Le marteau sans maître
Encyclopedia
Le marteau sans maître is a composition by the French
composer
Pierre Boulez
. It is a setting of the surrealist poetry of René Char
for alto and six instrumentalists. It was first performed in 1955.
. The remaining movements are instrumental extrapolations of the other four:
, and serialist
works such as Structures I
, and Polyphonie X
, as well as his infamously "unplayable" Second Piano Sonata
(Jameux 1989b, 21). Le Marteau was first written as a six-movement composition between 1953 and 1954, and was published in that form in the latter year, "imprimée pour le festival de musique, 1954, Donaueschingen" (though in the end it was not performed there) in a photographic reproduction of the composer's manuscript by Universal Edition, given the catalog number UE 12362. In 1955, Boulez revised the order of these movements, and interpolated three newly composed ones (Mosch 2004, 44–45). The original, six-movement form lacked the two "Bel édifice" settings and the third commentaire on "Bourreaux de solitude". In addition, the movements were grouped in two closed cycles: first the three "Artisanat furieux" movements, then the three "Bourreaux de solitude" ones, otherwise in the order of the final score. The first movement, though fundamentally the same composition, was originally scored as a duet for vibraphone and guitar—the flute and viola were added only in the revision—and numerous less significant alterations were made to playing techniques and notation in the other movements (Siegele 1979, 8–9).
It received its première in 1955 at the 29th Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Baden-Baden
(Jameux 1989b, 21). Boulez's work was chosen to represent France at this festival. The French members of the committee were against this, but Heinrich Strobel, then director of the Baden-Baden Sudwestfunk Orchestra
, scheduled to give all of the concerts at the festival, threatened to withdraw if it was not (Jameux 1989b, 21). The first performance was given on June 18, 1955 conducted by Hans Rosbaud
, with Sybilla Plate as the solo singer.
Boulez, notorious for considering his works to be always "in progress", made further, smaller revisions to Le Marteau in 1957, in which year Universal Edition issued an engraved score, UE 12450. In the years that have followed, it has become Pierre Boulez's most famous and influential work.
recalls the African
Balafon
, the Vibraphone
Balinese
Gamelan
, and the Guitar
the Japanese
Koto
, though "neither the style nor the actual use of these instruments has any connection with these different musical civilizations" ("Speaking, Playing, Singing" (1963) in Boulez 1986, 341). Boulez chose the collection with a continuum of sonorities in mind: "a number of features shared by these instruments (forms) a continuous passage from voice to vibraphone" (Boulez 1986, 340). The purpose is to allow a graduated deconstruction of the voice into percussive noises, a compositional technique which has been common throughout Boulez's work (e.g. the recent Sur Incises
of 1998 similarly breaks down the sounds of the piano by combining it with harp and percussion). The voice and five pitched instruments can be arranged in a line, each pair connected by a similarity, as in the following diagram (quoted from Grondines 2000):
The vocal writing is challenging for the singer, containing wide leaps, glissandi
, humming (notated bouche fermée in the score), and even Sprechstimme, a device found in the work of the Second Viennese School
before Boulez. There are also deliberate similarities to Arnold Schoenberg
's song cycle, Pierrot Lunaire
(Jameux 1989a, 19), one of which is that each movement chooses a different subset of the available instruments:
The writing is often hermetic: the three cycles each use different serial
techniques. The "L'Artisanat furieux" movements, for example, use a technique Boulez called "pitch multiplication" in Boulez on Music Today (Boulez 1971). Lev Koblyakov identified its use in Le Marteau (Koblyakov 1977, 1981, and 1990). Later, a complete explanation of the processes themselves was made by Stephen Heinemann (1993). Pitch, durations, and dynamic associations in the "Bourreaux de solitude" cycle were described by Winick (1986) and Wentzel (1991), and the deployment of these materials was discussed by Ulrich Mosch (1997 and 2004).
The opening of the third movement in the flute is typical of the difficulties required of performers including wide range, large leaps, and complex rhythms such as the 16th note quintuplets
in the fifth measure:
's collection of poems, Le Marteau sans maître, written in the 1930s while Char "still shared the surrealist views of poets like André Breton
and Henri Michaux
" (Grondines 2000). Boulez had earlier written two cantatas, Visage nuptial and Le Soleil des eaux in 1946 and 1948, which also set poems by René Char.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
. It is a setting of the surrealist poetry of René Char
René Char
René Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...
for alto and six instrumentalists. It was first performed in 1955.
Movements
The work has nine movements, four of which set the text of three poems of René CharRené Char
René Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...
