Pierre BOULEZ: Répons (1981-1984); Dialogue de l'ombre double (1985). Frederique Cambreling; Vincent Bauer; Daniel Ciampolini; Michel Cerutti; Dimitri Vassilakis; Florent Boffard; Alain Damiens; Ensemble InterContemporain; Pierre Boulez. Deutsche Grammophon 457605-2 [60'59"] Répons. Section I   Répons. Section II

Performance: +++++     Sound: +++++

After years of focusing its attentions on recording benchmark readings of the standard, mainly Germanic contemporary repertoire, DG proposes to issue ten new-music CDs a year in this new series, 20/21, comprising both freshly recorded material and reissues which will reflect a broad stylistic range. In the first batch of releases, Andre Previn's new opera A Streetcar Named Desire and orchestral music by Takemitsu rub shoulders with the complete Berio Sequenzas and the long-overdue reappearance of two classic Kagel scores, 1898 and Music for Renaissance Instruments, while this autumn we can look forward to CDs of music by Carter, Pärt, Henze and Bernstein.

This Boulez disc is perhaps the most desirable of the initial offerings, containing as it does the first recording of Répons, the work regarded by many as the composer's chef d'oeuvre. It's not hard to see why; for, compared with the brittle modernism of Le marteau sans maître and the baleful, impenetrable nihilism of Pli selon pli (earlier Boulez works comparable in size and scope), the 40-minute-version of this «work-in-progress» recorded here, while no less rigorously conceived and executed, sounds positively urbane. Like its companion piece on the disc, Dialogue de l'ombre double for solo clarinet, it employs IRCAM's state-of-the-art computer systems to effect breathtaking «real-time transformations» of its live material. While the twists and turns of the musical argument may, initially, prove elusive, few, I suspect, will be able to resist its unquenchable elan and scintillating sonorities.

This is the latest issue in DG's 20/21 series of major contemporary composers. Pierre Boulez �composer, conductor, theoretician, essayist, founder in 1977 of the electronic/acoustic music center IRCAM� certainly ranks high on the list of influential musical figures of our century, yet his music has a reputation as forbiddingly dense.

Open-minded listening to this CD should dispel such thoughts. No, Boulez hasn't suddenly started putting catchy melodies, diatonic harmonies and regular rhythms in his compositions. But Répons is one of the most colorful and dramatic scores the European avant-garde composer has produced.

It's a work that has built up gradually over succeeding editions, to the point where it is now 42:31 in length, more than twice its original size. A chamber group of two pianos (one doubling on synthesizer), harp, vibraphone, xylophone (doubling on glockenspiel), and cimbalom, mediated by an electro-acoustic system made up of a computer and six loudspeakers, is contrasted with a 24-instrument ensemble.

The structural and theoretical bases of the work are considerable, but it is undoubtedly the emphasis on Boulez' works' construction that has at least partially made casual listeners shy away from them. The point, as with all music, is not how it's put together, but how it sounds. And as the percussive soloists and the ensemble (woodwinds, brass, and strings) respond to each other and entwine in swirling spirals, the sheer variety of timbres is fascinating.

Boulez also builds a sense of the dramatic into the ebb and flow of the music that can carry listeners along with its progress. There's no need to wonder «how does this work?» when the sounds are so captivating, and the structure can be intuited sufficiently (if not entirely) that it never seems formless or random.

The 18-minute Dialogue de l'ombre double is, in a sense, a microcosm of Répons: a solo clarinet interacts with a taped clarinet that's «spatialized» through multiple speakers. In both works, spatial elements that would be more easily observed in person in a concert hall are somewhat lost on disc, but there is still enough contrast to understand the general effect. The electronic effects are relatively subtle.

Rating: 9.5

Isn't it going too far to say that Répons is the best piece of music Boulez ever composed? And that the performance captured here is the best possible for this sensuous and spectacular piece, described by the composer as a spiral? Boulez, of course, could decide to revise it again (in fact, this is the third version): his first incarnation of a composition is rarely an end-all, there's always a follow-up or two. To call him a perfectionist goes without saying: this is clear-headed obsession, a picture of Boulez's ongoing dialogue with himself and his music.

The history of Pierre Boulez's compositional career has been that of a continual work in progress; individual pieces may be presented, withdrawn, revised, extended or recomposed at any time according to the composer's interests, influences, state of mind and ability to realize his ideas or make use of the available talent and/or technology in order to do so. Répons («Responsories») is a case in point. Begun in 1980, its first performance was in a form that lasted approximately 17 minutes. Subsequent elaboration and reconstruction of its basic material, however, led to a second version over double that length two years later, and this recording is of a third (1984) version of about 43 minutes. Yet the basic premise of the work has remained unchanged. Boulez has been interested in finding a rapprochement between acoustic and electronic elements in music since the 1950s, but was never satisfied with the relatively inflexible medium of tape � that is, in order to combine live instrumentalists with a prerecorded tape of electronically generated sounds, especially as this meant that the performers had to coordinate their parts to the «mechanical» timing of the tape, thus limiting their potential to «respond» to the many variable factors in the score. It wasn't until the late 70s that a technology was devised that allowed for computer-controlled programming of «live» electronics that could interact with and in fact modify the acoustic sounds themselves in «real time».

