Pierre de France

The French composer Pierre Boulez was 80-year old on 26th March 2005.

Since 1945, Boulez rouses controversies, very often based on envy, and stirs up epigonal movements all over the world. Like Claude de France (Claude Debussy, 1862-1918), Pierre de France (1925) has numerous imitators and just a few disciples.

Boulez commenced his career in 1945 with “Twelve Notations for Piano”. While inspired by Debussy’s spirit and hues and the symbolic poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), his Opus One unveils all creative abilities of an extraordinary talent, announces the minimalism and the repetitive movements, and remains the first important work written for piano in the French music literature after World War II. Let us not forget that the composer was 20-year-old.

With his First Sonata for Piano, Boulez initiated in 1946 the European avant-garde movement and enriched the French music literature in this genus.

In 1948, Boulez composed his monumental Second Sonata for Piano, an absolute master-piece which remains not only the greatest piano work written after the war, but also the most important piano sonata written in 20th Century.

Its imposing and complex architecture and its hermetic dramatic poetry confirm Boulez’s creative genius.

Between 1948 and 1997, Pierre Boulez composed a series of outstanding works. This year (2005), he announced a work entitled “Anthèmes 3” for violin and orchestra.

Pierre de France is not only composer. He is a remarkable conductor too, unrivalled performer of works by Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, Bartók, Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Stravinsky. He conducted orchestras in Paris, Berlin, Bayreuth, Basle, The Hague, London, New York, Chicago, Cleveland…

Boulez wrote some interesting and pertinent pages on contemporary music. He taught composition and music analysis at Academy of Music in Basle and lectured during twenty years at the prestigious Collège de France in Paris from 1975-1995.

The French master is laureate of three most important prizes for music, Gravenmayer in USA, Siemens in Germany and Glenn Gould in Canada.

Pierre de France is certainly the greatest living musician of our time.

(Contribution by Jean-François Grancher <grancherpiano@onvol.net>.)