Boulez/Webern-Piano Sonata No.2/Piano Variations (1973) Finnadar

Pierre Boulez was born in 1925.He celebrates his 87th birthday today..

Boulez (rather paradoxically) said of his Piano Sonata No 2 that it represented
"a total and deliberate break with the universe of classical twelve-tone writing,the decisive step towards in integrated serial work, that will be realized when serial structures of tone-colors and dynamics will join serial structures of pitch and rhythm."(Boulez quote from Joseph Machlis's "Introduction To Contemporary Music", W.W.Norton & Co. 1961)

From the cover notes:

With Pierre Boulez's Second Piano sonata Idil Biret not only makes her American recording debut ,but also presents the first U.S. recording of this important contemporary work- It was previously recorded in Europe by Yvonne Loriod for Vega and by Claude Heiffer for Deutsche Grammophon. Composed in 1948, this Sonata occupies a position that exerted a causative influence upon Boulez's subsequent music.It's experimental and ground-breaking nature may be better understood if one regards it as having grown out of a response to Webern's Variations (1936), the companion piece on this album. The rigid, geometric patterns of Webern's work,the classical purity of its encompassing organization, seem to have served as a base of departure for Boulez's broadened structures which are equally rigid but incomparably more complex. It is this very complexity which conceals the strict framework of the entire composition and projects it as the product of an ardent improvisatory impetus.It demands form its interpreter a similar approach, along with technical prowess and intellectual control of the highest order.It was only a matter of course that this work, together with influences emanating from other sources (chiefly that of John Cage) should lead the path not only to open-form and aleatory compositions, including Boulez's own Third Piano Sonata,but also, through its new pianistic language, urge the development of a whole new generation of virtuoso pianists, such as Aloys and Alfons Kontarsky, Marcelle Mercenier,Frederic Rzewski,David Tudor and Charles Wuorinen.


Side One:

a1-3:Pierre Boulez-Piano Sonata No.2 (1948)
1-Extremely Fast
2-Slow
3-Moderate,Almost Lively

Side Two

b1:4-Very Freely,with Brusque Oppositions of Movements and Nuances

b2-b4: Anton Webern-Variations For Piano, Opus 27
1-Very Moderate
2-Very Fast
3-Quietly Flowing

Idil Biret-Piano






















(1)