Boulez: Notations ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Manfred Honeck

Pierre Boulez:
Notations ∙

Notation I ∙
Notation III ∙
Notation IV ∙
Notation VII ∙
Notation II ∙

hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) ∙
Manfred Honeck, Dirigent ∙

Alte Oper Frankfurt, 27. März 2015 ∙

[lotharlamurtra]

This music is pure beauty. And the rendering is very good. Boulez forever.

[saacomposer]

Notation I - 00:38
Notation III - 03:53
Notation IV - 08:14
Notation VII - 10:27
Notation II - 17:14

[KrisKringle]

This composition is really outstanding. Maybe not "at first glance", but the more you listen, it gets greater and greater. Maybe one of the most important works of the post WWII era. Reminds me in some parts of the gorgeous "Five pieces for Orchestra" by Schoenberg...

[bhodgesnyc]

Listening on what would have been Boulez's 99th birthday, and the performance is appropriately celebratory. PS, is there nothing this fabulous orchestra can't play? They are terrific here.

[jankovskialeksandar]

This is remarkably beautiful! Thank you hr-Sinfonierochester!

[clarinetjo]

Really great music, nothing is useless and yet it conjures a strikingly expressive set of images. The second one played here is made of the same stuff from which the most "magical" novels i've read are made, so to speak. I really enjoy it ! Thanks !

[notaire]

Gut artikulierte und perfekt synchronisierte Aufführung dieses modernen Meisterwerks mit farbenprächtigen Töne aller Instrumente. Der Dirigent ist echt genial!

[boonrutsirirattanapan]

Boulez achieved in keeping mystery at any course. Bravo and Thank you!

[Philhamm]

If Schoenberg's Five Pieces are a cube, Boulez's Notations are a tesseract.

[CourtneyBryceHilton]

Amazing pieces, and great performance!

[mikern]

This conductor certainly knows what he is doing.

[alexandretaranne]

je doit faire un exposé sur boulez je ne sais pas si cette musique le caractérise

[paulsomers]

The problem with post-Webernism when large forces are used is that the impact is less than the sum of its parts. The virtue of Webern's music is its crystalline clarity, its lack of "sound smearing". The music glistens, as it were. But with Boulez, even in the Notation II, which has Webern's "brevity as the soul of wit", its sheer size of forces renders it clunky with no grace. If anyone could convince me this music is really touching, it would be Manfred Honek and the hr-Sinfonieorchester. There were some moments of actual beauty, but only moments, so the music was reduced to a series of orchestration affects of varying effect. Its difficulty of execution was buried in the mass of sound. I couldn't hear the music for all the notes.

[conw_y]

IV sounds a bit like Messiaen’s Turangalila.

[jean-francoisbrunet]

Funny how after having powerfully contributed to destroy the very notion of melody or rhythm, Boulez returns, in the last piece (is it Notation II?), to, not even rhythm, but pulse. This piece is rife with a subtle nostalgia for what music ought to be, after all (as someone else says better below: "regret about his contributions to the destruction of tradition").

[JohnBorstlap]

My suspicion is that Boulez, in working-up an old piano piece from 1947, suffered from nostalgia and regret about his contributions to the destruction of tradition, and wanted to sniff a bit of the 'Luft von anderen Planeten'. Maybe because of his ample conducting of traditional music, and he himself getting older.

[JohnBorstlap]

Beautiful and fascinating sound... brilliantly scored. Regrettable that it is not music: it says merely itself, there is nothing 'behind' the notes.

[Empyreanabove]

For two days now I have been listening to a bird singing in a nearby garden as I sit out at the back of my house. The sounds he/she produces sound more like music to me than this....stuff (for want of a better term). They are also far more pleasant to listen to.