Not the Traditional “Three Bs” The Boulez Ensemble Performs Beethoven, Bartók, and Boulez
Har r y Haskell
Ludwig van Beethoven stood at the epicenter of the earthquake that transformed Europe’s musical landscape at the turn of the 19th century, and whose repercussions are still felt today. Pairing the Viennese master with two giants of 20th-century modernism may seem like a stretch, but in fact Beethoven, Bartók, and Boulez have a good deal in common as Janus-like figures embodying both the culmination of a tradition and its rejection. As French conductor François-Xavier Roth recently observed apropos of another program built around this unconventional triumvirate, all three composers “carry within themselves the idea of a musical utopia. Boulez combines post-war music with new music and the avant-garde in his works; Beethoven composed ‘pure’ music that conveys humanistic and political messages. Bartók’s compositions were influenced by the experiences of two world wars. His Concerto for Orchestra shows how music with roots in folklore can gain new power when it is supplied with a new musical architecture.” Many scholars have called attention to Beethoven’s influence on Bartók, particularly the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Indeed, the composer’s own program note on the piece emphasized its roots in Classical sonata form. Yet Bartók also testified that the “excesses of the Romanticists” had finally convinced him and many of his contemporaries that nothing less than a “complete break with the 19th century” would free them to forge new paths. Few com-
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