Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This year is the centenary of Pierre Boulez, the iconoclast of late 20th-century classical music. There has been insufficient time since his 2016 death to fully measure his legacy. Its most enduring part may have less to do with his own music-making than his institutional influence.As a composer, he was a founder of what became known as the International style, a rigorous method that extended Arnold Schoenberg\u2019s system of removing tonal centres and forms from music into details of rhythm, dynamics, and more. That has waned and appears increasingly archaic. A self-taught conductor, he made many excellent recordings and led notable productions of operas by Wagner and Berg (he once infamously suggested that the \u201cmost elegant solution to the problem of opera was to blow up the opera houses\u201d). But he could be inconsistent at the podium.He was also an important figure behind some of the major contemporary music institutions. These include the Cit\u00e9 de la musique complex in Paris and the Lucerne Festival Academy. Above all, he created the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique\/Musique (IRCAM) for research into sound and technological applications for music.With each, Boulez made new materials and methods available for others, adding to the musical toolkit. From IRCAM alone comes music software used by everyone from researchers at universities to laptop producers.Two recent concerts outlined his impact. The New York Philharmonic presented \u201cSound On: A Tribute to Boulez\u201d at New York\u2019s David Geffen Hall, a matin\u00e9e on the last Saturday in January that recreated one of his programmes from his time as Philharmonic music director, 1971-1977. David Robertson conducted, and led high-spirited performances of Bach\u2019s Brandenburg Concerto No 3 and Schubert\u2019s Symphony No 2. The second half was modern, with Webern\u2019s Symphony, Op 21, Boulez\u2019s two improvisations from his large-scale setting of symbolist poetry by St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9, Pli selon Pli, with soprano Jana McIntyre making a stellar Philharmonic debut singing the luminous texts, and the suite from Stravinsky\u2019s L\u2019Histoire du Soldat. Except for the Boulez, the playing was often awkward and sluggish \u2014 especially weighed down by lengthy pauses between the movements of L\u2019Histoire.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606The following Thursday, the International Contemporary Ensemble presented \u201cBoulez Rebooted\u201d at Zankel Hall. This was focused on Boulez\u2019s influence as composer and IRCAM founder. The first half opened with baritone Will Liverman singing Kaija Saariaho\u2019s ghostly Sombre (with excerpts from Ezra Pound\u2019s \u201cThe Cantos\u201d) \u2014 the late Finnish composer was a proponent of \u201cspectralism\u201d, the avant-garde style that originated in sonic research at IRCAM. This was followed by Philippe Manoury\u2019s dynamite Hypoth\u00e8se du Sextuor \u2014 six musicians in play and conflict \u2014 and Tyshawn Sorey\u2019s delicate and mysterious deconstruction of Duke Ellington\u2019s \u201cSophisticated Lady\u201d, Sentimental Shards. Fireworks came after the interval, with violinist Gabriela Diaz\u2019s enthralling virtuosic performance of Boulez\u2019s Anth\u00e8mes II, and Levy Lorenzo managing the electronic processing of Diaz\u2019s plucks, trills, glassy whispers and luscious phrases. The programme concluded with the world premiere of Pliages, hommage \u00e0 Pierre Boulez, for musicians and the Somax2 AI software from IRCAM. While an ensemble of harp, piano, percussion and soprano improvised from Pli selon Pli, Somax2 listened via microphones and responded algorithmically with a digital palette \u201ctrained on\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. Boulez\u2019s works\u201d, according to the concert notes. A horizontal light bar positioned centre stage lit up with each Somax2 note. This had Boulez\u2019s ringing sound, and was a fascinating demonstration of the latest technology. But in contrast to the live musicians, Somax2\u2019s AI felt inert \u2014 too mechanical to satisfy.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606nyphil.org; iceorg.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This year is the centenary of Pierre Boulez, the iconoclast of late 20th-century classical music. There has been insufficient time since his 2016 death to fully<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":191544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-191543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191545,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191543\/revisions\/191545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}