Main content
Sorry, this clip is not currently available

Pierre Boulez: '... explosante-fixe ...'

With Sophie Cherrier, Dagmar Becker, Anne Romeis (flutes), SWR Experimental Studio electronics and the SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg conducted by François-Xavier Roth.

With Sophie Cherrier, Dagmar Becker, Anne Romeis (flutes), SWR Experimental Studio electronics and the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, conducted by Francois-Xavier Roth.

With its title remembered from André Breton – on the need for beauty to be a ‘fixed exploding’ – the musical blueprint that Boulez created as a memorial to Stravinsky in 1971 has itself exploded in several different directions, generating works as different as Anthèmes for solo violin, the orchestral Rituel and, as the definitive ‘… explosante-fixe …’, this electronic flute concerto.

Instrumental-electronic interplay had always been part of the ‘… explosante-fixe …’ project; a version from the mid-1970s featured eight modulated instruments but was set aside until the composer had time to work on the piece at IRCAM with the flautist Larry Beauregard. Beauregard’s early death, in 1985, led Boulez to suspend the idea, after first writing a preliminary version, Mémoriale, in the young musician’s memory. Finally, in 1991–3, he produced the present score, for solo flute plus a chamber orchestra.

While his other large-scale IRCAM piece Répons, with its electronic percussion team and wind-string orchestra, exulted in contrast, ‘… explosante-fixe …’ can inhabit borderlands of likeness. The two companion flutes can shadow the soloist particularly closely; other instruments come more or less near.

Duration:

34 minutes

Credits

Role Contributor
Composer Pierre Boulez
Conductor François‐Xavier Roth
Orchestra Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra
Performer Sophie Cherrier