classical music:

	Boulez: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-3 Pierre Boulez, Idil Biret Naxos, 1995 average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

I'm not entirely sure about the other Sonatas though. Biret does a good job with the first movement of the First Sonata (with a wonderful sense of disturbed stillness), but the final movement is not as fiery as I've heard in a now unavailable Erato recording (I think the pianist was Pierre-Laurent Aimard). And, to be honest with you, as a composition I don't care much for the Third Sonata. But this is a relatively cheap CD, and the priceless interpretation of the Second Sonata makes it a real bargain

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Easily the best of all the different recordings

Idel Biret's incredible rendition of the three Boulez Piano sonatas reigns untrammelled by the glossy facade of the Deutsche grammaphon and Montaigne efforts.
There is a sense of will, Biret guides the listener inexorably through the music with consumate artistry, giving the right amount of tension and repose to every corner of Boulez's music.
Biret brings out the ravelian nature of the second sonata better than anyone else. wonderful


Bouncing tragic Boulez

`Drammatico'. There could be some continuity in these ruins but what seems to remain, standing, is nothing but tidbits of small chips of music. Half a clause, one sudden interjection, a small partially broken up sentence that has lost its meaning but reverberates in the vast emptiness of the abyss of death. And yet the ruins are squirming and wiggling with unseen life. But is it life itself or the phantom of life? But this life was multifarious, the crossing and mixing of all influences and all original trespassing of all rules or norms. And the ruinous reality today sounds like the normal and foreseeable frontal clash of all these heritages that had been in a way forced to promiscuity. What survives then is like a hodgepodge of what used to be, a patchwork of one thousand tongues and languages, with maybe a small iota too much American jazzy symphonic music. We can wonder what some Gershwinian or Bernsteinian accents are doing in this churchyard, that cemetery. That is the mystery of these ruins. Or is the mystery the bringing together and resuscitating of all these morsels and crumbs back into some loaf of unleavened bread that announces a new Easter, a new epiphany, a new assumption to the sky of tomorrow morning, though it is always already yesterday. Are we beyond time's redemption? Have we participated in the getting rid of the past, of the Messiah of some newly not yet invented peace in the Middle East? The violin of `Poetico' is so airy, eerie, so sadly cloudless and yet some deep bass is lurking behind all the fallen stones, ready to take them all to the rising sunshine of the aftermath of the disaster, the `tragique' of the unstoppable pursuing of one deadly aim against all such influences. Let's close the door of the past but it all seeps under the door and the past is back inside the crumbling house. `Colline de l'Etrange' is digging deep in out several century old heritage. Accents from the good old romantic 19th century, Berlioz or many others. Some light echo of Stravinsky's early un-harmonic harmony, and then everything flutters in and out, each instrument being its own recollection, its own remembrance. We are in a cedar forest of pillars, trunks, and many branches of the trees bend down in front of `Harmonies crépusculaires' that leads down to the tenebrae of some nightful tomb, grave and funeral vault with a distant drum marching the army of the dead through to the long pilgrimage of salvation, if it is not rather total perdition. A bell tolling in the middle of the rebellion of history. How can only a totaling bell survive this catastrophe of oblivious utter destruction? It's because the clouds have drawn their wine and are now sprinkling it or even pouring it over the land like blood over the battle field. And nothing germinates out of it except some disturbing rumor or lianas that little by little encircle our ears and enchain us to our stools, as if we were the stool pigeons of death or as if we were condemned to take stool after stool till we died of total loss of internal matter. But isn't a battle surging up from that liquefied existence? It is deep, and lurking, and menacing and even coming down at times like a rolling bulldozer that would like to bring everything down. The cloud is no longer water droplets suspended in mid air but lead bullets falling onto us like the familiars if death or starving children.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

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First is pinnicle,less the Second,least the Third

This is a hard call;Pollini's monochrome timbre(in the Second Sonata)intentionally creates the rhythmic (furious) untrampled drive the work needs which is exciting,you don't need a listening agenda to consume this violence.Pollini would rather have some purest conception at work(as here in his early Eighties reading) sacrificing all, than drifting aimlessly over the generous violence the Second imparts.The Second Sonata, for the most part moves at such a fever pitch that many times you are not appraising the gradations of timbres(as Biret strives for),but simply the motions and movements of registers which occur in rapid-fire quicksilver formations over the entire keyboard. That's why Biret's First Sonata reading is far superior than anyone I've heard,save Fredric Rzewski,Biret knows how to construct drama and the First still had remainders and leftovers of that for the young Boulez was trying to get,subvert tradition out of his creativity.The First Sonata still has its registral movements in fairly obvious successions,and Biret shapes those outlines admirably. Her Second(I agree) lacked demonic spirit which you find in Pollini.Boulez(at the time of the Second) was reading Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty mixed with the surreal poetry of post-war occupied France,somewhat disturbing ambiences for a man in his Twenties.It's incredible that the young Boulez had only a clangorous upright piano to try out his revolutionary new work, this one.

