Pierre Boulez Media Round-Up and Odd Ends

I'm still sad over the death of Pierre Boulez at 90. As Alex Ross said, he was the "last remaining titan of the post-war avant-garde." It's the passing of an era.

From San Francisco Symphony comes the news that Boulez conducted here once, in 1986, in their New & Unusual Music Festival at the Civic Auditorium. But he didn't conduct SFS! Instead, he conducted the Ensemble Intercontemporain, in his own Dialogue de l'ombre double and Répons.

SFS itself last performed a work by Boulez in 2003; it was Messagesquisse, with MTT conducting.

Here's a partial listing of obituaries and commentary about Boulez. 

• Paul Griffiths,  NY Times. Surprisingly, there's no mention of Boulez's Grawemeyer for sur Incises.
• Tim Page, Washington Post. I'm curious about that quotation from Mark Swed. The rug concert I attended was at Avery Fisher, and a search of the NYPhil's archive shows that all of the rug concerts were there.
• Roger Nichols, Guardian
• David J. Baker, Opera News
• Will Gompertz, BBC
• Renaud Machart, Le Monde (in French)
• Bill Chappell, NPR
• David Colker, LA Times
• Mark Swed, an appreciation at the LA Times
• Justin Davidson, Vulture, has an acutely observed description of Boulez's music.
• Charles T. Downey, Ionarts
• Alex Ross at his blog
• Matthew Guerrieri at his blog
• Greg Sandow at his blog
• New York Philharmonic
• Cleveland Orchestra has an audio tribute on YouTube.
• Chicago Symphony Orchestra
• Berlin Philharmonic
• London Symphony Orchestra
• The Beeb has a page of words and music.
• Boulez in His Own Words, Guardian
• The Economist, Boulez at 90 (Not an obituary but worth reading)

And a very, very odd end indeed.