Music From Other Minds

Program 502: Music of Pierre Boulez

KALW Broadcast Date: February 9, 2018 | Host: Richard Friedman

Recently we have been exploring the legacy of the last century’s avant-garde—Edgard Varése, Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis and John Cage. Tonight our focus is on French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who passed away two years ago at age 90. Boulez’s influence throughout the last half of the 20th Century was significant. Much of the new music written over the past 60 years has either been influenced by or in reaction to his music.

Paul Griffiths writes that “Pierre Boulez’s music belongs in the energetic state of a trapped bang, where ideas can have implications that run on through great lengths of composed time, through many decades in the composers career, and indeed, through our own lives, after we’ve heard them.”

Program Audio

30-Second Spot