Pierre Boulez' Deuxième Sonate: Analysis

[@barrylyndongurley]

I once attended a Kennedy Center symposium given by Aaron Copland around 1974. Someone asked him " who is your favorite contemporary composer?" He answered " Pierre Boulez." Of course, soon after I looked up Boulez, found some recordings and began a musical journey that's lasted to this day. I've been having a "bowl of serial" every day since.

[@juanborjas6416]

Thank you very much for these videos. There is finally someone that does video analysis of 20th century classical compositions.

[@simonkawasaki4229]

Yes, they are incredibly helpful for music appreciation. Most are too scared to analyze the great Boulez!

[@psijicassassin7166]

I am a robot and my girlfriend hand dryer immensely enjoy this music.

[@loopofconsciousness]

Yes agreed!!!

[@christopherdew2355]

A wonderful analysis: rich, because of its perspective, both historical and musical-periodicity, but also because of its keen understanding and explication of the musical structure and detail. Bravo, Sam, it has stimulated an urgency to listen to, and study, Boulez's music.

[@winstonschwarz1636]

Great stuff fella! I really appreciate your presentation and style. Also, the statistical density and depth of information is welcome. Many thanks.

[@AnnemieBehr]

Your presentation is clear and enlightening; the perfect preparation for attending a live performance of the work. Thank you for posting it!

[@charlescolwell1481]

Thank you very much for making this video. I've had a hard time finding someone writing intelligently about this piece.

[@mgaaupetit1509]

For music sake, please just listen to THE pianist , Dimitri VASSILAKIS BOULEZ Himself CHOSE to play specially in CARNEGIE HALL , NY.....

[@EpifanesEuergetes]

I'm in eager anticipation for your analysis of "...explosante-fixe..." Thank you for what you are doing. There is truly a dire need for analysis of post-Schönberg music in KZbin.

[@samuel_andreyev]

EpifanesEuergetes You're welcome -- my pleasure.

[@brunnen-fn7bv]

Thank you for your comments and for giving some hints how to approach this very complex work.

[@samuel_andreyev]

brunnen1789 thanks for your feedback and I hope you enjoy the channel.

[@jacobramis6203]

Very very informative video, thanks! I couldn't help feeling surprised by hearing you say 'major fifth' and 'major fourth' though.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Did I say that? I must have been tired..

[@redfordgrange3507]

Apropos Lynch’s comment about the mistake of certain filmmakers, who dress a ‘period’ set as if the look of the period in question consisted of perfectly concordant elements. That seems relevant, as you say, to Boulez, but also to the arts that derive from modernism generally. It may even be that this is the character of the modern period per se. Ernst Bloch spoke of non-synchronicity of societies in the early decades of the last century - different temporal elements coexist. The Germany of the 1930s is a world of both the autobahn and heimat culture. The old and the new are cheek by jowl. Arno Mayer wrote of the ‘persistence of the old regime’ in Europe before 1945, his sense, contrary to the orthodox view of an all-conquering capitalism that had rapidly liquidated the past in the preceding decades, that absolutist structures were still alive and kicking. Bruno Latour acknowledged Mayer’s point but insisted that in fact we’ve never been and still aren't modern. The new or modern in art isn’t what one might assume it to be - art without past - but art in which different temporal materials are recognised as such and their strange objectivity given expression. A term like ‘absolutely modern’ applied to a work of art might lead one to think that the past is simply absent from it, but no,the past has rather become ‘material’ to be manipulated - denatured. However violent this piano sonata is, it’s still a piano sonata.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Very insightful comments, thanks for offering your perspective.

[@Cleekschrey]

Redford Grange and a WONDERFUL one at that

[@messensimineur6037]

The more insignificant a contemporary work of art is, the more endless intellectual discourse is essential to try to save it, it is well known...

[@AfroPoli]

I subbed after two minutes in. Excellent content. Thank you!

