Conversations with Boulez: Thoughts on Conducting

Timing is everything. Twenty years ago, when Pierre Boulez, the preeminent French composer-conductor of his generation, was in the midst of his controversial tenure at the New York Philharmonic, this book would have been eagerly read. Now that he is again spending most of his time at the podium or in the recording studio, mostly with the Chicago Symphony--and showing ever greater interpretive powers--his latest thoughts might have been eagerly sought out. Unfortunately, however, this book doesn't contain his latest thoughts. Originally published in France, this is a series of Q&A interviews conducted in 1988, a time when Boulez had virtually abandoned conducting. His views on the conductor's role, on the importance of keeping musical culture alive (most contemporary conductors, he complains, have little culture and almost no curiosity) and on his own remarkable batonless technique are always worth reading. But the book lacks urgency, partly because it reads like the thoughts of a man who has stopped working when, since these interviews were conducted, Boulez has stepped back onto the stage. It has, however, been updated with an exhaustive (but superfluous) listing of Boulez's public performances to the end of 1995, and a CD discography whose chief lack is any mention of the orchestras involved. Illustrated. (June)