Edward Campbell is senior lecturer in music at the University of Aberdeen and a member of the University's Centre for Modern Thought. He specialises in contemporary European art music and aesthetics. He is the author of the books Boulez, Music and Philosophy (Cambridge, 2010) and Music after Deleuze (2013). Peter O'Hagan is a pianist specialising in the performance of contemporary music. He has performed Boulez's piano works at Festivals in the UK and abroad, and in 2008 gave the London première of the unpublished three-movement version of the Third Sonata at Wigmore Hall with the composer's authorisation. He has recently completed a monograph, Pierre Boulez and the Piano.

• Preface; Part I. The Context of the Late 1940s and 1950s: 1. Pierre Boulez: composer, traveller, correspondent Edward Campbell; 2. Traces of an apprenticeship: Pierre Boulez's Sonatine (1946/1949) Susanne Gärtner; 3. Schoenberg vive Jessica Payette; Part II. The Evolution of a Style: 4. 'A score neither begins nor ends; at most it pretends to': fragmentary reflections on the Boulezian non finito Robert Piencikowski; 5. Serial organisation and beyond: cross-relations of determinants in Le Marteau sans maître and the dynamic pitch-algorithm of Constellation Pascal Decroupet; 6. 'Du Fond d'un Naufrage': the quarter-tone compositions of Pierre Boulez Werner Strinz; 7. Alea and the concept of the 'work in progress' Peter O'Hagan; 8. Casting new light on Boulezian Serialism: unpredictability and free choice in the composition of Pli selon pli – portrait de Mallarmé Erling E. Guldbrandsen; 9. Serial processes, agency and improvisation Joseph Salem; 10. Listening to doubles in stereo Jonathan Goldman; 11. Composing an improvisation at the beginning of the 1970s Paolo Dal Molin; Part III. Reception Studies: 12. Pierre Boulez in London: the William Glock years Peter O'Hagan; 13. Tartan from Baden-Baden: Boulez at the 1965 Edinburgh International Festival Edward Campbell; 14. Pierre Boulez and the suspension of narrative Arnold Whittall.

'By bringing together a substantial amount of recent scholarship in a highly accessible format, this collection of essays should open up numerous avenues for exploration and have a significant impact on future research in this area. … The availability of groundbreaking scholarship that had previously only been published in other languages to the general English-speaking public will hopefully have an impact, broadening and refining understanding of his music. The diverse readership that this book targets through the accessibility of its content is clearly beneficial to its wider aim of disseminating scholarship on this relatively understudied repertoire.' Catherine Losada, Music Theory Spectrum