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| Editor’s Note |
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Pierre Boulez’ Le Marteau sans maître is one of the essential compositions of the 20th century. Now, for the first time, this masterpiece appears on the same record as B-Partita, a tribute of French composer Philippe Manoury’s (*1952) to Boulez. Basing his music on texts by René Char, Boulez (1925-2016) vacillated between extremes: Celestial sounds are contrasted with pulsing rhythms. Free-flowing passages meet rigid meters. Sung passages follow purely instrumental writing. The music is ever changing, but the goal of its metamorphosis remains constant and discernable. With the particular instrumentation, which aims at the gradual deconstruction of a singing voice into percussive elements (a style Boulez would come back to for the rest of his career), the young, 30-year old Boulez was coming into his own as a composer. Manoury’s B-Partita, meanwhile, sees itself as a sympathetic homage to precisely that, Boulez’, musical language. |
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| Video Trailer: Le Marteau sans maître |
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| Lineup |
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Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain
Daniel Kawka, conductor
Salomé Haller, mezzo soprano (tracks 1-9)
Gaël Rassaert, solo violin (track 10)
Serge Lemouton, electronics (track 10)
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| First Listener’s Note |
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By Laurent Bayle
Pierre Boulez started composing Le Marteau sans maître – based on René Char’s surrealist poetry – in 1952. In that process Boulez employs hierarchical and celebratory accents that may evoke vaguely extra-European rituals. He was not yet 30 years old, when – by way of the complex combination of pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and tonal color – he laid the foundation for his highly personalized musical language. All of that can be heard in each of this early masterpiece’s nine movements. Meanwhile, Boulez’ approach is not about annihilating the status quo. It is instead the affirmation of a style that combines a profound inner coherence with a sense of liberty… all within a framework of considerable flexibility of phrasing. In no time at all, Le Marteau sans maître (“The Hammer without a Master”) became one of the most commented upon classical compositions of the latter half of the 20th century. [...]
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| Artist’s Note |
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| © EOC |
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By Daniel Kawka
To record Le Marteau sans maître these days raises, quite legitimately, the question as to “Why?” Haven’t we already got four recordings from the composer himself, each of reference-quality in their own way? Sure, we do! And still, there remains the temptation to throw a version of our own into the ring – especially as all epochs, indeed each emotion, and every development of virtuosity that’s being handed from one generation to the next, needs – and necessarily offers – a different view onto the work which, in turn, opens up whole new dimensions. The act of interpretation is one element – or a vision – of that eternal and unconquerable sense that is at the core of a masterwork: The kind of truth that you can find in all those mutually enriching historical gestures.
René Char’s is a sensual poetry. The abstraction of words, the diffraction of images, the ornaments in the musical writing, and the malleable lines all impel us toward this, our particular reading. The music while certainly erudite and intricate, it is also ritualistic and carnal! It’s an earthy, aboriginal music and dance… something to listen closely to. And whom does this irresistible rhythmic writing remind us of? Bingo: Stravinsky!
Philippe Manoury’s B-Partita, his tribute to Pierre Boulez, with its incantation of “B” – this all-conclusive, effortless little B-flat which feels like an evocation of Doppelganger forever vanished – is the greatest tribute that one great master has yet paid another. It really has everything: The virtuoso voice of the violin, quasi-symphonic orchestral writing, a fine mixture of timbres that interact with electronic sounds in real time and which superimpose the tempi with real mastery and infinite poetry. All that French music has to offer in terms of refinement, poetry, mesmerizing virtuosic mastery, narrative- and suspended time (alternatingly ‘streaky and smooth’), can be found in this sublime homage to Boulez, making it the only possible work that could live up Le Marteau sans maître on this CD. |
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| Video Trailer: B-Partita de Philippe Manoury |
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1CD | Instrumental | Ensemble | Contemporary | PRIME colors Edition |
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| Recommendation |
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New music and groove – does it work and does it exist? Musical crossover artist Ketan Bhatti nods ... and delivers proof with his solo debut Nodding Terms!  |
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| Hans Thomalla’s opera Fremd adapts one of hte great myths of Worldliterature: Medea; still challenging, still compelling. |
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| The Lost Cloud Qurartet conducted by Salvatore Sciarrino, the composer himself. |
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