Music Lessons: The College de France Lectures

Description

Pierre Boulez was appointed to the College de France in 1976, with the chair devoted to 'Invention, technique and language in Music', and he held his position until 1995. The publication of his extraordinary College de France lectures, his most significant writings from the 1970s to the 1990s, will make a major contribution to the discussion in English about Boulez's aesthetic legacy. His goal in Lecons de musique is to express his conception of musical language, laid out over the course of nearly twenty years of lecturing. He is thinking about the possible paths musical thought could take, as well as the musical legacy of the past In addition to composers, music historians, theorists, and music students, this book will be invaluable to those interested in the history and aesthetics of 20th century music, musical manifestations of artistic modernism, the history of ideas, and French intellectual and cultural history. Faber have been Pierre Boulez's publisher since 1986 - previous books include Orientations, Boulez on Music Today and Boulez on Conducting. 'Boulez's achievements in changing every part of the fabric of classical musical culture all over the world are indelible.' Tom Service, Guardian

Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) influentially steered the course of post-war contemporary concert music through his multiple roles as path-breaking composer (from the dazzling Le Marteau sans maitre (1955) to the glittering Sur Incises (1996)), iconoclastic conductor of many of the world's greatest orchestras, and founder of durable musical institutions in his native France (IRCAM, Cite de la musique). His provocative pronouncements cast in chiselled prose made him a hotly discussed cultural figure not only in France, but worldwide.