Boulez: Pli selon Pli [Import]

Pierre Boulez (Composer), Pierre Boulez (Conductor), Ensemble InterContemporain (Orchestra), Christine Schäfer (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Christine Schäfer
• Orchestra: Ensemble InterContemporain
• Conductor: Pierre Boulez
• Composer: Pierre Boulez
• Audio CD (May 14, 2002)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Dg Imports
• ASIN: B0000630Q9
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #215,906 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Pli Selon Pli (Fold by Fold) is a portrait of Mallarmé, whose poems are set in fragmented fashion throughout the work's five movements, which Boulez rewrote and added to until they assumed final form in 1989. His 1969 Sony recording had an icy, frozen surface and a general air of impenetrability. Age may have mellowed the maestro, for this version, while still challenging, is more accessible. Textures are more finely drawn; the delicate colorations of winds and plucked instruments, including a mandolin, are more sensuous; and a traditional French sensibility is more obvious. The singer, soprano Christine Schäfer, is more communicative, too: her high notes are smoothly produced, her lines seamlessly woven into the orchestral fabric. The voice is effectively an instrumental line in the work's structure, and texts are fragmented into discrete words and syllables. For all their importance, they occupy a relatively limited portion of the piece's 70 minutes. The crack instrumentalists of the Ensemble Intercontemporain are masters of Boulez's style, and it's hard to imagine a better performance of this modernist milestone. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great stuff, but I wouldn't be without the SONY version, September 7, 2002

By 

peter-from-la (Los Angeles and Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boulez: Pli selon Pli (Audio CD)

I first heard this work back in 1984, when Boulez conducted the LA Philharmonic at UCLA in a program with music by Debussy and Carter. I had never heard anything like it. This was music like from some exotic, undreamt of world. Watching the huge forces arrayed on stage producing such delicate and timbrally rich sounds was a delight, and the waves of percussion-led music that gradually built up like huge waves of crashing sounds was thrilling. After that concert I purchased the old CBS recording, made in the 1960s, with Halina Lukomska in the soprano part. The Sony Walkman was just out, and I found myself listening to this music on headphones every where I went, so mesmerizing was it, so unpredictable sounding: it was perfect music to listen to while out and about on foot, it seemed to capture the sense of movement and surprise that you have when you are on the city streets, not knowing what is going to come upon you, living your life moment by moment, step by step, the music here in tune with your pulse, there at some odds, but nicely so.

I grew enormously attached to the CBS version as a result of these repeated hearings/wanderings, and was disappointed by the next version that was recorded, on ERATO, with Phyllis Bryn-Julson, because it struck me as having prettified the music. Edges were now smoothed out, the playing of the orchestra was much more polished, less on edge. My favorite remained the CBS version. Now this new one comes along on DG. It continues down the path of the ERATO version, bringing Boulez more in line with Debussy than ever. The playing is superb, the sound much gentler on the ear, the textures less forest-like, more crystalline. This sounds more like equisite chamber music now, and less like a journey into an atonal tropics. It's a beautiful performance, but I would never want to be without the old CBS (now SONY) version.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twelve-Tone Impressionism, July 19, 2002

By 

Christopher Forbes "weirdears" (Brooklyn,, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Boulez: Pli selon Pli (Audio CD)

Pli Selon Pli is the first piece by Boulez that I heard back in the 70's. At the time, it's orchestration struck me...modern and uncompromising, and yet still distinctly French. Time has mellowed Boulez and the piece. Now it seems to me that the ties to the Impressionists are very strong in the composer, much stronger than one might have guessed back in the 50s when he was an anti-traditionalist firebrand.

Pli Selon Pli is a work for large forces, though these are used sparingly and in a chamber music fashion. The opening and closing movements of the work feature the full ensemble. Embedded in the piece are three "Improvisations sur Marllarme" which began their lives as separate pieces and were encorporated into the complete work later. They retain most of their original soprano and chamber ensemble setting. The language is Boulezian - totally serial and uncompromisingly dissonant, and yet, especially in this new recording of the finalized work, it is sensual, with moments that are achingly lovely. Boulez's genius for instrumental sonority has never been better showcased than in this piece (though Le Martel sans Maitre comes close). Boulez fans will want both the original recording from the 70s and this one as there are many interesting points of comparison. Those who are curious about the composer would do best with this recording only. Pli Selon Pli is oe of the composer's most attractive works and a great place for anyone with adventurous ears to start learning about this seminal figure in 20th century music.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Modern Song-Cycle, July 5, 2003

By 

Robert C. Hamilton (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Boulez: Pli selon Pli (Audio CD)

Pli Selon Pli (Fold by Fold) is one of the best, if not the very best, song-cycles to come out of the 20th Century. It was written by the venerable Pierre Boulez, one of the most original and provacative living composers--also probably the greatest. Most of his works are still "in progress", and this one had a multi-decade gestation period, but it's finished now, a perfectly balanced work that begins and ends on the same definitive chord.

The great French poet Mallarme may have been shocked to hear what sort of music Boulez wrote to accompany his poems, but the word-setting, though hardly hummable, has a strange beauty all of its own, and acutally lends more melody to this work than you'll find in most atonal pieces--after all, an orchestra can play just harmony and rhythm, but a soprano can only sing a melody, no matter how large the leaps it makes. Christine Schafer dispatches Boulez's difficult lines well--she may be slightly troubled by the high note near the end, but it comes out clearly and maybe is even more convincing this way. Who wouldn't find it tough?

But, in true Boulez fashion, no matter how beguiling the vocal lines it is ultimately the orchestra which dominates. This is no tragedy, however, because in M. Boulez we have one of the master orchestraters of all time. You can see from the pictures included in the liner notes what a battery of percussion is at the disposal of the Ensemble InterContemporain, and Boulez makes good use of all of it. The shimmering sonorities are instantly attractive.

Let me qualify that: they will be attractive assuming the listener has had some experience appreciating atonal music. It would be possible to fall in love with this at first listen, but I doubt if that happens often. It took me a couple years of slowly testing the water to warm up to 12-tone music, but I'm glad I persevered. Nonetheless, my family, who have little tolerance for modern art, give me a very hard time if I listen to this on anything but my headphones. However, if you've bought this and hate it, I recommend giving it a few more chances. You might well warm up to its unusual sound-world, as I did.

Anyway, the glittering, otherworldly sonorities of this masterpiece are, as usual, played with virtuosic panache by the doyens of avant-garde orchestral works, the Ensemble InterContemporain. This orchestra was founded by Pierre Boulez, so they are his definitive interpreters and respond well to his direction. This stuff is pretty beatless, so I don't even know exactly how it would be conducted or how the players follow Boulez's beat, but he has a true rapport with the Ensemble and everything comes off with clarity and precision.

I really like this whole work, but if I don't have time to listen to all of it I'll probably hear the beginning, then head for the denouement--the final movement is all orchestral until the very end, when the single, beautifully creepy line "Un peu profond ruisseau calomine la mort" is sung (it means "A trickling stream we villify as death"). I think the orchestral part really does sound like a stream or river, but I'm not sure Boulez would appreciate me saying that. Anyway, listening to Christine Schafer sing that line, with all the altitudinous writing, then whisper "la mort", followed by the tremendous finality of the last chord, is spine-tingling and unforgettable. The end probably ranks as my favorite part.

If you're a fan of atonal works, or brilliant orchestration in general, this should be on your shelf. It will stretch your ears, but, if you're open to this repetoire, it will very likely make them tingle with delight, too.