Total Immersion: Boulez at 90 Concert

21st March, 2015
Barbican Hall, London, United Kingdom

PIERRE BOULEZ Notations I, III, IV, VII, II
PIERRE BOULEZ Pli selon Pli

Yeree Suh (soprano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Thierry Fischer (conductor)



This is a very interesting concert for many reasons. It is rare to hear large-scale Boulez works conducted by conductors other than Boulez himself; and the original conductor pulled out last minute and these are not the pieces one can easily step in to perform with such short notice. Expecting the unpopularity of the event, Barbican actually closed the upper area and the balcony, and still the hall was not full. "Pli selon Pli" is a work I have heard many times (recordings) since secondary school, and Boulez's own live performance of the work in 2011 was my single most favourite concert of all time. Every time I hear the work I find something new. It is a piece Stravinsky called "pretty monotonous and monotonously pretty" and indeed the endless evolution of static beauty is ever so captivating. Here, substitute conductor Thierry Fischer brought out a fantastic palette of sounds from the BBC SO. Being so used to Boulez's own interpretations, it is interesting to hear individual parts being delineated as such, but now the effect is that the work lacks a(n apparent) narration and each instrument effectively just did their own things with little internal interactions. The soloist went for operatic drama on her own and made moments like the soloist-flute interactions in the third "Improvisations" very odd. I can't work out whether it was because they struggled to put the piece together (massive kudos to them for playing it at all), a question of taste or whether or not it provided a new perspective to this piece altogether. The net result, to me, was that this performance sounded even colder than Boulez's own takes. I do have issues with Thierry Fischer's control of volume though, in which he provided little variations in amplitude, and it made listening to the five orchestral "Notations" a relatively surprisingly dull experience, and the second "Improvisations" was too loud. The celesta solo is very sweet though. Interesting concert all in all, and I am very curious what the "professional" critics will say tomorrow.



This entry was originally published in my private Instagram account.