Boulez in Rehearsal

Several years ago I had the distinct pleasure of meeting, quite briefly, Pierre Boulez. At the time, I was a college student, just beginning to learn about music of the 20th Century, so I'm sure I didn't fully appreciate the weight of the situation. Boulez, of course, had become since the 1950's one of the most important musicians of the 20th Century, renowned as both a composer and conductor. The time we met, he was a visiting composer at my undergraduate college, presiding over a couple of forums and sitting in on rehearsals of Le marteau sans maitre. I quickly found that, even in his 70s, Boulez was razor-sharp and as bold as ever, still the same man who decried the university situation in the mid-20th century as "incestuous" and a "self-made ghetto." At first glance, I found Boulez to have the look of a grandfather, kind yet grizzled, shaped by a thousand encounters and experiences that I would never fully understand.

With that image firmly in mind, I always wanted to see Boulez conduct, but never had the opportunity to do so in person. The closest I've come was a recent viewing of a recording of Boulez in rehearsal with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1998, during which the orchestra worked on Alban Berg's Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6, and Boulez' own Notations I-IV. The recording showed Boulez as a no-frills kind of conductor, his countenance detached but focused, his gestures clean and concise. When he gave direction, he did so with the same blunt honesty for which he became well-known earlier in his career, remaining professional and courteous all the while. His knowledge of the scores in question was keen and intellectual, and he made no mention of emotional content at any point in the rehearsal. Even without any mention of emotion, however, the orchestra displayed moments of inspiration that belied the calm control of its conductor.

There are many things in this recording that the young conductor can take to heart and apply to her own work--Boulez' firm control of the ensemble without being overbearing, his fine understanding of the score, and the brevity of his comments being the most obvious among them. Those things alone make watching this DVD worthwhile, and as a musician who often gets more out of watching rehearsals than performances, I highly recommend this view into the day-to-day workings of both a world-class orchestra and a world-class composer/conductor. In fact, I would like to challenge conductors to make more recordings of this sort for our younger conductors to study as a sort of living textbook on rehearsal technique and conductor preparation. The more exposure our conductors have to brilliant musicians like Boulez, the more perpared they will be to strike out into the bright future of our art!

Pierre Boulez: In Rehearsal with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, 1998 Spectrum TV and RM Arts. Distributed Exclusively by Image Entertaiment.