[@johnatwell2753]

I've said this in other places, but I believe Boulez owes a lot to Maestro Maurizio Pollini and his recording of Piano Sonata N° 2. Other recordings attracted me because of the sheer destructiveness and hysteria. But it was Pollini's recording where I first realized that there was a method to his (so called) madness: the first recording where I feel I heard Boulez himself, rather than someone's impression of him. Pollini saw music in Boulez that other artists simply could not see. Boulez was crazy like a fox.

[@Cleekschrey]

John Atwell Boulez was the best composer of the last century. No contest.

[@thorstentopp3824]

Yes, I also adore the Pollini recording.

[@eppiehemsley6556]

How crazy is a fox? Foxes are stereotyped as being sly or cunning.

[@ClaudeWernerMusic]

@@Cleekschrey I have to disagree, that would have to be Stravinsky with Cage and Boulez fighting for 2nd place... At least in terms of contribution and influence.

[@mgaaupetit1509]

@@thorstentopp3824...according to thé works he plays ...definitly NOT CONTEMPORARY MUSIC !

[@johnappleseed8369]

I love much of Boulez's work, the Sonatas are no different. This will be another very interesting analysis, thanks :)

[@jmorton6202]

@ Samuel I'm enjoying your videos and after some considerable difficulty, I have started getting a hang of Boulez and the contrasting currents of ideas that he employs. However, you describes these melodies as wild and completely chaotic and wondered is there perhaps not something immanent about this chaos? I had in mind what Babbitt wrote in his essay "Twelve-tone invariants", where he discussed his own music and also demonstrated how neither Schoenberg, Berg and Webern chose twelve-tone rows arbitrarily, but that they all had these invariants (for example, two discreet notes) which under different transformations/transpositions didn't change. I wonder if there is a similar principle at work when Boulez wrote his serial pieces? (Also I got a better idea about serial music reading "RUSSIAN PITCH-CLASS SET ANALYSIS AND THE MUSIC OF WEBERN" by Philip A. Ewell which, an analysis of Webern. Basically it says that all chords can be reduced to such thrichords where there is at least one semitone.)

[@eppiehemsley6556]

Andreyev's analysis of Bowlegs is a necessary introduction to the composers style of composition in my opinion. Andreyev is not only knowledgeable but also a good communicator.

[@9uweeoncbmd890]

Thank you for the analysis. This was very interesting to watch.

[@victorgrauer5834]

Excellent explication. While Boulez is often described as a "cerebral" composer, my advice is to listen to his music simply as a succession of sounds, rhythms and textures, as you so wisely suggest. This piece reminds me of a Pollock painting far more than a Bach fugue.

[@johnnynoirman]

I always look forward to your videos. Any chance you would do an analysis video on Elliott Carter's music?

[@samuel_andreyev]

Planning to.

[@polystrophicmusic]

I'm particularly interested in the Second String Quartet which I've studied more deeply than any other contemporary work. If I had a vote that would be it.

[@sebastianzaczek]

27:15 couldn't you theoretically play one of the outer notes with an elbow and use a finger of the hand of this arm for the middle Note? Sounds Strang but Who knows...?

[@Cleekschrey]

I love this piece

[@jeffwood9728]

A compelling and useful exploration of a challenging work. What a pity it doesn't examine the whole work with a few more examples elucidated. Excellent resource, superb teaching!

[@Daniel_Zalman]

Any plans on doing an analysis of some Shostakovich? Maybe a string quartet or his famous trio?

[@samuel_andreyev]

No plans for the time being, sorry! I have a lot of ground to cover and only so much time. Thanks for your suggestion.

[@user-is2cs9uj2p]

His work is always make me confuse... However this video is really easy to undetstand to me for understandig his work. Thank you for uploading.

[@BrianJosephMorgan]

Bravo, Boulez.

[@jameshelgeson4668]

Thank you; this is really useful.

[@feinstruktur]

Wow, so much hate! This is a really good introduction to the music of Pierre Boulez. Great job, Samuel!

[@eppiehemsley6556]

Samuel, can you offer any tips as to what atonal music is available for primary students of the pianoforte? By the bye I'm enjoying your series very much, they are most beneficial.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Have a look at the Twelve Short Pieces op. 83 by Ernst Krenek.

