Boulez, Pierre. (1925–2016)
Four Signed Letters about Wozzeck
Very uncommon group of four letters from important French composer and conductor, one of the major innovators and forces in 20th century music. Addressed to Dr. Manfred Hubricht, the letters concern the arrangement of four performances of Wozzeck in Frankfurt. Each 1 page, two in French, two in German, dated 21 May to 26 November 1966. Sold together with an original photograph (17.5 x 13 cm) signed in black ink "P Boulez" and stamped by the photographer Jean-Marie Bottequin on the verso.Boulez regarded Wozzeck "with awe from his earliest composing days" and wrote to John Cage that it was "a piece which I find more and more remarkable by its complexity, at times indecipherable, resembling a Labyrinth without Ariadne's thread." (Joan Peyser, "To Boulez and Beyond," p. 220, p. 151) But Boulez very early on made clear his plain scepticism of the opera genre and in a scandalous interview with Der Spiegel in 1966, claimed that "no opera worth mentioning had been composed since 1935." A few years prior, in 1963, he was lured to work in an opera house for the first time, conducting a production of Wozzeck, directed by Jean-Louis Barrault. He then directed a few other productions, but it was the Frankfurt production of Wozzeck arranged in the present letters, which really turned him off of most future opera work. "I was very disillusioned by a revival of Wozzeck in Frankfurt - a terrible experience. There was no rehearsal, no care taken over anything. The cynicism of the way an opera house like that was run disgusted me. It still disgusts me." Since then, Boulez has only agreed to work in opera houses in very special (and prohibitively expensive) conditions, where every detail of the rehearsal schedule is rigorously particularised. (12314)
AMQS Classical Music