Known For
Acting
Born
Mar 26, 1925
Died
Jan 05, 2016
Place of Birth
Montbrison, Loire, France
Credits
53 titles
Pierre Boulez
Biography
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montbrison, in the Loire department of France, the son of an engineer, Boulez studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Olivier Messiaen, and privately with Andrée Vaurabourg and René Leibowitz. He began his professional career in the late 1940s as music director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company in Paris. He was a leading figure in avant-garde music, playing an important role in the development of integral serialism in the 1950s, controlled chance music in the 1960s and the electronic transformation of instrumental music in real time from the 1970s onwards. His tendency to revise earlier compositions meant that his body of work was relatively small, but it included pieces considered landmarks of twentieth-century music, such as Le Marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli and Répons. His uncompromising commitment to modernism and the trenchant, polemical tone in which he expressed his views on music led some to criticise him as a dogmatist. Boulez was also one of the most prominent conductors of his generation. In a career lasting more than sixty years, he was music director of the New York Philharmonic, chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. He made frequent appearances with many other orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. He was known for his performances of the music of the first half of the twentieth century—including Debussy and Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartók, and the Second Viennese School—as well as that of his contemporaries, such as Ligeti, Berio and Carter. His work in the opera house included the production of Wagner's Ring cycle for the centenary of the Bayreuth Festival, and the world premiere of the three-act version of Berg's opera Lulu. His recorded legacy is extensive. He also founded several musical institutions. In Paris he set up the Domaine musical in the 1950s to promote new music; in the 1970s he established the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique (IRCAM), to foster research and innovation in music, and the Ensemble intercontemporain, a chamber orchestra specialising in contemporary music. Later he co-founded the Cité de la musique, a concert hall, museum and library dedicated to music in the Parc de la Villette in Paris and, in Switzerland, the Lucerne Festival Academy, an international orchestra of young musicians, with which he gave first performances of many new works. ... Source: Article "Pierre Boulez" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For
Filmography
Béjart, 3 regards 2025
Music
Pierre Boulez - Der Weg ins Unbekannte
Lui-même
Klaus Mäkelä and Gustavo Dudamel 10 year anniversary of the Philharmonie de Paris
Compositor
Centenary of Pierre Boulez Ensemble Intercontemporain & Friends
Original Music Composer
Rituel: Boulez & Millepied With Orchestre de Paris L.A Dance Project
Original Music Composer
Elīna Garanča @ Lucerne Festival 2025
Original Music Composer
Zappa
Self (archive footage)
Pierre Boulez: Sur Incises
Original Music Composer
Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words
Self (archive footage)
Pierre Boulez at the BBC: Master and Maverick
Self (archive footage)
Maurizio Pollini: De main de maître
Self
Best of Bayreuth: Highlights from Three Decades
Director
Liszt Piano Concertos - Daniel Barenboim / Pierre Boulez - Staatskapelle Berlin
Self - Conductor
Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn / Adagio from Symphony No. 10
Conductor
Knots and Fields
Self
Bartok: Concerto for Violin - Gidon Kremer, Pierre Boulez
Self - conductor
For Art's Sake: The Story of Ballets Russes
Self - Composer and Conductor
From the House of the Dead
Self - Conductor
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 Resurrection
Self
Pierre Boulez Conducts Modern Classics
Conductor
Boulez at 80
Self - conductor
Kulturplatz
Self
A Labyrinth of Time
self
Ma Mere l'Oye
Conductor
Pierre Boulez: Emotion and Analysis
Self
Europakonzert 2003 from Lisbon
Self - Conductor
Frank Zappa: Phase II - The Big Note
Self
One Night, One Life
Self - Conductor
Frank Zappa: The Present-Day Composer Refuses To Die
Self
Sur incises: A lesson by Pierre Boulez
Self
The Seventh Door
Self
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8: Wiener Philharmoniker
Self - Conductor
Abbado: The Silence that Follows the Music
Self
Eclat
Self
Pelléas et Mélisande
Music Director
Frank Zappa: Peefeeyatko
Self
The Amazing Mr. Bickford
Conductor
Split Screen
Alban Berg - Lulu
Self - Conductor
Victoires de la musique
Self
Otto Klemperer's Long Journey Through His Times
Self
Boulez-Répons
Music
Wagner: The Making of The Ring
Self
Wagner: Götterdämmerung
Self - Conductor
Wagner: Die Walküre
Self - Conductor
Wagner: Das Rheingold
Self - Conductor
Wagner: Siegfried
Self - Conductor
Rituel
Self
The Dick Cavett Show
Self - Guest
A Stravinsky Portrait
Self