SOUTHBANK CENTRE CELEBRATES ‘THE GODFATHER’ OF NEW

MUSIC WITH EXQUISITE LABYRINTH: THE MUSIC OF PIERRE

BOULEZ CULMINATING IN BOULEZ CONDUCTING HIS SEMINAL
MODERNIST MASTERPIECE

Friday 30 September – Sunday 2 October 2011

‘This is the man…who has done more than any other person alive to define the idea of what
modern music is, and how it should sound.’ The Guardian, August 2008

Following 2010’s Royal Philharmonic Society Award winning concert series focusing on composer
Helmut Lachenmann, Southbank Centre launches the 2011/12 season with a major celebration of one
of 20th century’s last remaining musical giants, Pierre Boulez. Once the leading enfant terrible of the
post-war generation of modernist composers, the 86-year-old Boulez, ‘The Godfather’ (New Yorker,
04/2000), is now widely regarded as the most influential composer alive today. With six concerts,
talks, and an international study day, all curated by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Southbank
Centre’s Exquisite Labyrinth: The Music of Pierre Boulez offers audiences an opportunity to
immerse in the composer’s ‘richly decorative surface and Oriental sensuality of sound’ (The
Independent, 06/2011).

The latest instalment of Southbank Centre’s acclaimed contemporary composer festivals, the Boulez
weekend presents a wide cross-section of the composer’s vast oeuvre performed by a roll call of new
music’s Who’s Who. Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki kicks off the weekend conducting young
musicians of the Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble in an all-acoustic programme.
Leading Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös conducts Southbank Centre Resident Orchestra London
Sinfonietta in a concert of Boulez’s music using advanced electronic technologies with flautist
Michael Cox, violinist Clio Gould, Sound Intermedia, as well as a computer music designer and a
sound engineer from IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), founded by
Boulez in 1977.

The weekend culminates on Sunday 2 October with Boulez’s friends Pierre-Laurent Aimard and
Tamara Stefanovich performing Boulez’s piano works over three short recitals in one afternoon. As
a grand finale, opening Southbank Centre’s Shell Classic International 2011/12 Season, Boulez will
conduct soprano Barbara Hannigan, Ensemble intercontemporain, which he founded in 1976, and
the young musicians of the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble in his own seminal masterpiece,
Pli selon pli (Fold by fold). The 70-minute work, structured in five parts, is a portrait in music of the
poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Its title, as well as quoting another piece by the French symbolist poet,
also refers to the composition process, as the different sections were re-written and re-worked
through the years from as early as 1957 until the 1980s. The enigmatic and elusive poetry of
Mallarmé is refracted through the kaleidoscopic colours of Boulez’s instrumentation, highlighted by a
fiendishly difficult soprano part.

From the early discovery of the twelve-tone technique, controlled chance and aleatoric music, to the
use of electronics, Boulez has indefatigably pushed the boundaries of classical music for the past six
decades. As a centrepiece of the weekend, Southbank Centre will gather together leading experts
from around the world offering varying perspectives and insights in an International Study Day at the
Royal Festival Hall on 1 October.
Gillian Moore, Head of Contemporary Culture at Southbank Centre, said:
‘We are immensely privileged to have Pierre Boulez joining us for this major celebration of his music.
Through this immersive weekend, we hope to bring to the fore the sensuality and ravishing beauty of
Boulez’s music, too often overshadowed by its towering intellectual mastery. I think that the sonority
of his music is very much in the French tradition of Debussy and Messiaen, as well as being
influenced by music from Asia; it often has a very delicate, exotic surface, with a predominance of
purring flutes and glittery delicate percussion – gentle drumbeats, gongs and bells. With such a starry
line-up of performers, here is the perfect opportunity for curious audiences to discover and enjoy the
vertiginous thrill of modernist music brilliantly performed.’

