Part of the BBC Proms. After Beethoven's Quintet for piano and winds, written soon after his arrival in Vienna, Pierre Boulez himself directs his breakthrough piece, Le marteau sans ma?tre (?The Hammer without a Master'), arguably the single most influential composition of the 1950s. By interlocking settings of three poems by the Surrealist poet Rene Char with commentaries from specific sub-groups of its ensemble, Boulez established a new kind of rapport between text and music through unsuspected continuities of timbre - a labyrinth of exotic sound at once tightly organised and delirious. There will be no interval. Finish time approx. 23:30| 26 Jul 12 | Royal Albert Hall Inner London, Greater London Performance Details => Venue archive |
