Pierre Boulez

Revolutionary composer and sought-after conductor: the Hamburg International Music Festival 2025 is putting Pierre Boulez centre stage on the occasion of his 100th birthday

Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez © Harald Hoffmann / Deutsche Grammophon

Oh yes, Pierre Boulez loved provocation: »Schönberg is dead!« and »Blow up the opera houses!« are just two of the famous statements with which he left his mark on music history. Together with colleagues such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono, the French composer belonged to a group of young rogues who called for a completely new aesthetic after the Second World War. Boulez thus became the most important pioneer of music in which pitches, durations and volume are determined in advance by mathematical principles. His clear, analytical view of scores soon made him an equally sought-after conductor.

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