For further PRESS information please contact Dennis Chang or Eleonora Claps in the Southbank
Centre Press Office on 020 7921 0824 / 0962 or email dennis.chang@southbankcentre.co.uk /
eleonora.claps@southbankcentre.co.uk

LISTINGS INFORMATION:
Sep 30 2011 7:30PM QEH
Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble
Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble; Susanna Mälkki, conductor
P. Boulez: Domaines for clarinet
P. Boulez: Domaines for clarinet & orchestra
P. Boulez: Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna for orchestra in 8 groups
The brilliant young musicians from the Royal Academy of Music perform a programme of works in which Boulez explores the
use of musical space.
In the two versions of Domaines, we see the evolving process of Boulez's composition - a solo clarinet work transforms into
soundscape where the soloist wanders around the stage, interacting with different groups of musicians.
Rituel is a 'ceremony of memory' for Boulez's friend, the composer Bruno Maderna, in which multiple groups of musicians
perform a beautifully solemn ritual to the inexorable beat of a drum.
£13 £11 £9

Oct 1 2011 10AM-5PM Level 5 Function Room, RFH

Exploring the Labyrinth – An International Study day on the music of Pierre Boulez
Leading experts from around the world present insights into different aspects of the music of Boulez in this one-day conference,
which includes papers on Boulez's relationship to Stravinsky and Messiaen, as well as detailed explorations of some of
Boulez's key works and his writings about music.
£15

Oct 1 2011 7:30PM QEH

London Sinfonietta
London Sinfonietta; Péter Eötvös, conductor; Michael Cox, flute; Clio Gould, violin; Sound Intermedia; Andrew Gerzso, IRCAM
computer music designer; Carlo Laurenzi, IRCAM computer production; Jérémie Henrot, IRCAM sound engineer
P. Boulez: ...explosante-fixe... (In memoriam Stravinsky) for flute with live electronics, 2 flutes & orchestra
P. Boulez: Anthèmes 2 for violin & live electronics
As part of Southbank Centre's celebration of Boulez, one of Europe's most radical and pioneering composers, the London
Sinfonietta presents a concert of Boulez's music inspired by electronic technologies at the IRCAM centre in Paris. The
programme includes Anthèmes 2 for violin and electronics and ...explosante-fixe..., a concerto for flute with ensemble and
electronics.
£22 £15 £9

Oct 2 2011 12:00PM QEH

Pierre-Laurent Aimard & Tamara Stefanovich
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano; Tamara Stefanovich, piano
P. Boulez: Notations I - XII for piano
P. Boulez: Piano Sonata No.1
P. Boulez: Piano Sonata No.2
£13 £11 £9

Oct 2 2011 3:00PM QEH

Pierre-Laurent Aimard & Tamara Stefanovich
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano; Tamara Stefanovich, piano
P. Boulez: Piano Sonata No.3
P. Boulez: Incises for piano
P. Boulez: une page d'éphéméride for piano
£13 £11 £9

Oct 2 2011 4:30PM QEH

Pierre-Laurent Aimard & Tamara Stefanovich
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano; Tamara Stefanovich, piano
P. Boulez: Structures - Bk.2 for 2 pianos
Pierre-Laurent Aimard is joined by pianist Tamara Stefanovich for an exceptional celebration - all of Pierre Boulez's music for
piano performed in three segments during one afternoon as part of the Boulez weekend in October.
Aimard has long been associated with Pierre Boulez, from his early years as first solo pianist with Boulez's Ensemble
intercontemporain, and ever since as a regular musical collaborator.
Setting these concerts in context with his two other appearances in the International Piano Series, where he focuses in
particular on Liszt's piano works, Aimard comments, 'In [all of] these concerts we visit two giants of the piano - each of whom
belongs so strongly to his own century and has revolutionised piano music within it. In the case of Boulez we witness all of his
piano pieces in chronological order, along with a spoken commentary. While with Liszt we make a selection of his piano works,
juxtaposed with compositions of more recent times, thus positioning his music as if in a mirror with music of the future - aptly
reflecting that part of Liszt's identity in which he recognised himself as a composer of the future.'
£13 £11 £9

