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.
Alegant, Brian and McLean, Donald. 2001. “On the Nature of Enlargement.” Journal of Music Theory 45(1): 31-72.
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.
Glock, William. 1986. Pierre Boulez: A Symposium. London: Eulenberg.
Edwards, Allan. 2006. "Éclat/Multiples et le problème de la forme musicale dans les œuvres sérielles de Pierre Boulez." In
Pierre Boulez: Techniques d'écriture et enjeux esthétiques. Edited by Pascal Decroupet and Jean-Louis Leleu. 159-175.
Geneva: Contrechamps.
Higashikawa, Aï. 2001. “Etude des sources musicales d’ ‘Eclat’ (1965) de Pierre Boulez.” MM Thesis. Université Paris IV
(Paris-Sorbonne).
Kaddouch, Ilan. 2011. Pierre Boulez: “Eclat”. Gruppen 2: 52-69.
Losada, C. Catherine. 2016. “Middleground Structure in the Cadenza to Boulez’s Éclat.” Paper presented at the joint meeting
of the Society for Music Theory and the American Musicological Society (Vancouver, 2016).
———. 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.” Pierre Boulez: Eine Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag am 26. März 1985.
Edited by Josef Häusler. 66-81. Vienna: Universal Edition.
———. 1993. “‘Assez lent, suspendu, comme imprévisible’: quelques aperçus sur les travaux d’approche d’éclat.” Genesis 4: 51-68.
Salem, Joseph. 2014. “Boulez revised: Compositional process as aesthetic critique in the composer’s formative works.” Ph.D.
diss., Yale University.
———. 2016. “Serial Processes, Agency and Improvisation.” In Pierre Boulez Studies. Edited by Edward Campbell and Peter
O’Hagan. 221-245. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scheffer, Frank, Director. 1994. Videotape Pierre Boulez ECLAT. Allegri Film VV in co-production with Avro.
Schoeller, Philippe. 1986. “Mutation de l’écriture: Éclat, Stria, Désintegration.” In Harmoniques 1: 197-208.
Straus, Joseph. 2004. “Atonal Composing-Out.” In Order and Disorder: Music-Theoretical Strategies in 20th-Century Music.
Edited by Peter Dejans. 31-51. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Tissier, Brice. 2011. “Mutations esthétiques, mais continuité technique dans l’œuvre de Pierre Boulez.” Ph.D. diss., Université
de Paris-Sorbonne and Université de Montréal.
About the Author:
Catherine Losada is Professor of Music Theory at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. She has published articles, book chapters and reviews in top journals and with distinguished publishers in North America, Europe, and South America. Her research focuses on transformational theory, the musical collage, post-1950s music, the music of Pierre Boulez and the film music of Max Steiner. She was the winner of the 2016 Outstanding Publication Award from the Society for Music Theory and has served as president of Music Theory Midwest and as member of the Executive Board and co-chair of the Publication Awards Committee for the Society for Music Theory.