So Répons was formatted in a manner that would bring into play several of Boulez's longtime compositional concerns � among them, a form of variational development of not only thematic material but also instrumental timbre and texture; an overall structural design, adapted from his reading of the poet Mallarmé, of variable material within a set frame; and a spatial component in the musical performance. To the latter end, Boulez adjusted the layout of the performers, having the 24-piece ensemble seated at the center of a circular stage surrounded by the audience, with the six solo instruments (two pianos, harp, cimbalom, glockenspiel and vibraphone) and six playback speakers behind and surrounding the audience. The speakers allowed him to position the projection of the sound in specific places and along different directions, creating antiphonal effects and the illusion of distance. Meanwhile, use of the computer gave him the ability to microtonally alter the pitch of the live instruments as well as the individual tonal properties of their sound, plus modifying the dynamics and duration of particular sounds.

To my ears �Boulez has obviously much more refined, acutely trained and highly experienced ears notwithstanding� the computer-derived elements of the music are actually the least effective in this recording, in part because the antiphonal effects can not be experienced anywhere as fully as in the concert hall (despite a new technology that is supposed to make that illusion audible on disc), and in part because the computer-modified sounds are so subtly and intricately woven into the fabric of the music. They add yet another layer of complexity to an already dense sonic texture but do not drastically change the nature of the music; rather, the electronic component becomes part of the environment, which affects our understanding of the music. Actually, the live instruments, both solo and ensemble, make a stronger impression because of the compositional choices Boulez himself has made. «Répons is a set of variations in which the material is arranged in such a way that it revolves around itself», the composer has written, using Frank Lloyd Wright's spiral design for the Guggenheim Museum as a kind of analogy to the basic shape and sense of varying distances involved in our perception of the experience. But this is also a composer who has entitled essays «Frenzy and Organization» and «Constructing an Improvisation», revealing his attempt to discover personal freedom within exacting modes of discipline. Even though the score of Répons may be endlessly and fascinatingly analyzable, due to its extreme complexity most of the composer's ideas do not translate into readily audible results. Details zip by so quickly that internal formal relationships are obscured; what we hear on the surface (each to his/her own level of perception, of course) is a sequence of deftly coordinated events that communicate larger and smaller gestures of tonal movement in space. But these dazzling colors and textures and the rapidly changing perspectives from which we view the musical material are recognizably his. The timbres of the solo instruments Boulez has chosen �the wiry sound of the struck strings of the cimbalon, the more muted, rounded struck strings of the pianos, the glittering glockenspiel, the cool harp and vibraphone� are among Boulez's favorites, having important roles in Le marteau sans maître, Improvisation sur Mallarmé II and Éclat, and the ways in which he has made these sounds react to and interact with each other provide enough drama and curiosity to engage our attention, and hopefully inspire us to dig more deeply into the music, to reveal even more of its unique character.

Dialogue de l'ombre double (literally «Dialogue of the Double Shadow») also uses an electronic component to create the «solo» clarinet's double �prerecorded clarinet material that is projected spatially through six speakers and alternates episodes with the live performer. Perhaps due to the single instrumental line, the illusion of three-dimensional perspective is better realized on disc than is the multiple sounds of Répons, and thus the music seems to be as much choreographed as composed �the intense wandering, darting melodies played by the clarinet dance through open space with aplomb.

If I had to find a single word with which to characterize this recording, that word would be «commitment». Pierre Boulez is totally committed to his compositional principles, IRCAM is committed to supporting Boulez in his electroacoustic research, and DG is committed to making this admittedly difficult music available to us. Difficult, yes, but ultimately rewarding if we bring an equal amount of commitment to it.

When it first appeared in 1981, Répons was hailed on two counts: as marking Boulez's return to large-scale composition, after two decades of tantalizingly incomplete projects; and as a breakthrough in the integration of instruments and electronics in a dynamic sound continuum. The present recording is essentially the third version from 1984 although, as so often with Boulez, further expansions are always possible.

The spatial layout of the work is crucial to its impact. A 24-piece ensemble is enclosed by the audience, who are in turn surrounded by six instrumental soloists, a physical immersion in sound startlingly conveyed here by the spatialisateur computer programme. Only the soloists are electronically transformed, and it is these «real time» processes that make the musical textures as sensuous as they are complex. The ensemble provides initial momentum and ongoing commentary in a manner recalling Éclat-Multiples, yet with no sense of incompleteness. Within this convincing overall trajectory, two sections �track 5, with the piano accumulating layers of sound at a relentless rate, and track 10, where the soloists' spiralling resonances carry their own expressive current� are as satisfying musically as anything Boulez has achieved.

Dialogue de l'ombre double introduces a theatrical dimension, the clarinet's electronic double gradually becoming more mobile and more «real» than the actual soloist. Alain Damiens's performance is more immediate than in 1985, the new recording capturing more tangibly the music's fluid motion.

In the decade-and-a-half since these works appeared, music emerging and developing in space has had an ever-increasing significance in contemporary composition across all genres. Repons is thus not only groundbreaking but also supremely relevant as a model of what it is possible to do creatively with sound in the late twentieth century.