Pierre Boulez
Répons

Imagine a concert hall: in the center, an instrumental ensemble of 24 musicians (16 winds plus 8 strings); all around the audience, surrounded by 6 groups of speakers; and at the far corners of the hall, and at two points on the sides, 6 soloists playing piano, harp, xylophone and glockenspiel, cimbalom, vibraphone, and a second piano. This is the ensemble and arrangement of "Répons," 42 minutes of great music written by Pierre Boulez between 1981-1984 according to his concept of a work in progress.

This CD, released by Deutsche Grammophon, also includes a second piece, "Dialogue de l'ombre double" (1985), which uses the same idea regarding the use of 6 speakers placed at the ends of the hall: but in this case, it is a solo clarinet that for 18 minutes dialogues with its shadow, pre-recorded and spread through the speakers, invisible and mobile in the space.

Now, however, we must return to "Répons," the main course of the CD reviewed here: the title means responsorial and refers to the technique of liturgical chant in which a soloist intones the verse, and the choir responds with a refrain. So, in this work, there is a dialogue between the six soloists and the ensemble, or only between the soloists, and more generally between different musical materials. The electroacoustic aspect concerning the real-time sound transformation and its spatialization through the speakers is important: this concerns the six soloists, while the sound of the ensemble is not modified.

At the beginning, "Répons" seems like a piece of "contemporary" music like many others, in this case with a close dialogue, in the foreground, between wind and string instruments. But after the 6-minute introduction, Boulez ignites and transforms the piece into a vibrant musical organism that astonishes for the imagination and richness of sounds. Even using traditional instruments, the French composer manages to build a music that sounds futuristic thanks to his ability to assemble familiar sounds in combinations that are always unexpected and strikingly original.

It's a dense music, that of "Répons" (just as tense and virtuosic as that of "Dialogue"), made of sounds that fill the acoustic space, making the finale very suggestive where the instrumental fabric slowly unravels, leaving the soloists (in particular, piano, harp, cimbalom, and glockenspiel) more spaced out, finally free to let the emotional charge of their voice resonate.