Pierre Boulez – A Life for Music

A portrait of Pierre Boulez, musician, composer and astute cultural politician, drawing on interviews and performances from several decades.

Pierre Boulez, a legend of the music world passed away last year, but no quickly put together obituary could do him justice. As I have worked with Pierre for nearly 50 years and can draw on material from a similar time span, I decided to make a film, which does not only look as his conducting and composing career but also the astute cultural politician. As a young artist, he suggested to blow up opera houses to do away with stuffy routine, then moved on to Bayreuth to conduct what was later dubbed “The Ring of the Century”. Our film will have a clip of the scene he loved most, courtesy to Unitel, and some significant extract from “Pelléas and Mélisande” staged by Peter Stein, courtesy of Telmondis. Other gems include clips of his Mahler, Bruckner and Stravinsky interpretations and of his own music. It goes without saying that a clip of Barry Gavin's film of “Le Marteau sans maître” will feature as well as various forms of “Notations” to name but a few. We will hear from Pierre's younger brother Roger why Pierre left Paris and settled at Baden-Baden and from Pierre himself how the French Government lured him back with IRCAM and Ensemble intercontemporain. He also talks about his vision of a Cité de la musique which did still come true during his life time including the Philharmonie de Paris. Daniel Barenboim, friend and ally, discusses Pierre's music making and compositions and plays and conducts “Notations”. Dear colleagues from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia and Switzerland have already committed to broadcast and Arthaus Musik will release a longer version on DVD.

Production Company RM Creative
Duration 58 min.
Director Reiner E. Moritz