Composer, conductor, music philosopher, Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) created, invested, and transformed highly symbolic places for culture, imagination, and knowledge—IRCAM and the Centre Pompidou, the Opéra de Paris with the premiere of the final version of Lulu by Alban Berg, the Collège de France with the Chair of Invention, Technique, Language in Music. Throughout Boulez’ career, utopia, pragmatism, and an allergy to amateurism formed an unhoped for alliance. Filmed, never before seen archives gravitate around Pierre Boulez’ studio; the fleeting presence of Barthes, Deleuze, and Foucault, the polyphonic violin in Anthèmes and in Bach, numerous vanishing lines revealing a passion for incompleteness.
Based on an idea from Frank Madlener and Jean-François Peyret
Hae-Sun Kang violin
Andrew Gerzso IRCAM computer music design
Jacques Bonnaffé reading
Film archives from the Opéra de Paris (Lulu by Boulez-Chéreau) and IRCAM-Centre Pompidou
with Roland Barthes, Pierre Boulez, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Yvonne Minton, Teresa Stratas
PIERRE BOULEZ ANTHÈMES, ANTHÈMES 2
A Collège de France production. With the support of the Fondation Hugot du Collège de France and the participation of IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, the Opéra national de Paris, and the Cie Jean-François Peyret.
© Jean Radel
© Luc Hossepied
Excerpts from Pierre Boulez's works
- Anthèmes by Pierre Boulez, 1995
- Anthèmes 2 by Pierre Boulez, 1997