The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez

Jonathan Goldman is Associate Professor of Musicology at the Université de Montréal, and specializes in twentieth-century music history. Editor-in-Chief of the journal Circuit, musiques contemporaines, he wrote the preface to Leçons de musique (2005), a collection of Boulez's writings published in France.

• 1. Introduction; Part I. Form as Opposition in the Writings of Pierre Boulez: 2. Writings from the first period: serialist doctrine, the open work, and strategies of rhetorical displacement; 3. A portrait of Webern, a self-portrait of Boulez; 4. Form, thematicism and perceptual categories in the writings from the 1970s to the present; Part II. Form as Opposition in Selected Works by Pierre Boulez: 5. Introduction to Part II: analysis by, of, in and according to Boulez; 6. Rituel and the architecture of antiphony; 7. Dérive 1 and harmonic control; 8. Mémoriale and polar mechanics; 9. Anthèmes and virtual thematics; 10. Incises and the play of recognition and surprise; 11. Boulezian form in theory and practice; Writings by Boulez; Chronological list of works and bibliography of writings classified by work; Selected recordings of works studied.

'The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez … is chock-full of examples … There are also necessarily ample quotations from Boulez'[s] writings. It's produced to Cambridge University Press's usual high standards and can be recommended for anyone even vaguely interested in modern music … The job Goldman sets out to do he succeeds at credibly and impressively.' Mark Sealey, Classical Net (classical.net)