[@stapler942]

Every now and then I sit down and try to tackle some of Boulez's first sonata for piano (I don't think I will attempt the second any time soon). The two questions I'm always struck with is: 1.) How literal is his rhythm meant to be followed? 2.) If it is pretty literal, how the heck do you even begin to approach developing an "inner clock" that can match Boulez's rhythm? The metronome is obviously of no use in this matter.

[@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist]

someone has uploaded a midi playback of the 2nd sonata. Despite the best intentions of the video, this gives you an idea that an overly literal/ mechanical rendition is definitely not desirable! the same would apply to much of the repertoire of course.

[@stapler942]

@@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist This may sound like overkill, but when I was learning Messiaen's "modes de valeurs et d'intensités" etude I painstakingly transcribed it in a scoring software to get a better feel for the rhythmic divisions. But whatever one's approach may be to rhythm, taking a fine-toothed comb to the way smaller units multiply out to the notes in the score does work wonders on your overall sense of rhythm. Messiaen is a really good teacher for that in his works for piano because he goes out of his way most of the time to avoid really advanced tuplets.

[@florincoter1988]

Did Mozart, or Beethoven, or..., think that someone needs to explain in order to understand in order to listen in order to to enjoy... Probably not. In a sense it is like Physics. One needs to be a physicist to understand. I have never seen a physicist bursting in tears after solving Dirac equation. Maybe art, as science, has become something of the initiated. Science deals with facts remote from the intuition. So is music?

[@stephenjablonsky1941]

Listening to this sonata is like a trip through organized chaos, improvised madness, or restless ambiguity. It may be better suited for the young at heart. When you get to my age you lose your patience for this much bedlam.

[@hernanescudero6620]

can you do other analysis of other piece/s of boulez?

[@vatican2397]

Thanks!!!

[@tesahe4035]

Can you analyse Boulez's first sonata too?

[@doctormock1]

What you are saying is informative and valuable. I just wish KZbin would not add their transcriptions using an app that results in many inaccuracies and to make things worse, places the transcription over your examples. While transcriptions of what you are saying could be quite helpful, they need to be accurate and not cover up other valuable visual information.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Pretty sure you can turn those off

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

love it!!

[@ryantabor3026]

Please do an analysis of Répons, Sir.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Ryan Tabor That would be two months of work, sire.

[@ryantabor3026]

I have no problem with that, Sir. I'll be patiently waiting. I just subscribed to your channel. You got excellent videos!

[@samuel_andreyev]

Ryan Tabor Thank you! Your patience shall be rewarded. More videos on the way.

[@ryantabor3026]

Thank you, Sir.

[@Cleekschrey]

@@ryantabor3026 I would be quite happy if this channel became Boulez-only ;) Thanks ;)

[@IleSpasev]

What is the name of the notation software you use where you can play the selection only?

[@samuel_andreyev]

Ile Spasev Sibelius

[@IleSpasev]

Thank you. I own Sibelius 8.5 but I am new to it (ex Finale user), didn't know about this option (to have speaker above the selected measure). Can you please tell me how to activate that in Sibelius? Also, let me thank you about your informative presentations. I am music theory graduated now want to enroll on music composition, so your videos are awsome way to learn about the techniques of different 20th century composers.

[@IleSpasev]

I suppose you are using powerpoint alongside Sibelius?

[@samuel_andreyev]

No, for the older videos I did a simple screen capture. The text was laid out in Quarkxpress.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Glad to hear it, and I'm happy to be of service. In Sibelius, you choose the option 'play from selection'.

[@MIDIPipe]

Great! thanks!

[@Tizohip]

now i wrote my second sonata in one way "little" like boulez, but more close to webern poetic.

[@MrInterestingthings]

I was amazed when I first saw how beautiful Boulez' music looks on the page . the machine age is apparent in every bar ! That Boulez went on another 70 years and eschewed repetition is extremely admirable . Le Marteau ... will get my attention next . It's high time I order the piano score .

