★★★★☆

Pierre Boulez turned 90 on March 26 this year, and several reissues have already appeared to commemorate the occasion. This set collects together his DG recordings of basic 20th-century repertoire: primarily Bartók, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, as well as his own music. 

Boulez first recorded almost all this music for Sony (CBS) in the 1960s and 70s. In the ‘90s he signed with DG and began again. While his later recordings are polished, better recorded, and extremely well played, I mostly prefer the earlier set. In 1966, when Boulez made his first controversial disc of La Mer, he was still a rebel and regarded Debussy as revolutionary. An edgy, analytical performance resulted, but in this one with the Cleveland Orchestra from 1991 all discoveries have been made. 

Sony issued a box of their Boulez recordings, reviewed here recently by Philip Clark, where the repertoire is quirkier and more diverse. In the new box, for example, we have no Pelléas et Mélisande or Berg Violin Concerto, no Berio, Elliott Carter, Manuel de Falla, nor Boulez’s orchestral masterwork Rituel. We get Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto but not Pulcinella. The Sony box reproduced the original LP covers, whereas Universal settles for bland (and not very sturdy) packaging.  

Boulez’s most interesting recordings of the last 20 years – his Mahler symphonies – are not included here, even though five of them were composed in the 20th century. We do however get his rare excursion into the lush, exotic world of Szymanowski (an exquisite Violin Concerto No 1 with Christian Tetzlaff), some Birtwistle, and three Ligeti concertos. 

Highlights for me are Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto (with Gil Shaham), Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto (with Dame Mitsuko Uchida), and Boulez’s own Le Marteau sans Maître with Hilary Summers – a sharper, somewhat more pristine rendition than the old Sony recording with Yvonne Minton.


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Deutsche Grammophon

Fish Fine Music

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