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      Pierre Boulez at 100: What Is His Legacy Today?

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      Few musicians could be the focus of an architectural tour. Pierre Boulez is one of them.In the Fourth Arrondissement of Paris, next to the Centre Pompidou, you’ll find IRCAM, the sound research center that Boulez founded in the 1970s. Not far away, on Place de la Bastille, is an opera house where he suffered one of the few failures of his long career. And on the outskirts of the city, at Parc de la Villette, his Cité de la Musique complex produces concerts, exhibitions and classes, a factory of culture where industrial slaughterhouses once sprawled.The most recent addition to the Cité de la Musique is the Philharmonie de Paris, a concert hall whose main auditorium is named after Boulez. It was completed in 2015, a year before his death, at 90, but he never got to see it. Still, it stands today as a kind of monument to this titan of the past century’s music, a composer, conductor, theorist and a canny political force.Michael Haefliger, a friend and colleague from the Lucerne Festival, called Boulez “the Einstein of music.” The conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, an inheritor of Boulez’s ethos, described him as “one of the most influential people in music, period.”What exactly, though, is Boulez’s influence?A hundred years after his birth, and nearly a decade since his death, his legacy isn’t necessarily as a composer. Celebrating his centennial at the Philharmonie in March, two performances of his “Rituel in Memoriam Bruno Maderna” were notable mostly for their rarity. His music, like that of his peers from the post-World War II generation of high modernists, like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono, is brilliant but out of fashion, and difficult to program.Benjamin Millepied created a dance for Boulez’s “Rituel in Memoriam Bruno Maderna.”Benjamin Malapris for The New York TimesBenjamin Malapris for The New York TimesTo get a sense of Boulez’s true legacy, look at how “Rituel” was presented. With an accompanying dance by Benjamin Millepied, the evening embraced experimentation, a hallmark of Boulez, a musician who tried to dissolve the boundaries between performers and audience members in the 1970s.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Patricia Kopatchinskaja Knocks the Cobwebs Off the Violin Repertory

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      Patricia Kopatchinskaja, making her New York Philharmonic debut this week, has become one of music’s quirkiest stars by breathing new life into standards.In classical music, we think we know how the great pieces go. We hear these standards so often — they have formed our ears so thoroughly — that it can be hard to imagine why some of them were resisted when they were new. Take Tchaikovsky’s beloved Violin Concerto, which endears us with its graceful lyricism and good spirits.Not when Patricia Kopatchinskaja plays it.Kopatchinskaja, who makes her New York Philharmonic debut on Wednesday, released a recording of the Tchaikovsky in 2016. The performance is bracing and even manic, pressing toward extremes of loud and soft, fast and slow. Kopatchinskaja’s violin often sounds raw and wiry; she plays as if she’s improvising on a fiddle at a sweaty barn dance.Tchaikovsky’s Violin ConcertoPatricia Kopatchinskaja, violin; MusicAeterna; Teodor Currentzis, conductor (Sony)For once, you understand what the 19th-century critic Eduard Hanslick was talking about when he panned the piece as “stink one can hear.” “The violin is no longer played,” he wrote. “It is pulled about, torn, beaten black and blue.”Kopatchinskaja doesn’t always beat music black and blue. She can reduce her sound to a fragile whisper, or honey her tone into sweetness:Beethoven’s Violin ConcertoPatricia Kopatchinskaja, violin; Orchestre des Champs-Elysées; Philippe Herreweghe, conductor (Naïve)But she always strips away the fat, giving canonical works a breathing — indeed, panting — vitality. She grounds decorous masterpieces in the earthiness of Central European folk traditions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Martha Argerich, the Elusive, Enigmatic ‘Goddess’ of the Piano

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      The pianist Martha Argerich had just delivered an electrifying performance on a snowy night in northern Switzerland. Fans were lining up backstage for autographs, and friends were bringing roses and chrysanthemums to her dressing room.But Argerich, who at 83 is still one of the world’s most astonishing pianists, with enough finger strength to shatter chestnuts or make a Steinway quiver, was nowhere to be seen. She had slipped out a door to smoke a Gauloises cigarette.“I want to hide,” she said outside the Stadtcasino concert hall in Basel, Switzerland, shrinking beneath her billowy gray hair. “For a moment, I don’t want to be a pianist. Now, I am someone else.”As she smoked, Argerich, one of classical music’s most elusive and enigmatic artists, obsessed about how she had played the opening flourish of Schumann’s piano concerto that evening with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. (Her verdict: “not so good.”) And she became transfixed by the memory of performing the concerto for the first time, as an 11-year-old in Buenos Aires, her hometown.There, at the Teatro Colón in 1952, a conductor whose name was seared into her memory — Washington Castro — had offered a warning. Never forget, he said: Strange things happen to pianists who play the Schumann concerto.At 83, Argerich is busier than ever. “They look old now,” she said of her hands, “but they still work.”Mischa Christen for The New York Times More

