BOULEZ, Pierre

Why is he here? As a composer, Boulez incorporated avant-garde developments into more familiar structures, always rationalizing what might otherwise be perceived as steps backward with claims to independence and individuality, pretending that his conservative opportunism should be regarded as avant-garde. Nicolas Slonimsky writes, He specifically disassociated himself from any particular modern school of music. As a musical director, beginning with Domaine Musical in Paris in 1953 and...