A regular guest of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1964 onwards, and Music Director of the same orchestra between 1971 and 1975, Pierre Boulez devised a programme that gave pride of place to the music of his century. These two concerts pay tribute to his London tenure, offering a reflection on four composers embodying European modernity – four creators of close generations, from different countries, who illustrated genres rooted in tradition: the ballet, the concerto, the symphony or variations for orchestra. Some maintained or adapted inherited forms, others deliberately ignored them, preferring to work on material or language. Nothing can synthesise the data except for a spirit of daring put to the used of strong poetics and imagination, and requiring novel means.
Composed in 1912, Jeux is Claude Debussy’s last completed orchestral score. A lover of painting and Symbolist poetry, the musician was initially less than enthralled by the ballet’s story: a game of tennis associated to a sentimental episode whose troubled, triangular eroticism the choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky revealed in his Diary. Reversing his initial reluctance, the musician gradually became enthusiastic about the project, delivering a singular work that stands apart from all models. The subjects of sports and “badinage à trois” (three-way banter) already allowed him to break away from the staple themes conveyed in the temples of dance, but the composer also presented an opus that defied the usual categories of form, theme and color. Although certain constraints remain – such as the pas de deux or pas de trois, the presence of waltzes and solo dances – the score does not fit into any categorised form. It is based on a profusion of brief motifs, creating a singular mosaic that precludes any idea of symmetry or hierarchy. The composer’s wish, expressed as early as 1895 for music “made up of a single continuous motif, which nothing interrupts and which never turns back on itself” was finally fulfilled. The elements are united by minute links, present right from the introduction: a chromatic cell, a pattern of repeated notes, a figure emerging from the tonal scale. Generated from a single source, the materials unfold in succession while developing a relationship at a distance. The continuous iridescence of timbre, the constant migration from one desk to another and the freedom of movement create music that suggest carnal pleasure and physicality.
Completed almost fifty years later, Igor Stravinsky’s Agon (1957) is another ballet that questions the genre. Although the title means “competition” or “joust” in ancient Greece, the work has no libretto, illustrates no plot, and breaks away from “ballet action” in favor of a geometric form reminiscent of Mondrian’s later paintings. It is symmetrical in form, closed by the final return of the pas de quatre and the introductory prelude, and comprises four cycles of three dances, plus interludes and a final coda. Twelve dancers perform a variety of combinations, from solo pieces to dueling couples. The miniaturised numbers incorporate ancient dances, reflecting the desire for a heterogeneous discourse leading from the Renaissance to Webern. Canonic procedures, constantly renewed colors, the marriage of tonality and dodecaphonic language, and the distancing shown by dancers dressed only in their simple rehearsal costumes are the main elements of a work that seeks to reconcile the recreation of an archaic past with the composition of music that seems timeless.
Composed in 1931, Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No.2 blends the influences of Bach, 17th-century Italian contrapuntalists and Stravinsky. The first movement begins with a quotation from The Firebird, and follows the instrumental formation of the Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments. Bartók superimposes three approaches to the form, combining the classical architecture of the first movements with that of a rondeau (according to the composer himself) and a Baroque conception, alternating thematic statements by the large ensemble with particularly virtuosic concertante episodes. The general plan is a palindrome, with a central Adagio surrounded by two interrelated scherzos, and a finale that freely takes up the themes of the first movement. The orchestration responds to a phenomenon of growth: the opening Allegro is composed of wind and percussion instruments, the Adagio mixes timpani with muted strings, before the Finale brings all forces together.
Conceived ten years later (1942), Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto reveals other solutions, adopting a four-movement plan linked by brief transitions or cadenzas for the soloist. A few short phrases slipped to pianist Oscar Levant, for whom the work was originally conceived, explain the work’s trajectory by summarily recalling the context of the war years: “Life was so easy – suddenly hatred exploded – a grave situation resulted – but life goes on”. Although the composer denied any intention of “harking back”, the work blends tonal chords with serial language, and incorporates elements of Viennese waltz and post-Romantic phrasing. nevertheless remains true to his writing precepts: continuous variation, density of texture, interest in counterpoint and rapid alternation of composite moods underline the intensity of each moment.
A few years earlier, Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31 (1928) mark a first milestone in the mastery of a twelve-tone language patiently developed through the writing of pieces for piano, voice and chamber ensemble. They form part of a series of works testing the new technique within historically established genres, such as the suite, the serenade and the wind quintet. Their aim is to establish continuity across centuries and develop an anamnestic approach. The Brahmsian principle of “compartmented” variations underpins the twelve-section plan, with a mysterious introduction, a theme (in the hands of the cellos), nine variations of contrasting character, and a long finale. The clear construction of the phrases, the repeated use of the B-A-C-H motif and the imposing nomenclature recalling “fin-de-siècle” instrumentation are other points that reveal the desire to confront past and present, to oppose conservation and renewal.
Written between 1942 and 1946, Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements stands at the crossroads of several genres: symphony, programme piece and concerto – the piano and harp being employed as soloists in the first two movements before coming together in the finale. The formal references are elusive, the harmonic language harsh and rough, the tempo flexible. All three movements have a cinematic origin. The first was written after watching a documentary explaining “scorched earth” techniques in China. The second, with its Italianate accents, was conceived for a film by Franz Werfel entitled The Song of Bernadette, and then incorporated into the symphony after the project was abandoned. And the finale, linked to the previous movement by an eight-bar interlude, is a violent march inspired by “newsreels showing soldiers marching to the goose step” (Stravinsky). The central fugue symbolises “the rise of the Allies” and the coda, reminiscent of the Sacred Dance from The Rite of Spring, symbolises the Nazis’ debacle.
Jean-François Boukobza