. The remaining movements are instrumental extrapolations of the other four:
- Avant "l'artisanat furieux" (before "the furious craftsmanship")
- Commentaire I de "bourreaux de solitude" (first commentary on "hangmen of solitude")
- "L'artisanat furieux" ("the furious craftsmanship")
- Commentaire II de "bourreaux de solitude" (second commentary on "hangmen of solitude")
- "Bel édifice et les pressentiments", version première ("stately building and presentiments", first version)
- "Bourreaux de solitude" ("hangmen of solitude")
- Après "l'artisanat furieux" (after "the furious craftsmanship")
- Commentaire III de "bourreaux de solitude" (third commentary on "hangmen of solitude")
- "Bel édifice et les pressentiments", double ("stately building and presentiments", again)
History
Before Le Marteau, Boulez had established a reputation as the composer of modernistModernism (music)
Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with the past or common practice.- Defining musical modernism :...
, and serialist
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
works such as Structures I
Structures (Boulez)
Structures I and Structures II are two related works for two pianos, composed by the French composer Pierre Boulez....
, and Polyphonie X
Polyphonie X
Polyphonie X is a composition by Pierre Boulez for eighteen instruments divided into seven groups, written in 1950–51. It is in three movements.It is one of the first works of Boulez's total serial period...
, as well as his infamously "unplayable" Second Piano Sonata
Piano sonatas (Boulez)
Pierre Boulez has composed three piano sonatas. The First Piano Sonata in 1946, a Second Piano Sonata in 1948, and a Third Piano Sonata was composed in 1955–57 with further elaborations up to at least 1963, though only two of its movements have been published.-First Piano Sonata:Boulez's First...
(Jameux 1989b, 21). Le Marteau was first written as a six-movement composition between 1953 and 1954, and was published in that form in the latter year, "imprimée pour le festival de musique, 1954, Donaueschingen" (though in the end it was not performed there) in a photographic reproduction of the composer's manuscript by Universal Edition, given the catalog number UE 12362. In 1955, Boulez revised the order of these movements, and interpolated three newly composed ones (Mosch 2004, 44–45). The original, six-movement form lacked the two "Bel édifice" settings and the third commentaire on "Bourreaux de solitude". In addition, the movements were grouped in two closed cycles: first the three "Artisanat furieux" movements, then the three "Bourreaux de solitude" ones, otherwise in the order of the final score. The first movement, though fundamentally the same composition, was originally scored as a duet for vibraphone and guitar—the flute and viola were added only in the revision—and numerous less significant alterations were made to playing techniques and notation in the other movements (Siegele 1979, 8–9).
It received its première in 1955 at the 29th Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...
(Jameux 1989b, 21). Boulez's work was chosen to represent France at this festival. The French members of the committee were against this, but Heinrich Strobel, then director of the Baden-Baden Sudwestfunk Orchestra
Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra
The Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra is a radio orchestra located in the German cities of Baden-Baden and Freiburg...
, scheduled to give all of the concerts at the festival, threatened to withdraw if it was not (Jameux 1989b, 21). The first performance was given on June 18, 1955 conducted by Hans Rosbaud
Hans Rosbaud
Hans Rosbaud , was an Austrian conductor, particularly associated with the music of the twentieth century....
, with Sybilla Plate as the solo singer.
Boulez, notorious for considering his works to be always "in progress", made further, smaller revisions to Le Marteau in 1957, in which year Universal Edition issued an engraved score, UE 12450. In the years that have followed, it has become Pierre Boulez's most famous and influential work.
Composition
The instrumentation was quite novel for Western music at the time, lacking any kind of bass instrument, and drew some influence from the sound of "non-European" instruments. The XylorimbaXylorimba
The xylorimba is a pitched percussion instrument corresponding to a xylophone with an extended range ....
recalls the African
Music of Africa
Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from sub-Saharan African music traditions....
Balafon
Balafon
The balafon is a resonated frame, wooden keyed percussion idiophone of West Africa; part of the idiophone family of tuned percussion instruments that includes the xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel, and the vibraphone...
, the Vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
Balinese
Music of Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island that shares in the gamelan and various other Indonesian musical styles. Bali, however, has its own techniques and styles, including kecak, a form of singing that imitates the sound of monkeys...
Gamelan
Gamelan
A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
, and the Guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
the Japanese
Music of Japan
The music of Japan includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles both traditional and modern. The word for music in Japanese is 音楽 , combining the kanji 音 with the kanji 楽...
Koto
Koto (musical instrument)
The koto is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument, similar to the Chinese guzheng, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The koto is the national instrument of Japan. Koto are about length, and made from kiri wood...
, though "neither the style nor the actual use of these instruments has any connection with these different musical civilizations" ("Speaking, Playing, Singing" (1963) in Boulez 1986, 341). Boulez chose the collection with a continuum of sonorities in mind: "a number of features shared by these instruments (forms) a continuous passage from voice to vibraphone" (Boulez 1986, 340). The purpose is to allow a graduated deconstruction of the voice into percussive noises, a compositional technique which has been common throughout Boulez's work (e.g. the recent Sur Incises
Incises (Boulez)
Incises and Sur Incises are two related works of the French composer Pierre Boulez.Incises is Boulez's first work for solo piano since his third piano sonata of 1955–57/63. Originally written in 1994, it has been revised twice, most recently in 2001...
of 1998 similarly breaks down the sounds of the piano by combining it with harp and percussion). The voice and five pitched instruments can be arranged in a line, each pair connected by a similarity, as in the following diagram (quoted from Grondines 2000):
Glissando
In music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...
