Guest Lecture: Boulez’s Livres as Bookends of his Musical Maturation
Joseph Salem, PhD, University of Victoria
"Pierre Boulez began Structures, Livre 1 (Book 1) in 1951. The work represents one of his first experiments in serialism, which would become a dominant feature of his compositional method. Roughly a decade later, he completed Structures, Book 2, which capitalizes on trends in mobile and aleatoric musical form that, due to their inherent flexibility, challenge many preconceptions regarding serialism as a compositional method and reflect the influence of his New York colleagues John Cage and Morton Feldman.
"The composition of the Structures books coincided with Boulez’s maturation as a composer during the 1950s. During these later years, Boulez’s reputation as an international composer and conductor spread. Boulez travelled to New York and had his works represented by colleagues such as John Cage and David Tudor on the East Coast; meanwhile, his connections on the West Coast – including Lawrence Morton, Robert Craft, and Igor Stravinsky – helped him connect to American audiences. In this talk, I will discuss compositional features of Boulez’s Structures 1a, Structures 2b, and a sample of some other works premiered in California to explore how changes in his compositional method coincided with feedback he received from his stateside interlocutors.”
Dr. Salem's lecture serves as a prelude to the following evening’s UCLA CAP event, May 30, at The Nimoy:
Celebrating Pierre Boulez, with pianists Gloria Cheng and Ralph van Raat.
About Joseph Salem:
Dr. Joseph Salem is Associate Professor in Musicology and Music Theory at the University of Victoria. He holds degrees in piano performance, music theory, and musicology, and he regularly teaches music spanning from 1750 to the present, with an emphasis on twentieth-century art music idioms. His research interests include musical semiotics, form, post-war music, non-notated music, and sound studies. His research has been published by Ashgate, Cambridge UP, Wesleyan UP, and Oxford UP, which released his 2023 book titled Pierre Boulez: The Formative Years. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Contemporary Music Review, The Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, and Twentieth-Century Music. He is a Fulbright Scholar supported by the Canadian SSHRC and the Paul Sacher Stiftung.