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      Review: A Kronos Quartet Glow Up: New Players, Newly Lustrous Sound

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      The venerable quartet returned to Zankel Hall with a typically eclectic program and a newfound emotional intensity.The Kronos Quartet was at Zankel Hall on Friday with a typically eclectic program that included new works drawing on jazz, psychedelic rock and Nordic folk music. The vibrant performance was not only the ensemble’s return to a space it reliably fills with devoted fans; with the quartet’s ranks refreshed by three brilliant new players, it also felt like a comeback.In recent years, the aging ensemble — founded in 1973 by David Harrington, who continues to lead it as first violin — sometimes seemed to have had slid into an identity crisis. The Kronos brand was still strong: Ambitious commissions kept pushing the boundaries of quartet music, resulting in more than 1,000 new works and arrangements drawing on every imaginable style. In the run-up to its golden jubilee, the ensemble initiated a commissioning project, 50 for the Future, and made the sheet music to all 50 pieces available free online.But the quality of the playing had become inconsistent. And the spoken introductions the players offered at concerts felt perfunctory and tired. When the violinist John Sherba and the violist Hank Dutt, who had been in the lineup since 1978, retired last year, the quartet might have disbanded. Instead, Harrington brought in fresh talent and — judging by the music-making on Friday — strong personalities. The quartet’s middle voices now belong to the violinist Gabriela Díaz and the violist Ayane Kozasa, who join the composer and cellist Paul Wiancko, who came onboard in 2022.During the kaleidoscopic first half of the concert the two women asserted themselves as the quartet’s engines of emotional intensity and a newly lustrous, rich sound. This came through most powerfully in Aleksandra Vrebalov’s incantatory “Gold Came From Space,” which gradually grows in sonic density and expressive intent from tremulous whispers. Time and again, Kozasa’s viola stole the spotlight with its absorbing mixture of lyricism and throaty candor. She channeled Nina Simone’s tough-nosed tenderness in Jacob Garchik’s arrangement of “For All We Know” (composed by J. Fred Coots) and set the tone for Wiancko’s arrangement of Neil Young’s protest song “Ohio.”Two songs by Sun Ra, “Outer Spaceways Incorporated” (wittily arranged by Garchik) and “Kiss Yo’ Ass Goodbye,” in a psychedelic arrangement by Terry Riley and Sara Miyamoto, sparkled with experimental glee. That exploratory zest had always been a hallmark of Kronos. But the heart-on-sleeve directness the group brought to Viet Cuong’s stirring “Next Week’s Trees,” in which the quartet sometimes sounds like a giant harp, felt new.The second half was taken up by a single work, “Elja,” by Benedicte Maurseth and Kristine Tjogersen. Maurseth, who joined the Kronos players for the performance, is a master on the Norwegian hardanger fiddle, a violin-like instrument with four extra resonating strings and a curved neck and carved scroll that evokes the bow of an ancient ship. For the 45-minute piece, which also featured recorded nature sounds, the Kronos players switched to hardanger versions of their own instruments. (The viola and cello fiddles were specially built for Kronos by the Norwegian luthier Ottar Kasa.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Conductor Joana Mallwitz Mixes Intensity With Approachability

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      Joana Mallwitz, one of Germany’s fastest rising stars, makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in “The Marriage of Figaro” on Monday.The conductor Joana Mallwitz rehearsing at the Met.The conductor Joana Mallwitz apologized for arriving late for her interview at the Metropolitan Opera House last week, but she had needed to catch her breath after rehearsal. “Conducting is sweaty business,” she said, as she settled into a straight-backed posture on a sofa in the press lounge, her striking hands with long fingers elegantly crossed at the wrists.On Monday, Mallwitz, 39 — the music director of the Konzerthaus Berlin and one of the fastest rising classical stars in her native Germany — makes her Met debut with Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” She has been in close relationship with that opera since her first job, at 19, at Theater Heidelberg, a small house where her duties included “everything that one does as Kapellmeister,” she said: rehearsing singers, playing the continuo part on the harpsichord and, when needed, jumping in at short notice to conduct a performance.“You develop a relationship with such a work,” she said of “Figaro.” “You get to know each other.”“You develop a relationship with such a work,” Mallwitz said of “The Marriage of Figaro.” “You get to know each other.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesAt the end of that afternoon’s rehearsal she had worked with the orchestra on minute details in the overture, finessing dynamic contrasts and highlighting the shock value — “like rock music,” she told the musicians — of the loud outbursts that interrupt the garrulous bubbling fast notes. The key, she said afterward, was to “bring a certain energy into the sound that doesn’t become hard when the playing gets louder.”Working with the Met musicians, she said, was a joy because after fine-tuning a small section, “they are able to feel what my style is and transfer it” to the rest of the piece. “They’re able to pick it up because mentally, too, they are virtuosos,” she said. “It’s incredible what this orchestra is able to deliver in terms of tempo and transparency and diversity of effects. You want to draw on all of that but also achieve a combination of lightness and drama.”Lightness and drama, approachability and uncompromising seriousness in her approach to a score — these are at the heart of Mallwitz’s striking rise to prominence in a profession long dominated by men. In 2014, at 28 she became the music director of Theater Erfurt, the youngest conductor to hold such a position in Europe. In 2018, she took over the leadership of the Nuremberg State Theater, an institution that had also served as a springboard for the conductor Christian Thielemann when he was 23. In her second season there she was voted best conductor of the year by a jury of German critics. A celebrated run of Mozart’s “Cosí Fan Tutte” at Salzburg in 2020 catapulted her to international attention.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Under Trump, Kennedy Center’s Classical Offerings Will (Mostly) Go On

