Pierre Boulez at the BBC: Master and Maverick

When Pierre Boulez died in January 2016 at the age of 90,

the musical world lost one of its giants.

Boulez's achievements as composer, conductor and cultural leader

changed the fabric of classical music culture

in this country and all over the world.

For this programme, we've combed the BBC television archives

for a portrait of this charmingly demanding musical inspiration.

When one is not offensive in life,

you obtain absolutely nothing.

That's my opinion.

From his fiery spirit of avant-garde adventure in his own music...

..to classic performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

of works by Schumann...

..Stravinsky....

and Debussy.

We'll see him in rehearsal...

You are always too much in a hurry!

You make me silly! Too soon, too soon, too soon.

..we'll sample his frugal lifestyle...

Nothing.

..and we will discover an extraordinary musician

and thinker, who forever moved relentlessly forward.

If you are on a bicycle, you have to move to keep your balance.

And it's exactly that.

You have to move, otherwise you just fall down.

People who are really creative

want to communicate.

They don't want just to discover for themselves.

That's not true. Creativity is a form of generosity.

Pierre Boulez was always one of my heroes.

I think there's a whole generation for whom he's an incredible hero.

Monsieur Boulez is at the stand...

He taught a whole generation of us

how much great music there was that we simply didn't know.

-Pierre Boulez.

-Boulez.

-Boulez.

-Boulez.

-Boulez.

-Boulez.

Boulez was a man on a mission.

Together with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, from their base

here at Maida Vale studios in London, Boulez wanted to drag

musical culture kicking and screaming,

singing and dancing into the 20th century.

And it wasn't just about his own music.

Boulez created a canon of 20th-century

masterpieces that he effectively taught orchestras

and audiences, especially at the BBC Proms.

And the distinguished French composer

and tonight's conductor, Pierre Boulez...

Few pieces symbolise

just how thrilling that adventure was

than one of Boulez's essential influences -

Stravinsky's ever iconoclastic ballet The Rite Of Spring.

MUSIC: The Rite Of Spring by Stravinsky

Boulez was born in March 1925 to a middle-class family

in Montbrison, about 100km west of Lyon,

where he first studied music

before moving to the Paris Conservatoire during World War II.

By 1965, he was already a major figure in European

and world musical culture.

Le Marteau Sans Maitre, by Boulez himself...

Just one, two, three. Two...

Boulez is 40, and a product of the Paris Conservatoire

and a pupil of Messiaen.

He's a fine pianist, and the founder of the Domaine Musical in Paris.

And finish now...

Very quietly, just...

Don't move. One, two, three.

Now - one, two, one, two...

Boulez had chosen a career in music over engineering,

but his preoccupation with maths, with numbers

and structure, underpinned his every action

as composer and conductor.

One, two. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One...

Very quietly, always. Can you take...

bar 6...

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One.

Dee-de-da-dix... La.

Boulez took up conducting in 1957.

He says HE found he was able to conduct without lessons -

but he learned a great deal from watching other conductors at work,

particularly Hans Rosbaud.

When you have these kind of things, you don't prepare the thing.

One, two, three. One pup-pup-pum.

You give just one very strong - and that's enough.

Boulez was made for '60s TV.

Like the new generation of programme makers

he had a passion - really a need - to explain.

Twice.

Wait for me...

Just... You are always too much in a hurry. You make me silly.

Too soon, too soon, too soon. Wait, wait, wait.

Pierre Boulez begins the programme with Debussy's first important

orchestral work, written in 1891 -

L'Apres-midi d'un Faune.

Boulez, conducting Debussy's Prelude a L'Apres-midi d'un Faune.

And when, at the end of 1966 the BBC undertook a mammoth tour

to Russia and the Communist countries of Eastern Europe,

Boulez chose Debussy's La Mer as his showpiece.

This beautiful film is a key insight into Boulez's mission.

He would both drive up the standard of the orchestra's

playing of modern music,

and open the ears of audiences to new repertoire.

Can I ask about Eclat, the only one of your own works which is being performed?

Yes, Eclat's a very short work until now,

for a very small group.

I have a personal relationship with everybody in the group,

because I give the signals in their direction precisely,

and they have to follow me,

and therefore when I just give a signal, for instance to the piano,

the piano plays - when I give a signal to the cellist,

the cellist plays. According only to my will.

And that's not a dictatorial point of view at all.

That gives much more freedom,

and you have not only mentioned the music which is created,

you have a feeling of connection with the musicians

which is very rare,

and I like that because, as I've said,

I play really on the group like on the keys of a keyboard.

Warsaw is the home of the avant-garde music,

and I was very surprised that they didn't enjoy Boulez's own work.

Perhaps this was the only town in which I think he got the bird.

Not quite as strong as that, perhaps, Dickie,

but he was very surprised at

shall we say the cool reception of his music.

I am strong enough to support attacks,

to say I don't feel offended or hurt at all.

I find that part of the life.

