Boulez on Conducting: Conversation with Cecile Gilly - Tapa dura

Pierre Boulez is arguably the single most influential - and controversial - figure in the world of music today. As composer, conductor and personality, his challenging views are lent a special authority by his very high standing as an interpreter of great composers such as Wagner, Debussy, Bartok and Stravinsky. He regularly appears to great acclaim on concert platforms and in opera houses around the world. In these unique conversations with Cecile Gilly, he recalls not only the great moments of his career, but brings penetrating insights into the art of conducting, including his views on other great composer-conductors (Berlioz, Wagner, Mahler, Strauss). Boulez speaks unusually frankly about his own rapport with conductors as a composer, and how he sees the role of the conductor today.

One of the most gifted and challenging composers of our time, Pierre Boulez (b. 1925) has achieved equal status as a conductor, notably of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, and at Bayreuth. He is the founder and director of the world-renowned IRCAM Institute in Paris and of the associated Ensemble Intercontemporain. Richard Stokes has published books on German, French and Spanish song, and his singing translations of Berg's Wozzeck and Lulu, and Wagner's Parsifal have met with critical acclaim. He collaborated with Alfred Brendel on his volume of poems, One Finger Too Many (Faber) and, more recently, The Veil of Order (Faber).