[@truBador2]

Your patience is formidable. I just hyper expressively hit random intervals spontaneously to much the same effect. Thanks! Enjoying your channel.

[@renatofabbro5263]

I assure you, it's not the same affect, as much as you thought your own self funny with that comment. There's still a difference in something with a serial structure vs. something random, not to mention how timing factors into the structure.

[@neilsaunders9309]

An interesting and thoughtful presentation, but I'm afraid it doesn't make the piece sound any better (or cohere better in my mind qua music). I am trained in 12-note technique, set-theoretical analysis, Schenkerian theory, Lerdahl and Jackendoff's GTTM, Neo-Riemannian theory, etc., so I am not just some middlebrow listener who struggles with any music written after Tchaikovsky.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Neil Saunders It is of course possible simply not to like this piece :)

[@markpx]

You don't need any theory - especially Shenkerian! - to get a visceral feel for what Boulez is conveying in his work. Watch Artaud's acting, read Mallarme's poetry, look at the paintings of Klee: - these are the foundational influences that are shaping Boulez's music, not any of the theorists you mention who are writing about the works Boulez and his peers are composing avant la lettre.

[@Cleekschrey]

This sonata is so good!

[@ballefranz7059]

23:52

[@polystrophicmusic]

I first heard the 2nd Sonata when I was at McGill (forty years ago). I didn't like it then but on your recommendation I gave it a second hearing. Regrettably, I have to say I still don't. Part of the reason may be explained by your opening remarks on Boulez. I am deeply skeptical of music that has as a deliberate goal the subversion and destruction of previous aesthetics. I view that as a product of and leading to, nihilism. Le Marteau is a work I enjoy so I'm not reflexively anti-Boules but this piece doesn't resonate with me. Anyway, thanks for the insightful analysis.

[@Bilmonis]

I think the same. I think some of his orchestral works are colorful, pleasant to the ears, even sensual. But I've always found his piano sonatas very dry, almost hostile, like a barren field covered with grey rocks.

[@CRCVDE]

Is there really no one who noticed he talks about "major fifths and fourths" instead of "perfect fifths and fourths" oops...

[@samuel_andreyev]

Did I really say that? Must have been tired.

[@CRCVDE]

Here: 21:30, sure a little mistake can happen. But really thumbs up for the good work. This is an amazing channel and I think it's fantastic there is something like this on KZbin. I also recently analyzed Ligeti's chamber concerto, and found your video about this piece. Still so much to discover in these works... Amazing!

[@CRCVDE]

Maybe for next video you can do an analysis of a Wyschnegradsky piece since he did use terms like minor fifth and major fourth for intervals including quarter tones ;p en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_tone#Quarter_tone_scale check "interval size in equal temperament"

[@samuel_andreyev]

@@CRCVDE Thanks for your kind comments and for pointing out the error.

[@Tizohip]

in the first listen i hate this sonata, but now i liked it.

[@cyberprimate]

Someone wrote "wtf is that? Tom chasing Jerry?" haha The same thing came to my mind. Beyond the blackboard justifications that could impress a listener that's fond of conceptual or geometric sophistication, the effect it has on listeners is very much like the analogy this guy made. In fact one could even argue any musical style finds its ultimate truth, its real cultural meaning, in the way cinema will use it eventually. At least in his orchestral pieces there is a lot of work on timbre, but this… Répons would work well on some documentaries about nervous micro-organisms living in antartica or other planets, a visual world of crystals or else… Or maybe the mirror scene at the end of Enter the dragon. But this sonata is just good for a Chuck Jones film. The world is cruel.

[@samuel_andreyev]

I would be very surprised if this piece ever made its way into a movie soundtrack.. and I'm not justifying the piece, I'm simply exposing how it's put together.