When one is not offensive in life, you obtain absolutely nothing.

That's my opinion.

Le Marteau Sans Maitre - the hammer without a master.

It's music whose explosive imagination goes even further

than the surrealism of the poetry that inspired it, by Rene Char.

Offensive? That's how some heard its coruscating novelty at the time

in 1955, but Le Marteau would become Boulez's single most

powerfully inspirational piece.

It was an epiphany for younger composers like Harrison Birtwistle

and for the elderly Stravinsky.

It's easy to hear why.

Le Marteau Sans Maitre is everything that Boulez is about.

The precision with which every note is allowed to occupy acoustic space.

And the shifting dynamic sound world -

always surprising, but driven by the composer's single-minded vision.

Experiment is

to try and discover new laws

and to discover new meaning of nature,

and I think that's the real sense, meaning of the word "experimental."

One, two, three, four, five, six.

One, two, three, four, five...six.

One-two-three-four one-two-three-four!

One-two-three-four-five...

Oh. What did you play?

Composition for Boulez was an experimental process

of writing and rewriting,

every permutation and possibility explored in a potentially limitless

musical universe.

-Have you been married?

-No.

-Engaged?

-Also not.

-Are you interested in family life?

-No, not at all.

I must say I am really one person so I cannot live with a family.

I could not consider it anyway.

I was also when I was child, not very easy with my family

so I cannot... I have not a strong feeling for family life.

That's all that I can say.

And that's remained a characteristic from childhood to now.

Nothing.

Boulez once said he would be the first composer without a biography.

An artist whose personal life was not so much a secret

as non-existent, thanks to his complete devotion to music.

Yesterday I had two concerts

and then I had a big reception after that - I could not escape

because people were so friendly.

After, I had to drive,

and I was here at four o'clock in the night,

and then I had to see the mail,

just happily to see what importance it is,

and I was in bed at six o'clock in the morning.

And at eight o'clock I was...awake,

and I rehearsed at nine.

Then I have another two other rehearsals,

and my day was finished at 11:00.

You know. I have no ideas... worth believing more.

1964, he gave his first concerts at the Festival Hall

and they were a revelation.

The music was realised from within, so to speak.

Boulez's ear was fabulous.

I mean, it was as though he were attached by 100

invisible threads to every member of the orchestra.

Myself, I am very impressed always by the point of view

of eccentrics, because they are fresh

and they are bringing fresh air,

and this point of view is unorthodox

and brings a discovery in music which is quite astonishing.

In 1971, Boulez was appointed chief conductor

of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, succeeding Colin Davis,

and he immediately put his mission into action -

not just in terms of the repertoire he programmed, but in where

he played it and the new younger audience that he created for it.

Boulez took his BBC Symphony Orchestra players to perform

a series of Proms here at the Roundhouse in Camden,

a sort of Royal Albert Hall in miniature.

And it was here that Pierre Boulez and the BBC Symphony Orchestra

made contemporary music hip.

It all started on 6th November, 1971.

This then is the Roundhouse!

The Arena! Hail, gladiators all.

Monsieur Boulez is at the stand,

maestro furioso of orchestral karate.

We tried to do contemporary Proms in the Roundhouse,

and it was very interesting because you had a different audience.

Of course much smaller, but very interesting

and I had a very good memory

of these Proms in the Roundhouse, I must say.

And there I remember I performed contemporary music exclusively.

THEY VOCALISE LOUDLY

THROATY VOCALISATIONS

THEY BARK AND YELL

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

It was all connected.

If the Roundhouse was Boulez letting his hair down,

metaphorically speaking at least,

then it was still part of his bigger project - to change the repertoires

of the orchestras he conducted decisively towards the 20th century.

This Omnibus documentary, Bejart + Boulez = Ballet,

reported from the premiere at La Scala, Milan, in 1973

of the provocative French choreographer Maurice Bejart's

daring new ballet set to Boulez's Le Marteau Sans Maitre.

For over three decades, Boulez conducted at least one Prom a year,

turning the Royal Albert Hall into the nation's village hall

of modernism and dazzling orchestral colour.

Boulez showed his brilliance as a political

and cultural operator in the 1970s

when, at the invitation of President Georges Pompidou,

he established in Paris the underground laboratory of IRCAM -

the Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic/Music,

a labyrinth of computer music studios directly under

the temple of modern art that is the Pompidou Centre.

I think, for the first time in the world, as a matter of fact,

that the state creates a centre for 20th-century art,

20th-century expression, I would like to say.

Generally, museums are for the past

but here the idea was to build not only a museum but a centre of life.

And the result is really astonishing

because the architecture was stunning

and people were flocking absolutely to this place

because the architecture was so attractive - controversial, even.

And for me, it remains,

of course, the past, the recent past, let's say,

but also it is the door to the future.

Pierre Boulez was always one of my heroes.

I think there's a whole generation for whom he is an incredible hero.

And pianissimo.

I was lucky enough to play under him in the National Youth Orchestra

when I was 15.

