Pierre Boulez: Structures

Pierre Boulez: Structures (Livre 2) (1956/61)
für zwei Klaviere / for two pianos

Recital-Lecture mit / with Ulrich Mosch

Erste Aufführung / First Performance: NN & NN (Klavier / Piano)
Zweite Aufführung / Second Performance: NN (Klavier / Piano)

Unlike the “First Book” of Structures for two pianos (1951–52) by Pierre Boulez, who would have his 100th birthday this year, his “Second Book” (1956/61) has not become a reference work to the same extent, although it borrows its material, as the first one, from Olivier Messiaen’s Mode valeurs et d’intensités (1949). Following Le Marteau sans maître (1952–55) and an extensive incidental music for the Oresteia of the theatre company Renaud-Barrault in Paris the “Second Book” was written in two stages, before and after the Third Piano Sonata. The two “Chapters” of Structures II were premiered on 21 October 1956 and 1961 respectively, at the Donaueschingen Music Festival, with Yvonne Loriod and Pierre Boulez at the piano. As is so often the case with Boulez, the work reflects his compositional development: here from total serialism to guided aleatorics. The work was only performed once at the Darmstadt Summer Course until the end of the 20th century, namely in the opening concert of the course in 1963 with Alfons and Aloys Kontarsky. A performance by participants of the Summer Course would have been completely unthinkable at the time. In addition to the history of its composition, the lecture will focus in particular on questions of the interpretation of this music.