Oct 2 2011 7:30PM RFH

Boulez & Ensemble intercontemporain
Barbara Hannigan, soprano; Ensemble intercontemporain; Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble; Pierre Boulez, conductor
P. Boulez: Pli selon pli (Portrait de Mallarmé) for soprano & orchestra
Pierre Boulez - avant-garde figurehead since the 1940s, musical giant on the world stage and author of some of the key
progressive works in musical modernism - returns to Royal Festival Hall for a rare London concert as composer/conductor. He
performs with the esteemed Ensemble intercontemporain, which he founded in the 1970s, soprano Barbara Hannigan and the
young musicians of the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble as part of a collaboration project.
This concert is the culmination of a special weekend devoted to the composer's music and features a performance of Boulez's
sonic masterpiece Pli selon Pli ('Fold upon Fold') for soprano and orchestra. Based on fragments from the French poems of
Stéphane Mallarmé - known for their play on phonetics - it is a piece of dynamic contrasts, subtle textures and great beauty - a
perfect vehicle for the supreme technical skill of Ensemble InterContemporain and Barbara Hannigan.
'Pli selon pli... made absolutely riveting listening... Ensemble intercontemporain revelled in the teeming inventions and wild,
imaginative fantasies that have long made this work seminal.' (The Independent)
Level 5 Function Room at Royal Festival Hall at 6.15pm - Pre concert talk - Who is Pierre Boulez? In conversation with pianist
and Artistic Director of the Boulez Festival, Pierre Laurent Aimard. Admission free (subject to availability)
£45, £35, £28, £22, £17, £12 Premium £65

NOTE TO THE EDITORS

Born in 1925 Pierre Boulez can look back on nearly six decades of activity in making music an essential part of the
contemporary world. His first compositions date back to the mid-1940s, when he had recently emerged from studies with
Olivier Messiaen in Paris, who encouraged his technical acumen, his intensity and also his curiosity, about Asian and African
as well as European music. At the same time, lessons with René Leibowitz, a Schoenberg and Webern scholar, introduced
him to twelve-note composition, which he immediately adapted to his own purposes. His Second Piano Sonata (1947-48), a
work of Beethovenian range and power, marked his creative coming of age. The next step was a reduction, an exhaustive
examination of the basic elements of music in an attempt to make rhythmic values, loudness and nuances of touch obey serial
principles: this happened in the first section of his Structures I for two pianos (1951-52). With the knowledge gained, he could
return to larger issues in the later part of this work and in Le marteau sans maître for contralto and mixed sextet (1953-55),
whose combination of delectableness and stringency has made it a classic of modern music. A further opening-out produced
the brilliant Pli selon Pli (1957-62), a portrait of the poet Mallarmé in music for soprano and an orchestra rich in percussion.

After this his compositional output decreased, partly because he had since 1957 been appearing more and more frequently as
a conductor. In the mid-1970s, however, he decided to reduce his conducting commitments drastically in order to concentrate
on work at IRCAM, the Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic/Music he founded at the request of President Georges
Pompidou. There his contacts with computer technicians and musicians were brought to bear on the composition of Répons,
followed by another electronic project, ...explosante-fixe... for Midi-flute, two solo-flutes, ensemble and electronics. At the end
of 1991, Pierre Boulez left his position of director of IRCAM, maintaining his ties with this institute, however, by accepting the
title of Honorary Director. Acclaimed world-wide, numerous prices (Siemens Foundation/Germany, Leonie Sonning/Denmark,
Praemium Imperiale/Japan, Polar Music Prize/Sweden, Wolf Prize/Israel, Grawemeyer Award/USA...) and honorary doctorates
were conferred upon him.

Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, occupying a 21-acre site that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant
cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching
back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Southbank Centre is home to the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room
and The Hayward as well as The Saison Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection. The Royal Festival Hall reopened in
June 2007 following the major refurbishment of the Hall and redevelopment of the surrounding area and facilities. Southbank
Centre is home to Resident Orchestras, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta,
and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

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