A biography of Boulez as a music writer

Abstract

In the period from 1948, the writings of Pierre Boulez were published in several languages and in over forty magazines of art and contemporary music. They were also published in the programmes for concerts Domaine musical, for the performances of Wagner's pieces in Bayreuth, in over sixteen booklets for the editions of the records on "new music", in the forewords for different studies, in five collections printed in several volume-amounting to over a hundred and thirty texts. The number of publications of Boulez articles is, however, almost four times as many as the number of titles, since a lot of texts were published several times and translated into other languages in different magazines or collections. This text follows the chronology and history of the shaping and multiplication of Boulez writings in detail. The sheer size of theoretical work and its diverse trajectories point to the importance of Boulez work as a music writer not only for understanding his work as a composer and a conductor, but also for the whole theoretical climate in the postwar modernist world of art he experienced.