Pierre Boulez

Biography

Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montbrison, in the Loire department of France, the son of an engineer, Boulez studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Olivier Messiaen, and privately with Andrée Vaurabourg and René Leibowitz. He began his professional career in the late 1940s as music director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company in Paris. He was a leading figure in avant-garde music, playing an important role in the development of integral serialism in the 1950s, controlled chance music in the 1960s and the electronic transformation of instrumental music in real time from the 1970s onwards. His tendency to revise earlier compositions meant that his body of work was relatively small, but it included pieces considered landmarks of twentieth-century music, such as Le Marteau sans maître, Pli selon pli and Répons. His uncompromising commitment to modernism and the trenchant, polemical tone in which he expressed his views on music led some to criticise him as a dogmatist. Boul…

Movies & TV Shows

1. Zappa (2020) — Self (archive footage)
2. Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words (2016) — Self (archive footage)
3. The Dick Cavett Show (1968) — Self - Guest
4. Wagner: Das Rheingold (1980) — Self - Conductor
5. Eclat (1993) — Self
6. Wagner: Götterdämmerung (1980) — Self - Conductor
7. Wagner: Siegfried (1980) — Self - Conductor
8. Wagner: Die Walküre (1980) — Self - Conductor
9. Victoires de la musique (1985) — Self
10. A Stravinsky Portrait (1967) — Self
11. Frank Zappa: Phase II - The Big Note (2002) — Self
12. Frank Zappa: Peefeeyatko (1991) — Self
13. Otto Klemperer's Long Journey Through His Times (1985) — Self
14. Rituel (1979) — Self
15. One Night, One Life (2002) — Self - Conductor
16. Abbado: The Silence that Follows the Music (1996) — Self
17. A Labyrinth of Time (2004) — self
18. Liszt Piano Concertos - Daniel Barenboim / Pierre Boulez - Staatskapelle Berlin (2011) — Self - Conductor
19. Kulturplatz (2004) — Self
20. The Seventh Door (1998) — Self
21. Frank Zappa: The Present-Day Composer Refuses To Die (2000) — Self
22. For Art's Sake: The Story of Ballets Russes (2009) — Self - Composer and Conductor
23. The Great Rehearsals: Homage to Edgard Varèse (1966) — Self
24. Alban Berg - Lulu (1986) — Self - Conductor
25. Sur incises: A lesson by Pierre Boulez (2000) — Self
26. Pierre Boulez at the BBC: Master and Maverick (2016) — Self (archive footage)
27. Pierre Boulez: Emotion and Analysis (2004) — Self
28. Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn / Adagio from Symphony No. 10 (2011) — Conductor
29. From the House of the Dead (2007) — Self - Conductor
30. Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 Resurrection (2007) — Self
31. Maurizio Pollini: De main de maître (2014) — Self
32. Bruckner: Symphony No. 8: Wiener Philharmoniker (1996) — Self - Conductor
33. Bartok: Concerto for Violin - Gidon Kremer, Pierre Boulez (2010) — Self - conductor
34. Knots and Fields (2010) — Self
35. Boulez at 80 (2005) — Self - conductor
36. Wagner: The Making of The Ring (1983) — Self
37. Europakonzert 2003 from Lisbon (2003) — Self - Conductor
38. Pierre Boulez - Der Weg ins Unbekannte (2025) — Lui-même
39. Pierre Boulez Conducts Modern Classics (2006) — Conductor
40. En direct de... (1956) — self

Directed

1. Best of Bayreuth: Highlights from Three Decades (2013) — Director