He was an unforgettable experience, in terms of what he was and what

he knew and the generosity with which he approached all musicians.

Two, one, two...

He just came with a whole other view and I realise how deeply

I have been affected by that.

The marvellous thing with young people, that's their devotion.

To rehearse with them,

you have the impression that you have them in your hands, literally.

There is not a single moment of inattention

and, when they perform, you see all these eyes direct to you

and you feel much more responsible than with professional orchestras.

He taught a whole generation of us

how much great music there was that we simply didn't know.

Schoenberg has the reputation of being boring,

of being monotonous,

of being intellectual.

That is one of the most emotional composers of the century.

On the eve of the new millennium in 1999, Boulez,

now in his mid-70s,

agreed for once to look back rather than forward and he gave an in-depth

interview to the then controller of Radio 3, Roger Wright.

You took a decision not to follow maths or engineering

when you were young, but to follow music and make that your life.

Why did you take that decision?

I think that's a question of life or death, so I mean,

if you want to do something, you want to do it,

and I am not the first one to do that. I mean...

The hurdles don't exist any more.

You have to make your decision and you know that if you don't do it

you will be not only unhappy but you will miss the purpose of your life,

and therefore that's not a difficult decision.

It's a very simple decision and, you know, I did it naturally

and whoever would be against it, I will fight.

PIANO MUSIC CONTINUES

Ah, non, excusez-moi, c'est ma faute.

HE SPEAKS QUIETLY IN FRENCH

Why don't you just say, "Enough of conducting,

"I'll conduct my own pieces and the rest of the time I'll devote to composing"?

Yes, but I mean, when you see,

believe me, when you see still the programmes of institutions,

sometimes you are really 30 or 40 or 50 years backwards.

Recently, I have seen the programme of an organisation

and I was looking at that

and the great novelty was Beethoven's symphonies.

Can we take figure one, please?

'You have to make the audience aware that there is something else.'

Three...

BRASS SECTION PLAYS

A flat, C natural.

One...two...

three...

BRASS PLAYS

Yeah. And the G.

Yes. There are three tones, I want to have them. Three.

One...

BRASS PLAYS

Two, three.

No. You don't... You don't begin together. Can we do that again?

It's emerged that one of the world's most famous composers,

Pierre Boulez, was briefly detained by Swiss police

on suspicion of being linked to terrorist activities.

Our Paris correspondent, James Coomarasamy, has been investigating.

Pierre Boulez, the renowned composer and conductor,

was sleeping in his five-star Swiss hotel

when police dragged him from bed

and informed him he was on their national list of terrorist suspects.

The 75-year-old, who once conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra, had

his passport confiscated for three hours before he was free to go.

Strangely, it wasn't a case of mistaken identity.

In the revolutionary 1960s,

it seems that Boulez said that opera houses should be blown up,

comments which the Swiss felt made him a potential security threat.

Adding to the surrealism of Boulez, terror suspect, it's ironic that

he should be hauled up for those polemics at this point in his life

because decades after he roared as a young lion of the avant-garde,

Boulez was now the embodiment of the establishment.

For some, Pierre Boulez has been the most significant figure

in classical music for the past 50 years.

I think Boulez' importance is quite simply,

he changed all our lives. Had he not come to Britain, for a start,

music here would have been so much the poorer.

His years with the BBC Symphony Orchestra

were absolutely mind-blowing for all of us who experienced them.

For others, he's a die-hard modernist

whose uncompromising approach

has stifled the very creativity that he set out to nurture.

My feeling is that it's a cul-de-sac,

which is of great interest to musicians

but doesn't really lead anywhere for the general audience.

In a career dominated by brilliance and controversy,

Boulez denounced the classical establishment

and artists who in his view refused to be progressive.

During a break from rehearsals, I asked if he had mellowed at all.

Well, I think I am maybe more tolerant than I was when I was 20,

certainly, but the tolerance - my tolerance has limits, I must say.

You know, I am interested with people who are going forward.

I am not really very interested in people who are looking backward

or staying where they were.

APPLAUSE

Boulez conducting Janacek,

one of the discoveries of his later years as a conductor.

He was always searching, always revising his opinion in the same way

that he revised and reworked so many of his compositions.

And that open-endedness is, I think,

his challenge and his invitation to all of us, to the musical future,

because just as so many of his works are actually

endlessly proliferating sets of musical possibility,

rather than definitively completed works, so too,

his life work, his project, wasn't complete at the time of his death.

His real legacy is

to wake up musical culture to the necessity of the contemporary.

I cannot imagine myself

just going on with a routine which was before me -

not because I want to revolutionise everything, no, but I mean...

to be in history, that's like being on a bicycle.

If you are on a bicycle, you have to move to keep your balance

and exactly that, you have to move, otherwise you just fall down.

We're going to end this selection of Pierre Boulez at the BBC

once again at the Royal Albert Hall.

In 2012, the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim led his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

in a grand selection of Boulez's pieces.