Awards

• Winner of Prix Opus: Livre de l'Annee (Opus Prize: Book of the Year) 2011
• Winner of Prix Opus: Livre de l'Annee (Opus Prize: Book of the Year) 2011.

Overview

Pierre Boulez is arguably the most influential composer of the second half of the twentieth century. Here, Jonathan Goldman provides a fresh appraisal of the composer's music, demonstrating how understanding the evolution of Boulez's ideas on musical form is an important step towards evaluating his musical thought generally. The theme of form arising from a grammar of oppositions - the legacy of structuralism - serves as a common thread in Boulez's output, and testifies to the constancy of Boulez's thought over and above his several notable aesthetic and stylistic changes. This book lends a voice to the musical works by using the writings - particularly the mostly untranslated collected Collège de France lectures (1976–95) - to comment on them. It also uses five musical works from the post-1975 period to exemplify concepts developed in Boulez's writings, presenting a vivid portrait of Boulez's extremely varied production.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jonathan Goldman (University of Victoria, British Columbia)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 17.00cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 24.40cm
Weight:   0.440kg
ISBN:  

9781107673205

ISBN 10:   1107673208
Pages:   270
Publication Date:   19 June 2014
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; Part I. Form as Opposition in the Writings of Pierre Boulez: 2. Writings from the first period: serialist doctrine, the open work, and strategies of rhetorical displacement; 3. A portrait of Webern, a self-portrait of Boulez; 4. Form, thematicism and perceptual categories in the writings from the 1970s to the present; Part II. Form as Opposition in Selected Works by Pierre Boulez: 5. Introduction to Part II: analysis by, of, in and according to Boulez; 6. Rituel and the architecture of antiphony; 7. Dérive 1 and harmonic control; 8. Mémoriale and polar mechanics; 9. Anthèmes and virtual thematics; 10. Incises and the play of recognition and surprise; 11. Boulezian form in theory and practice; Writings by Boulez; Chronological list of works and bibliography of writings classified by work; Selected recordings of works studied.

Reviews

'The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez ... is chock-full of examples ... There are also necessarily ample quotations from Boulez'[s] writings. It's produced to Cambridge University Press's usual high standards and can be recommended for anyone even vaguely interested in modern music ... The job Goldman sets out to do he succeeds at credibly and impressively.' Mark Sealey, Classical Net (classical.net) The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez: Writings and Compositions is chock-full of examples, musical examples but nearly as many tables illustrating Boulez analytical approach to how music works. There are also necessarily ample quotations from Boulez' writings. It's produced to CUP's usual high standards and can be recommended for anyone even vaguely interested in modern music. Yes, it relies on a technical dissection of actual music. Yes, it presupposes some understanding of why the issues discussed are important. The job Goldman sets out to do he succeeds at credibly and impressively. -Classical Net, Mark Sealey

'The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez ... is chock-full of examples ... There are also necessarily ample quotations from Boulez'[s] writings. It's produced to Cambridge University Press's usual high standards and can be recommended for anyone even vaguely interested in modern music ... The job Goldman sets out to do he succeeds at credibly and impressively.' Mark Sealey, Classical Net (classical.net)

Author Information

Jonathan Goldman is Associate Professor of Musicology at the Université de Montréal, and specializes in twentieth-century music history. Editor-in-Chief of the journal Circuit, musiques contemporaines, he wrote the preface to Leçons de musique (2005), a collection of Boulez's writings published in France.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions