted as verbal prompts, was not sufficient to explain how they knew where exactly to be : no doubt there must have been tape-marks, of positions, on the floor.
**** Incises, Structures, Notations, and, with flute (which, it seems, Jean-Pierre Rampal rejected), Sonatine.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