The Third Sonata is rather opaque and ill-focused, and I've never heard anyone yet who plays it with any degree of conviction,Aimard,Rosen.And Biret here as well strives for summoning a mystery out of this indeterminate mapping of the beautiful multi-coloured score.

As a footnote: I still admire Yvonne Loriod playing the Second,she brings an enraged demeanor to the entire work short changing the mystery that may be the result in the rather surreal second and third movements.I heard Rzewski play the Second at Carnegie Hall and in Chicago in the early Seventies,and he stays fairly close to the inflammatory enragement of Loriod.

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A satisfactory performance of somewhat lesser Boulez

Pierre Boulez's three piano sonatas are early works indeed. The first two were written in his early 20s, while the third came not long after. On this budget-priced Naxos disc Idil Biret performs. I was a bit nervous about the recording, since Biret's performance of the Ligeti etudes (also on Naxos) was a total disaster, but this recording is relatively satisfactory and may be a good addition to the Boulez fan's collection.

Even for those familiar with much serial music, even if you've heard everything else Boulez composed, the piano sonatas can be difficult listening. In fact, in the beginning one might think it merely a series of bleeps and bloops without order. Gaining insight into these takes time, and in the beginning one should focus on the simple succession of individual gestures even if the musical development on a large scale can't be perceived. Over time, however, the sonatas unlock their secrets, and one begins to notice motifs and clever form.

The first two sonatas are not Boulez's first pieces--they were preceded by the recently rehabilitated "Notations" for piano (1945)--but they are Boulez's first individual achievement. In the "Piano Sonata No. 1" (1946) the sonorities of Webern (especially the "Symphonie" op. 21), coexist with an interest in dynamic and attack which is pure Boulez. The first movement is developed out of merely four opening gestures: a rising minor sixth, an appoggiatura, an isolated note, and a brusqe arpeggio. The second movement opens with cells all over the keyboard, and the dashing between octaves hints at Boulez's later solo piano work "Incises".

For much of his career has sought to take serialism beyond mere miniatures, like Webern, to grand designs. The four-movement "Piano Sonata No. 2" (1948) is, at nearly a half an hour long, an important venture in this direction. Popular opinions about Boulez as entirely detached from tradition will be amazed at the work's clear debt to Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" and "Waldstein" sonatas, and it even uses a B-A-C-H motif throughout. Its first movement is marked "extremement vif"--right off we find a violence and virtuosity never before heard in Boulez--and it posseses the elegant dramatic arc of classical sonata form, exposition--development--recapitulation. The second, slow movement is lyrical and melodic, while the brief (three-minute) third minute combines variation and scherzo form. The fourth movement, however, is extremely rich, made up of an introduction, a fugue, a rondo, and a coda. A twelve-tone fugue makes for exciting listening.

The "Piano Sonata No. 3" (1955-57) was written during Boulez's interest in quasi-aleatoric writing where the performer was free to decide the order of the piece's sections. Inspired by Mallarme and the possibility of a book in perpetual expansion, this quality can be found also in Boulez's "Eclat" and "Pli selon pli", though Boulez ultimately fixed the ordering of the latter. This sonata has remained uncompleted for almost fifty years, and of the five "formants" (not "movements", since they don't move forward) which are to make up the piece, only the second and third have been published. The Third Sonata is by far the most abstract of the three, and understanding its structure involves close listening, ideally with score at hand. While based on an interesting concept, it offers fewer possibilities for mere entertainment than the first two.

So far I've only heard the recordings with Biret and with Jumppanen (on a 2005 Deutsche Grammophon disc). Biret has a light touch that makes for good listening. However, she flubs a few parts of the second sonata in a way that can't be missed; the ending of the first movement, especially, bears little relation to the score. For a reliable performance, Jumppanen's is worth getting, and carries Boulez's approval, even if his heavier use of petal won't be to everyone's taste.

The liner notes here are fairly superficial. For best understanding the sonatas I'd recommend getting a copy of Dominique Jameux's PIERRE BOULEZ (English translation Harvard University Press, 1991 ISBN 0-674-66740-9).

For me, Boulez really hit his stride after "Eclat", when he produced a number of works full of brilliant colour and elegant construction such as "Sur Incises", "...explosante-fixe..." and "Repons". I'd recommend those first to anyone curious about Boulez's music. Still, the piano sonatas are an interesting step in Boulez's musical development, as well as some of the most rigorous and adventurous serial writing of the generation after the Second Viennese School.

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Tracks
Piano Sonata No. 1: Lent - Beaucoup plus allant | Piano Sonata No. 1: Assez large - Rapide | Piano Sonata No. 2: Extrêmement rapide - Encore plus vif | Piano Sonata No. 2: Lent | Piano Sonata No. 2: Modéré, presque vif | Piano Sonata No. 2: Vif - Très modéré...Très librement... | Piano Sonata No. 3: Formant 2: Trope. Glose | Piano Sonata No. 3: Formant 2: Trope. Texte | Piano Sonata No. 3: Formant 2: Trope. Parenthèse | Piano Sonata No. 3: Formant 2: Trope. Commentaire | Piano Sonata No. 3: Formant 3. Constellation - Miroir

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