Pierre Boulez: Organised Delirium
Caroline Potter
Boydell & Brewer 208pp (hb) £30
Which composers are most commonly associated with ‘music of delirium and hysteria’? Berlioz, perhaps, for sheer scale, or maybe the whirling creativity of Gershwin or Bernstein? Boulez, a musician best known for his dodecaphonic language, is unlikely to top that list. But in Organised Delirium, Caroline Potter argues that his later fixation with numbers in music is not mathematical: rather, it is magical.
While not strictly provides interesting insight into the composer-conductor’s education – particularly his studies with Messiaen and Leibowitz, his dalliances with writings by René Char and Antonin Artaud, a fascination with the , and the impact that these formative years would have throughout his life. Potter sets store by Boulez’s early experiences with Surrealist literature and artists in Paris during the 1940s, and emphasises that the composer himself referenced the importance of (found objects). One example given is the SACHER hexachord – a musical cipher invoking the name of conductor and philanthropist Paul Sacher (1906-99) – that Boulez reworked on numerous occasions. It’s a compelling, albeit fairly dry, contextualisation.
