Pierre Boulez: Éclat/Multiples album review – two of his most significant works are played with fabulous precision

The Guardian

22-05-2025

Almost all the major works from the second half of Pierre Boulez's composing career developed in the same way: their starting point is a small-scale ensemble or solo piece that served as the kernel for the much expanded and elaborated later score. That was the process that led to the final versions of works such as Mémoriale, Anthèmes and …explosante-fixe…, and to the pair of substantial pieces that are played with fabulous precision and incisiveness on this disc.
Éclat/Multiples, completed in 1981, began life in 1965 as Éclat, a kit-like eight-minute exploration of the sound world Boulez had first created for the central movements of his masterpiece Pli selon Pli, and which he then expanded to a work for 25 instruments. For Sur Incises, which grew by stages through the mid 1990s, the starting point was a solo-piano piece, Incises, while the final work uses trios of pianos, harps and percussionists to create a seductive world of mysterious trills and decaying resonances and sudden outbursts of frantic activity. It's clear from the sketches for Éclat/Multiples that Boulez intended to extend it beyond the 28-minute version that is played today, and this disc includes an extra four minutes of music never recorded before; there may be yet more to come in the future, but in the meantime these are fine accounts of two of Boulez's most significant works.
One track available on Bandcamp