By: Catherine Losada,
College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati
Abstract:
Boulez’s Éclat (1965) is a work that prefigures features many technical and aesthetic features that became standard in his later works (post-1975). This analysis of a brief fragment from the opening piano cadenza, illustrates how his serial developmental techniques can create passages that feature large common subsets, embellished by other notes, which I have posited as one of the fundamental principles of his harmonic language. The analysis is based on a study of sketches for Éclat from the Pierre Boulez Collection at the Paul Sacher Foundation. I analyze the entire cadenza in a longer article published in Music Theory Online (Losada 2019).
Selected Bibliography:
Sketches from the Paul Sacher Foundation. Pierre Boulez Collection.
Benzi, Carlo. 2005. “Rhétorique de l’alternance dans la musique contemporaine : analyse d’ ‘Eclat‘ (1965) de Pierre Boulez.” Musurgia 12(1-2): 109-131.
Bradshaw, Susan. 1986. “The Instrumental and Vocal Music.” In Pierre Boulez: A Symposium. Edited by William Glock. 127- 229. London: Eulenberg.
Losada, C. Catherine 2019. “‘Nécessité d’une orientation esthétique’: Techniques of Development in the Music of Boulez.” MusicTheory and Analysis 6.1: 87-128.
———. 2019 “Middleground Structure in the Cadenza to Boulez’s Éclat.” Music Theory Online 25.1.
Meston, Olivier. 2001. Éclat de Pierre Boulez. Paris: Michel de Maule.
Piencikowski, Robert. 1985. “Nature morte avec guitare.” In Pierre Boulez: Eine Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag am 26. März 1985. 66-81. Vienna: Universal Edition.
———. 1993. “‘Assez lent, suspendu, comme imprévisible’: quelques aperçus sur les travaux d’approche d’éclat.” Genesis 4: 51–68