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''Incises'' (1994/2001) and ''Sur Incises'' (1996/1998) are two related works of the
French composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music.
Born in Mont ...
. The pitches of the
row
Row or ROW may refer to:
Exercise
*Rowing, or a form of aquatic movement using oars
*Row (weight-lifting), a form of weight-lifting exercise
Math
*Row vector, a 1 × ''n'' matrix in linear algebra.
*Row (database), a single, implicitly structured ...
used in ''Incises'' and ''Sur Incises'' are based on the
Sacher hexachord
The Sacher hexachord (6-Z11, musical cryptogram on the name of Swiss conductor Paul Sacher) is a hexachord notable for its use in a set of twelve compositions (''12 Hommages à Paul Sacher'') created at the invitation of Mstislav Rostropovich f ...
, the same as those used in the rows for ''
Répons
''Répons'' is a composition by French composer Pierre Boulez for a large chamber orchestra with six percussion soloists and live electronics. The six soloists play harp, cimbalom, vibraphone, glockenspiel/xylophone, and two pianos. It was prem ...
'', ''Messagesquisse'', and ''Dérive 1''.
''Incises''
''Incises'' ("Interpolations") for solo piano was composed in 1994 as a test piece for the Umberto Micheli Piano Competition, where it was first performed on 21 October 1994. Boulez revised it in 2001. ''Incises'' was Boulez's first work for solo piano since his
Third Piano Sonata of 1955–57/63. The piece lasts less than ten minutes.
The work plays with contrasts of gestures and textures, for instance, repeated pitches or chords in an even tempo interrupted by violent melodic arcs, or sparse chordal interjections without discernible rhythm over long held sonorities.
Reviewing of a 2005 performance of ''Incises'',
Tim Page described it: "''Incises'' is charged with a bright, cold, hard brilliance, like a spray of crushed ice. It is dense with events even when it is silent for a moment, Boulez's music never really 'rests' but also far more generous in its emotional expression than much of his earlier work."
''Sur Incises''
Boulez wrote ''Sur Incises'' a few years later and dedicated it to
Paul Sacher
Paul Sacher (28 April 190626 May 1999) was a Swiss conductor, patron and billionaire businessperson. At the time of his death Sacher was majority shareholder of pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche and was considered the third richest person i ...
on his 90th birthday. It was premiered on 30 August 1998 by the
Ensemble InterContemporain
The Ensemble intercontemporain (EIC) is a French music ensemble, based in Paris, that is dedicated to contemporary music. Pierre Boulez founded the EIC in 1976 for this purpose, the first permanent organization of its type in the world.
Organi ...
conducted by
David Robertson in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
's
Usher Hall
The Usher Hall is a concert hall in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has hosted concerts and events since its construction in 1914 and can hold approximately 2,200 people in its recently restored auditorium, which is well loved by performers due to its ...
. The piece lasts about forty minutes. It was awarded the
Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition
The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition () is an annual prize instituted by Henry Charles Grawemeyer, industrialist and entrepreneur, at the University of Louisville in 1984. The award was first given in 1985. Subsequently, the Grawemeyer Awar ...
given by the
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...
.
Based on the material of ''Incises'', ''Sur Incises'' is a two-movement work (the movements are called "Moment I" and "Moment II") for three
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
s, three
harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
s, and three
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
parts, which use a variety of tuned percussion instruments:
vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...
,
marimba
The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
,
glockenspiel
The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone.
The glo ...
,
steel drums
The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists.
Descriptio ...
,
tubular bells
Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...
, and
crotales
Crotales (, ), sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly played by being struck ...
. Here the sounds of the piano in ''Incises'' are broken into component parts played by the harps and percussion, and they are deployed across space by spreading the three groups apart in the performance area. This kind of reworking of an earlier piece is characteristic of Boulez, the first instance being ''
Structures
A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
''.
Anthony Tommasini
Anthony Carl Tommasini (born April 14, 1948) is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "a discerning critic, whose taste, knowledge and judgment have made him a must-read", Tommasini was the chief ...
described a 1999 performance of ''Sur Incises'':
Paul Griffiths heard echoes of Debussy's ''
L'isle joyeuse'' in ''Sur Incises'', while others have noted its debt to Stravinsky's ''
Les Noces
''Les Noces'' (French for The Wedding; russian: Свадебка, ''Svadebka'') is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title " ...
'' or Bartok's
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz. 110, BB 115, is a musical piece written by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in 1937. The sonata was premiered by Bartók and his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, with the percussionists Fritz Sch ...
.
[ Griffiths described the work:
]Tom Service
Tom Service (born 8 March 1976) is a British writer, music journalist and television and radio presenter, who has written regularly for ''The Guardian'' since 1999 and presented on BBC Radio 3 since 2001. He is a regular presenter of The Proms f ...
wrote in ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' that:
Service described a 2008 performance: "There's a polish and a voluptuousness about this music that's instantly appealing and gripping for the whole experience of the piece. A packed Festival Hall gave Boulez a rock-star reception after the music's coda."
Of the two works, Allan Kozinn
Allan Kozinn (born July 28, 1954) is an American journalist, music critic, and teacher.
Kozinn received bachelor's degrees in music and journalism from Syracuse University in 1976. He began freelancing as a critic and music feature writer for ''T ...
preferred ''Incises'', writing: "that work's Romanticism becomes portentousness in the update, and its sheer virtuosity have given way to abstraction and clockwork precision."
Sources
Further reading
*Boulez, Pierre. 2001. ''Incises pour piano (version 2001)''. Vienna: Universal Edition. UE 31 966.
*Fink, Wolfgang. 2000. ''Boulez: Sur Incises'', programme booklet. Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon CD 463 475-2.
External links
Universal Edition: ''Incises''
Universal Edition: ''Sur Incises''
Pierre Boulez: ''Sur Incises'': A Lesson by Pierre Boulez
Medici.tv (in French)
Listen to ''Sur Incises'' on Jiwa
Compositions by Pierre Boulez
20th-century classical music
Serial compositions
Music dedicated to Paul Sacher
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