Boulez: Sur Incises (Live At Pierre Boulez Saal)

Album review

When the Boulez Hall was opened in Berlin in March 2017, scarcely a year after Boulez passed away, they recorded one of his final works, Sur Incises, written in 1998 as a kind of commentary on his own Incises for solo piano. Sur Incises requires three pianos, three harps and three percussionists who share a broad range of instruments of a certain pitch: vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, Jamaican steel drums, tubular bells, and crotals. You can't miss a fairly hefty influence from Bartók, in particular of his Music for strings, percussion et celesta, even if Boulez doesn't in fact use any strings; and indeed, Sur Incises was also written for Paul Sacher, some sixty years later! This is a recording of a concert, as evidenced by a few coughs and intrusive noises here and there which probably aren't in the score. The whole thing is conducted by Barenboim, who also plays one of the piano parts. With his eclectic ensemble, Boulez succeeds in creating a new kind of body of sound which moves and spreads through space, leaping from reverie to moments of dynamic decision, like a kind of highly organised delirium. Clearly, it won't be to everyone's taste. But it's striking proof that Boulez can reinvent himself, score after score. © SM/Qobuz