[@fredvondrasek8668]

...your assertion that "any musical style finds its ultimate truth, its really cultural meaning, in the way cinema will use it eventually" probably contains the kernel of the aesthetic that the Second Viennese School, Boulez, and other mid-century composers were working _against_, and that's the reason I think that their music, to the extent that I have really comprehended it, is still held in regard: music, of all creative endeavors, is able, by it's nature, to utterly eschew representation, even more than visual art...

[@carlhopkinson]

This video is like using enormous amounts of brain power to rationalize that you actually enjoy chewing on broken shards of glass.

[@samuel_andreyev]

What a stupid thing to say. Would you say it to my face? If you are incapable of understanding it, don't insult everyone who does (and there are a lot of us).

[@franciscodanieldiazgonzale2096]

@@samuel_andreyev I feel it wasn't an insulting comment, albeit it is strong and colourful. It was perhaps badly worded. I feel the person was talking about himself and why someone, if it were him, will use his brain power and education to go along a difficult academic exercise that, ultimately, he feel it has no 'useful' pleasure at all, no productive outcome. He maybe is thinking why to pursue a rationalisation of a sensory stimulus that cause pain, voluntarily. He is talking about himself, I think, if it were you. But you like it, as I am. Just, be aware of opinions that are badly worded because not everyone can explain themselves as clearly as you. And I know this skill takes a long time to train and develop.

[@samuel_andreyev]

You are no doubt right. I would most likely not react the same way today :)

[@TheMotherOfBambi]

I think this comment is quite funny actually and accurate. and I say this as someone who also enjoys "chewing glass". I'd be lying if I said I dont enjoy difficult or uncomfortable works. I love giving them the time they need to be understood, I love the process of gradually uncovering meaning in what at first may seem incomprehensible. Not unlike choosing to sit through a confusing film like The Last Year at Marienbad or like wanting to read Ulysses. I love chewing glass actually. After a while, if you're willing, you might find the crunchy texture and sounds to your liking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@carlhopkinson]

Yea, so the world is ugly...but I don't want my music to be ugly also.

[@charlespeters6805]

Epater le bourgeouis. Nothing more. The motto of the postwar European avant garde.

[@Cleekschrey]

Charles Peters you’re out of your mind

[@scottmcgill559]

Boulez spent much of his life criticizing the music of Schoenberg and yet copies him in most ways as in this piece of "small cells" (Schoenberg and his followers were doing this at the turn of the century)-same with Messiaen and Boulez's best stuff is when he goes back to copying Messiaen-only Boulez's music is boring in its longing to be completely unpredictable, long, and ironically repetitive and in the case of "Structures" and many other of his pieces the music is of no value at all in its "rigour". And it seemed to take him forever to put out this overworked crap--like an overworked loaf of bread that is hard as a rock when finally baked. He hated Leibowitz but mirrored his career to the letter-a conductor who considered himself a composer but in the case of Leibowitz could actually write compelling music. Boulez-A brilliant conductor, boring uninteresting longwinded composer, and in print a real conceded self-important postmodernist asshole.

[@carlhopkinson]

Garbage can be fascinating too....but still smelly.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Find something productive to do.

[@carlhopkinson]

Boulez could not have been more misguided.

[@samuel_andreyev]

but you'll set us on the One True Path, right Carl?

[@petemcc152]

@@samuel_andreyev Or is it you who are on the one true path? You seem very threatened by dissent. Why?

[@FinBotInsights]

Interesting but please drink water. When you speak the clicks and pops are not very pleasant.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Julien M That was my lousy microphone. Apologies. The more recent videos on my channel have better production quality.

[@FinBotInsights]

Samuel Andreyev la critique est aisée mais l'art est difficile. Glad you took care of this issue.

[@samuel_andreyev]

Les deux sont affreusement difficiles. Je sais de quoi je parle !

[@FinBotInsights]

Are you planning to post an analysis of some late Stockhausen works by any luck? I would watch that!

[@samuel_andreyev]

Not for now, but I am presently working on a video about Gesang der Jünglinge (1955-56).

[@gcummings88]

Boulez and the rest are "bead game" composers. shut away in a world that the average person will never enter. You can't hum there songs, and you certainly can't dance to them. The problem is that all this music ends up sounding like a movie sound track or a drunken Pan.

