Of the two leading figures in music of the past century, Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio, whose 100th birthdays are being celebrated, we remember what unites them and fertilises the common ground of their imaginations :
- A passion for literature and poetry, with Mallarmé, Char, Cummings, Kafka, Rimbaud, etc… for one; Calvino, Joyce, Shakespeare, Sanguineti, Ceylan, Proust, etc., for the other.
- An interest in non-European sounds and those of popular music: for one, they influenced the material of a groundbreaking work, Le marteau sans maître, preceded by Notation No. 8 (Modéré jusqu’à très vif, Africa) for the other, that of Coro with African heterophonies and Folk Songs with Sicilian songs.
- An enthusiasm for the voice, without which Berio's work would simply not exist, and which was central to Boulez's early works: Visage nuptial, Soleil des eaux, Improvisation sur Mallarmé.
Photograph : Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez : ©Philippe
Gontier
|