, humming (notated bouche fermée in the score), and even Sprechstimme, a device found in the work of the Second Viennese School
Second Viennese School
The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...
before Boulez. There are also deliberate similarities to Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's song cycle, Pierrot Lunaire
Pierrot Lunaire
Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' , commonly known simply as Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 , is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg...
(Jameux 1989a, 19), one of which is that each movement chooses a different subset of the available instruments:
- Alto fluteAlto fluteThe alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a musical instrument in the woodwind family. It is the next extension downward of the C flute after the flûte d'amour. It is characterized by its distinct, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range...
, VibraphoneVibraphoneThe vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
, GuitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, ViolaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average... - Alto flute, XylorimbaXylorimbaThe xylorimba is a pitched percussion instrument corresponding to a xylophone with an extended range ....
, TambourineTambourineThe tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, 2 bongosBongo drumBongo or bongos are a Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of single-headed, open-ended drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called in Spanish the hembra and the smaller the macho...
, Viola - Voice, Alto flute
- Xylorimba, Vibraphone, Finger cymbals, AgogôAgogôAn agogô is a single or multiple bell now used throughout the world but with origins in traditional Yoruba music and also in the samba baterias . The agogô may be the oldest samba instrument and was based on West African Yoruba single or double bells...
, TriangleTriangle (instrument)The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
, Guitar, Viola - Voice, Alto flute, Guitar, Viola
- Voice, Alto flute, Xylorimba, Vibraphone, maracas, Guitar, Viola
- Alto flute, Vibraphone, Guitar
- Alto flute, Xylorimba, Vibraphone, ClavesClavesClaves are a percussion instrument , consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone), consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone),...
, Agogô, 2 bongos, Maracas - Voice, Alto flute, Xylorimba, Vibraphone, Maracas, Small tam-tam, Low gongGongA gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
, Very deep tam-tam, Large suspended cymbalSuspended cymbalright|thumb|Classical suspended cymbalA suspended cymbal is any single cymbal played with a stick or beater rather than struck against another cymbal. A common abbreviation used is sus. cym., or sus. cymb. .-History:...
, Guitar, Viola
The writing is often hermetic: the three cycles each use different serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
techniques. The "L'Artisanat furieux" movements, for example, use a technique Boulez called "pitch multiplication" in Boulez on Music Today (Boulez 1971). Lev Koblyakov identified its use in Le Marteau (Koblyakov 1977, 1981, and 1990). Later, a complete explanation of the processes themselves was made by Stephen Heinemann (1993). Pitch, durations, and dynamic associations in the "Bourreaux de solitude" cycle were described by Winick (1986) and Wentzel (1991), and the deployment of these materials was discussed by Ulrich Mosch (1997 and 2004).
The opening of the third movement in the flute is typical of the difficulties required of performers including wide range, large leaps, and complex rhythms such as the 16th note quintuplets
Tuplet
In music a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the...
in the fifth measure:
Text
The text for this work was taken from René CharRené Char
René Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...
's collection of poems, Le Marteau sans maître, written in the 1930s while Char "still shared the surrealist views of poets like André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
and Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...
" (Grondines 2000). Boulez had earlier written two cantatas, Visage nuptial and Le Soleil des eaux in 1946 and 1948, which also set poems by René Char.
| L'artisanat furieux La roulotte rouge au bord du clou Et cadavre dans le panier Et chevaux de labours dans le fer à cheval Je rêve la tête sur la pointe de mon couteau le Pérou. |
The furious handicraft The red caravan on the edge of the nail And corpse in the basket And plowhorses in the horseshoe I dream my head on the point of my knife is Peru. |
| Bourreaux de solitude Le pas s'est éloigné le marcheur s'est tu Sur le cadran de l'Imitation Le Balancier lance sa charge de granit réflexe. |
Executioners of solitude The step has gone away the walker fell silent On the face of Imitation The Pendulum throws its load of granite reflex. |
| Bel édifice et les pressentiments J'écoute marcher dans mes jambes La mer morte vagues par-dessus tête Enfant la jetée-promenade sauvage Homme l'illusion imitée Des yeux purs dans les bois Cherchent en pleurant la tête habitable. |
Stately building and the presentiments I hear marching in my legs The dead sea waves overhead Child the pier-savage sail Man the imitated illusion Pure eyes in the woods Search in tears the habitable head. |
External links
- http://web.archive.org/web/20070929083937rn_1/www.frenchculture.org/ at Frenchculture.org.