[@kgroveringer03]

Don’t need to be able to hum something to enjoy it, mate. Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it’s completely inaccessible.

[@carlhopkinson]

It's a piece of garbage.

[@nomearod]

Major success of writing the worst piece of music in history.

[@DanielMartinez-nw1pn]

I agree 👀

[@ha3vy]

Nah check the first piano sonata lol

[@kgroveringer03]

@@DanielMartinez-nw1pn ok, but who asked

[@kgroveringer03]

@@ha3vy ok, but who asked

[@Gwailo54]

There is much written in C major which is dire, diatonic drivel exists. The music slavishly copies forms but has no sense of what it is. On the old Sibelius website there was much written by people proclaiming they graduated cum laude, but it still didn’t prevent the euphonious music from being stillborn. Mozart’s later symphonies are now being treated better as more than the sum of their parts and being more intellectually challenging. The first movement of the 40th is probably well known to the ears of many, but how many experience the violence of the transition from G minor to F# minor and the resulting intellectual struggle to return to the home key? How many truly hear the development section finally ends up using two notes which are a bridge into the recapitulation? The development section of that movement takes sonata form to limits few composers of symphonies even dream of. If you desire verbal imagery to amplify it, it is like a sailing ship in a storm, timbers creaking, desperately trying to maintain its course as the wind and waves throw it about.

[@NoiseGrinder]

So little Pierre sat in his playpen and smashed up classical Sonata. What a precocious naughty boy! A non achievement. Music is not just bland analysis. This sonata is boring, bland and drearily superficial. Post-modernist nonsense. Its time is over.

[@kgroveringer03]

Your time’s about to be over in a sec, mate. If you don’t like it, don’t detract from the enjoyment of others through your inane and unneeded comments.

[@petemcc152]

@@kgroveringer03 Why is her time over? Comments mean comments - pro or con. All are interesting. It's called freedom of opinion. I like Wagner and Debussy. I don't feel threatened, angry or vindictive towards people who don't like those composers.

[@commentingchannel9776]

​@@petemcc152 Bit of a difference between "The act of destroying something previous does not necessarily pave the way for something meaningful to come after it; in obsessing with doing so, artistic intention and expression may be lost to a purely analytical method" and what the parent commenter said. Both are the same thing, but the way I phrased it actually allows for discussion and is not outright dismissive of others' perspectives.

[@futurists7076]

It is always possible to analyse nothingness and find something to comment on. Alas, this work will not stand the test of time, nor the patience of truly cultured listeners. This music has no interest whatsoever, and expresses no creative effort. Just pretentiousness and an admission of impotence.

[@dou40006]

why to waste time in trying to explain what this pseudo music cant express by itself ? this form of art is a dead end and a complete failure. It is ugly, boring and absolutely useless to humanity. Boulez music is so predicable in it inability to take shape and express motion or anything by the way. Boulez was someone who hated pleasure in any of its form and that's all we can feel in this random piece of junk noise.

[@Cleekschrey]

what the fuck are you smoking

[@kgroveringer03]

How is it a complete failure if it helped launched Boulez’ lengthy and brilliant career as both composer and conductor? Just because it’s not to your liking doesn’t mean no one is allowed to like it at all; that’s gatekeeping, and no one - NO ONE - likes a gatekeeper. Don’t comment in future if you don’t like it.

[@petemcc152]

@@kgroveringer03 "Just because it’s not to your liking doesn’t mean no one is allowed to like it at all" Nobody is saying that no one is ALLOWED to like it. Why are you so touchy that someone might dislike a piece you like? I find Boulez both interesting (sometimes). arrogant (sometimes). and boring (sometimes). Is that OK by you? Or is Boulez some kind of cult phenomenon that we have to believe in & appreciate at all times, or be forever banned & banished?

[@Twentythousandlps]

"No one likes a gatekeeper." Followed by, "don't comment in the future" unless a condition is met. Are you not gatekeeping?@@kgroveringer03