In business, in the music world, people know that I can be very friendly and warm but that, after a certain moment, the business is closed. I like to be alone: in order to concentrate on my work, the social life does not exist. It has never existed for me, really. I have chosen instead the working life because I prefer that. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
All the people with whom I was very close at one point in my life – Stockhausen, Berio, Ligeti, Nono, Bernd Alois Zimmermann – they are all gone. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
The most difficult problem in conducting is intonation. You must know what is wrong and how to correct it. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
Some members of the Vienna Philharmonic convinced me to try Bruckner, which I have never done before. And that was interesting to me to have this experience with this orchestra, which knows the repertoire very well, and to be confronted with this knowledge, and to learn from them. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
I always admired very much the virtuosity in Strauss because, really, he’s a master of using the orchestra. And I like virtuosity, I must say, even if the taste of the music is not always mine. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
Acting and performing music is exactly the same. Therefore, an actor, for instance, who is very impressive, he’s not simply imitating or trying to imitate, but he must dominate this kind of feeling, and then he transmits it in a much stronger way. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
The first time I came to New York in 1952, I was busy with music. I made the acquaintance at this period with John Cage, and also the acquaintance of Varese for the first time. We were very good friends. He gave me some scores, and we recorded them a little later. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
Webern was a kind of ‘Kamchatka of music,’ an unknown country of music. That’s true; for me and people of my generation, he was a radical – you couldn’t be more radical than he was. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta’ is a kind of expansion of chamber music. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
I discovered ‘Rite of Spring’ when I was 21. As a matter of fact, not with orchestra first, because it was still a work which was not often performed. Don’t forget that I was 19 in 1944, still the Occupation time. So it was performed slightly after the end of the war, in 1945. Pierre Boulez Read Quote
