100 — Celebration for Pierre Boulez: The art of freedom at Festspielhaus Baden‐Baden

About the Event

What do Maurice Ravel and Pierre Boulez have in common? Their commitment to “absolute music”. This foundation of purposeless composition, postulated by Ludwig Tieck as early as 1799, inspired Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms as well as Maurice Ravel and Pierre Boulez. Each composer laid down new rules to liberate sounds. Ravel had the choir in “Daphnis et Chloé” sing only vocalizes, but no more words. Pierre Boulez fine‐tuned his works — he took his freedom. In two world premieres, composers Mark Andre and Enno Poppe bow to the power of absolute music.