“1947: the year when I met Char, and when I became aware of myself.” This confession by Pierre Boulez to Karlheinz Stockhausen reveals how much his Piano Sonata No.2, started that year, is a founding piece of work. At first glance, however, its structure does not seem revolutionary, following the four traditional movements of the classical sonata: a lively first movement that revisits the fundamentals of sonata form (exposition of the main themes, development rich in twists and turns, recapitulation of the themes), a slow second movement dominated by the principle of variation, a third movement in the style of a scherzo, and a finale with a fugue. But Boulez’s artistry lies in his ability to melt this framework or explode it from within to create a poetic world of his own.
The “Arietta” then provides a striking contrast with its molto semplice e cantabile chorale. The variations that follow the exposition of the theme seem to flow naturally, with the pulse becoming increasingly pronounced. However, the writing reaches heights of complexity for the time: “no sphinx has ever imagined such an enigma”, wrote the critic of The Harmonicon about the third variation! But it is after the fourth variation that the sphinx literally escapes, in a coda where all formal reference points disappear. Beethoven then indulges in unprecedented textural games (ornaments in the upper register of the keyboard, endless trills) that eventually “dissolve”; Boulez would remember this.
While René Char inspired Boulez more or less directly for his Piano Sonata No.2, another poet was behind another French piano masterpiece of the 20th century: Aloysius Bertrand, with his collection Gaspard de la nuit, published posthumously in 1842. This work, rich in supernatural creatures and fantastical settings, captivated Maurice Ravel, and inspired his “three romantic poems of transcendent virtuosity”, in 1908, making him a worthy spiritual heir to Franz Liszt. The technical difficulty was a major challenge: Ravel consciously sought to surpass Balakirev’s very arduous Islameywith the capers of “Scarbo”, a nightmarish gnome who occupies a major place in the eponymous collection. The other two pieces in the triptych are no less inventive: “Le Gibet” is a frightening page of immobility, with the tolling of its B flat repeated tirelessly throughout the piece; as for “Ondine”, it was Marguerite Long’s favorite piece, who admired Ravel’s ability to suggest the unpredictable strokes of the mermaid’s fins while making her sing sadly on the keyboard. Unpredictability and obviousness? Perhaps that is also what Boulez loved about Ravel.
Tristan Labouret
