Pierre Boulez and His Cultural Legacy Today
Symposium, Institut Français Edinburgh, 6-7 November 2025, with two live concerts and a workshop featuring violinist Rachel Koblyakov.
Pierre Boulez’s contribution to music history is still too often restricted to the inception of integral serialism after the Second World War and his (in)famous ‘Structures IA’. As Ian Pace argued in his presentation focusing on the cultural and aesthetic contexts of Pli selon Pli (Fold upon Fold, 1957-62), this (‘Structures IA’) is perhaps Boulez’s least characteristic composition. Pace’s talk was characteristic of the symposium in not so much overturning previous conceptions as embedding them in an enriched consideration of cultural history. Thus, Caroline Potter and Catherine Losada both focused on Boulez’s fascination with non-Western musics, Mark Berry on his conducting of opera, notably Wagner, Gabryel Smith on his role in revitalising the repertoire and activities of the New York Philharmonic (including his spicy responses to disgruntled subscribers!), Edward Campbell on his debts to Scottish traditional musics, particularly piobaireachd, Elsebeth Curry on the supposed ‘feud’ between Boulez and his alleged rival Henri Dutilleux, and João Gabriel Rizek on his impact on modernist composition in Brazil.
An emergent focus concerned the role of technology. For instance, Peter Nelson contrasted Boulez’s system-based approach with Iannis Xenakis’s more idiosyncratic employment of computers. While Nelson’s evaluation was relatively balanced, pointing out the achievements as well as limitations in both composers’ procedures, Echo Davidson critiqued what she described as the ‘intensification of control – where sonic agency is concentrated in institutions, infrastructures, and code’ – inherent in Boulez’s use of technology in his Répons (1981-84).
This engagement with cultural and social history evident throughout the symposium did not necessarily come at the expense of analysis and considerations of compositional technique, however. Rather, the latter were explored in their wider cultural and aesthetic contexts. This was apparent in Michael Spitzer’s and Larson Powell’s attempts to relate Boulez’s approaches in Pli selon Pli to the philosophical thoughts of Deleuze, Simondon and Sloterdijk (Spitzer) or the tradition of Adornian critical theory, such as Richard Klein (Powell), respectively, for instance. Elsewhere, Benjamin Havey reconsidered the supposed ‘atomisation’ of sonata form in the Second Piano Sonata (1946-48), Catherine Losada identified the impact of non-Western music in the compositional fabric of a number of works over a significant period, and Björn Heile traced the dissemination of serial technique in France to German-Jewish refugee networks.
The highlights were provided by the violinist Rachel Koblyakov, who presented a concert surrounding Boulez’s Anthèmes (1992) with other works for solo violin, from J. S. Bach’s Chaconne from the Partita in D minor BWV 1004 to Ursula Mamlok’s Aphorisms (2009) and Orlando Bass’s Terra (2023), as well as a fascinating workshop on the performance challenges presented by Anthèmes.
The symposium was well attended, with local people joining the delegates in lively and convivial debates. The Institut Français provided a magnificent backdrop, looking out over West Parliament Square towards St Giles Cathedral. Thanks are due to the Institut’s staff for their friendly, professional and effective support, which allowed the event to go so smoothly, and to the RMA for their generous funding.
Björn Heile, University of Glasgow