For more than half a century Pierre Boulez has been a towering presence, as both composer and conductor, on the international music scene. The BBC’s Total Immersion day celebrating his 90th birthday reached its climax with the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s concert of major scores.
Despite his reputation as a fearsomely cerebral and uncompromising serialist, Boulez is a genial man whose richly scored music is as glitteringly colourful as it is exquisitely crafted. His early masterpiece Pli selon Pli may be inscrutable — like the Mallarmé text it sets — but post-Debussyan sensuality is an inherent part of the mystification. Korean soprano Yeree Suh brought an attractive but light voice that just occasionally needed more fullness of tone, though the final death-confronting ejaculation drew a spontaneous roar of approval.
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If the protracted scale of Pli selon Pli is a challenge for audience and performers alike, the BBCSO under the impressive direction of Thierry Fischer were fully up to it, as they were in five of the Notations developed for orchestra by Boulez from the original set of 12 for solo piano. Here Fischer and his forces captured the shimmering play of colour as well as the intellectual conviction that characterise these more succinct utterances.
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