Boulez: Pli selon pli
Christine Schäfer (soprano)
Ensemble Intercontemporain
Pierre Boulez
(conductor)
Deutsche Grammophon
Boulez: Pli selon pli
Phyllis Bryn-Julson (soprano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Pierre Boulez
(conductor)
Erato
After nearly two decades out of circulation, Pierre Boulez's
masterpiece, Pli selon pli, is back, revised
and newly recorded in what promises to be its final version. Previously aleatoric sections
that allowed performers to make textual decisions now exist in fixed form, but
Boulez has said that many listeners might not be able
to tell the difference. One could view this change as the composer taking leave of the
piece: he's 77 and won't always be around to make sure such the chance elements
don't go awry. Call it quality control for posterity.
An ears-only comparison (scores of Pli selon pli are not widely available) of one such passage, the closing minutes of the first movement, between the new recording and Boulez's version from the early 1980s reveals that the instrumental commentary in the new Pli is more spare and distilled. That places more emphasis on the vocal line — an act of faith in the soprano soloist that's richly rewarded by Christine Scháfer. In addition, the revised instrumental postlude is more a parade of instrumental colors than the series of upheavals heard in the previous version. Yet making such comparisons is perhaps contrary to the purpose of the piece, whose exact nature is clearer in this cool-headed, more homogenous performance than ever before. Asking how or why the music was accomplished is to get in the way of fully processing the experience it has to offer.
The kernel of Pli selon pli is the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé, whose Surrealist approach is more aptly mirrored by Boulez's post-serialist musical language than by Ravel's post-Impressionist manner in his Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé . The verse is a succession of vivid, picturesque, even sinister images unfolding cheek-by-jowl and making no linear sense — it's a series of non sequiturs, inviting you to contemplate the poetic images both alone and in juxtaposition with each other. This verse can engage listeners on a highly personal level, because no two encounters with its imagery are likely to yield anything close to the same reaction. Boulez's natural mode of expression could hardly be more distant from functional, essentially predictable harmony, so his music lends itself to Mallarmé's poetic cognitive dissonance — particularly given the composer's keen sense of color and proclivity for ejaculatory solos, duets and (for lack of a better word) instrumental collisions.
Such qualities are found in their most heightened form in the first and fifth movements, respectively titled "Don" and "Tombeau." The inner movements are studies in instrumental color — saxophones, celesta, mandolin, tubular bells and numerous other unlikely instruments are heard together and apart — accompanying (though that's hardly an adequate word) more conventional text settings, albeit ones with extremely angular vocal lines. The vocal casting, in fact, is the biggest difficulty with performing Pli selon pli, which means that the biggest news in this recording isn't Boulez's revisions but Christine Schäfer's presence. She sings with an ease and comprehension that one has always hoped for but probably never heard in this work. That, combined with the composer-conductor's more homogenous approach toward the instrumental textures, means that this new recording is the piece's best shot at finding a wider audience. Music that requires repeated listenings and voluminous program notes for enjoyment is rather looked down upon these days, but the reward, in the case of Pli selon pli, is worth the investment. Its pleasures are like that of a field of rare mountain wildflowers that can't be found without maps.
This does not mean, however, that Boulez's older recording
on Erato has been superseded. I pulled it off the shelf, not having heard it in
years, expecting aural splinters from soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson's more
effortful account of the vocal lines. That didn't happen. Considering that both
recordings are conducted by the composer, it's astonishing what different
experiences they are. Bryn-Julson's vocal center of gravity is much lower than
Schäfer's, which made the upper ranges labored, but the mezzo-soprano
wight gave the older singer more vocal color to realize this less strictly
prescribed version. Bryn-Julson's lack of suaveness is perfectly in tune with
the younger Boulez's approach toward the work. There is far less sense in the
older performance of Pli selon pli
as a unified musicial organism; the music
is a series of violent outbursts, and even quieter passages have a tension
that suggests ever-present danger and claustrophobia. Of the two recordings, the
earlier reading may be the one I return to more often, though I never would have
appreciated it so much without the more gently insinuating insights offered by
the older, more contemplative Boulez.
