PIANO RECITAL
IAN PACE
Pierre Boulez
2nd Sonata
Notations extracts (nos 7 and 9)
André Jolivet
'La Princesse de Bali'
‘Beaujolais’ from his suite Mana.
IAN PACE is a pianist of long-
Based in London since 1993, he has pursued an active international career, performing in 24 countries and at most major European venues and festivals. His absolutely vast repertoire of all periods focuses particularly upon music of the 20th and 21st Century. He has given world premieres of over 300 piano works, including works by Patrícia de Almeida, Gilbert Amy, Julian Anderson, Richard Barrett, Konrad Boehmer, Luc Brewaeys, James Dillon, Pascal Dusapin, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Finnissy (whose complete piano works he performed in a landmark 6-
He is Professor of Music, Culture and Society at City University, London, and University Advisor – Interdisciplinarity, and was Head of the Department of Music from 2020 to 2021. He previously held positions at the London College of Music and Media, University of Southampton, Trinity Laban Conservatoire and Dartington College of Arts. His areas of academic expertise include the breadth of 19th, 20th and 21st century art music, 19th century performance practice (especially the work of Liszt and Brahms), musical historiography, contemporary performance practice and issues, music and culture under fascism and communism, the post-
He also worked with the director Bettina Ehrhardt on the film Wir fangen ganz von vorn an: Neue Musik für ein Deutschland nach dem Krieg (2020). He is also a twice-
He is also a composer; recent works include Das hat Rrrrasss… for speaker and piano (2018); the piano pieces Thirty for Grace (2019), Clothcomposers (2019) and Schneeriss (2020); the cycle for singer and ensemble Matière: Le palais de la mort (2021); and Lancashire Rock (2022) for clarinet, percussion and piano.
CAROLINE POTTER
is Visiting Reader in French Music at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. With Boydell she published Erik Satie: A Parisian Composer and his World (2016) which was named SUNDAY TIMES CLASSICAL MUISC BOOK OF THE YEAR
for SATIE
published by
The Boydell Press
Organised Delirium
by Caroline Potter
on Boulez’s formative years
published by
The Boydell Press
Exploring the emotional and cultural influences on Pierre Boulez's early works as well as the role
surrealism and French culture of the 1930s and 40s played in shaping his radical new musical concepts.
Pierre Boulez's (1925-
Surrealism, in particular, had an impact on Boulez's formative years that has until now been underexplored. There are intriguing links between French music and surrealism in the 1930s and 40s, arising within a cultural context where surrealism, ethnography and the emerging discipline of ethnomusicology were closely related. Potter situates the young Boulez within this environment. As an emerging musician, he explored radical new musical concepts alongside peers including Yvette Grimaud, Serge Nigg and Yvonne Loriod, performing and exchanging ideas with them.
This book argues that authors associated with surrealism, especially René Char but also Antonin Artaud and André Breton, were crucial to Boulez's musical development. It enhances our understanding of his work by connecting it with significant trends in contemporary French culture, refocusing Boulez studies away from detailed musical analysis and towards a broader and more visceral, emotional response to his work.