30th March 2025
Barbican Hall, London, United Kingdom
BOULEZ Deux Études, musique concrète for tape
BOULEZ Douze Notations
BOULEZ Incises
BOULEZ cummings ist der Dichter
BOULEZ Pli selon pli
Tamara Stefanovich (piano)
Anna Dennis (soprano)
BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins (conductor)
Boulez centenary celebration concert with the BBC SO, a pretty odd one if I am honest. It started off with "Deux Études", a pair of musique concrète for tape which were one-time experiments that Boulez considered unsatisfactory. Then the exhausted and overworked Tamara Stefanovich (according to her own IG) gave a surprisingly sloppy performance of "Douze Notations", taking a lot of liberty in the phrasing and note duration... and the notes themselves. But the following virtuosic "Incises" (2001) was astonishing. The fabulous BBC Singers then gave a rare performance of "cummings ist der Dichter". I don't think I have ever seen a choral work so difficult to pitch that each singer "tuned" him/herself with a tuning fork every 10s or so during the performance. The cluster sound is wonderful. "Pli selon Pli" got me nostalgic. I heard it live for the first time in 2010. Boulez conducted it himself and he had to cut a large portion from "Tombeau" to make it work. Second time in 2015 before he died. Now we listen to this music from the other side. The reliable Martyn Brabbins and soprano Anna Dennis gave a wonderful performance. I didn't know "Improvisation I" can sound so... romantic, and the hypnotic pointillism from the plethora of percussion in "Improvisation II" was so, so pretty. The piano and celesta got over-excited in "Improvisation III". Then you have the continuous fireworks in "Tombeau". The evolution of timbre by instrumentation was mesmerising in itself, and the deconstruction and reconstruction of texture from I-V made this labyrinth-like music a captivating journey. Just when you think everything went perfectly, someone (I think the timpani) got impatient and hit the last note early, completely ruining the monumental final chord. I was so desperate for closure I had to listen to "Le Marteau" immediately when I got home. You can check it out from the Radio 3 archive. We need AI to erase that. IRCAM knows RNN, right? Boulez might approve. It will keep the music in progress too. Attention is all the music needs.