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      The Kennedy Center’s flagship opera company and symphony orchestra announced Thursday that they plan to present robust and fairly typical programs next season, the first full season since President Trump took over the institution.But one prominent work was missing from the lineup: Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce’s “Fellow Travelers,” an opera set in the 1950s about two men working for the government who become lovers. The work was withdrawn by its creators because of concerns about Mr. Trump’s takeover, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times.Washington National Opera said the 2025-26 season would include classics like Verdi’s “Aida” and less commonly heard works like “Treemonisha,” an opera by the ragtime composer Scott Joplin. The National Symphony Orchestra is planning warhorses by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich and world premieres by Carlos Simon, the Kennedy Center’s composer in residence; Valerie Coleman; and others.In a sign of the political sensitivities at the Kennedy Center, the leaders of the opera and the symphony declined to be interviewed about the new season.The center has been in flux since Mr. Trump purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden appointees and had himself elected chairman. The president’s actions have prompted an outcry, leading some artists to cancel engagements there in protest. The musical “Hamilton” scrapped a planned tour there next year.The classical field, in which seasons are planned years in advance, has largely been unaffected. But the creators of “Fellow Travelers,” an opera based on the 2007 novel by Thomas Mallon, confirmed this week that they were pulling the work, which was supposed to have its Washington premiere next year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How the Dutch National Opera Is Trying to Go Green

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      Opera is an art form made of other art forms: music, theater, dance, visual art, film. It brings together performers, creative teams and audiences from around the world for what, at its finest, is a glorious but ephemeral experience.Imagine, then, the carbon footprint for this grandest of performing arts.It’s not just about the globalized nature of opera today. If companies want to go green, they have to think beyond plane tickets to how productions are made, what materials are used in costumes and sets, and how the theater operates. They have to think about what food they serve, what dishes they use, and whether water comes from glass or plastic bottles. They even have to think about how audience members, often thousands at a time, travel to and from performances.In an age of tighter budgets and rising expenses, it can be difficult for houses to know where to start. But the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam is setting an example with the great leaps it has made in recent years toward sustainability. The dream, distant for now, is carbon neutrality; the reality may still be a work in progress, yet changes have been adopted with remarkable speed.Under the banner of its Green Deal program, the opera house has brought sustainability to virtually every corner of its operation. This year, it even updated its contracts for creative teams to include a commitment that their productions use at least 50 percent recycled material.The Dutch National Opera has in recent years changed the way its theater operates by calculating the carbon footprints of not only each production, but also each visitor.Jussi Puikkonen for The New York Times“If an artist says, ‘Sorry, but I’m not interested in your Green Deal,’ that’s fine,” said Sophie de Lint, who has been the director of the Dutch National Opera since 2018. “We shake hands and move on. But that hasn’t happened. People are actually really open and want to go there.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Wild Up’s Darkness Sounding Festival: The Power of Tuning

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      The Los Angeles collective Wild Up brought its Darkness Sounding festival to New York, with some of the event’s appeal lost in transit.The subject of tuning in music tends to attract two kinds of enthusiasts: scientists and poets.Scientists speak in ratios, fractions and cents, a unit of measurement that captures tiny distances between pitches. For them, the question of temperament — how to space out the steps of a scale so that its component notes ring out in tune with one another — is a beautiful mathematical riddle.For the poets, the subject is rich in metaphors. It is about relationships, of one string on the violin to its neighbor. When affinities line up perfectly, you can hear the sound glow with sympathetic resonance. The impurities that creep into certain intervals under the Western system of equal temperament reveal truths about conflict and compromise.Last weekend, 92NY became a laboratory for exploring both the mystical and the physical dimensions of alternate tunings as part of the festival Darkness Sounding, presented by the Los Angeles-based collective Wild Up under the direction of Christopher Rountree. “In music, tuning sets the stakes and the boundaries of our world,” Wild Up’s program notes said. “It is the carbon we build mountains with and the oxygen we breathe in; it is our environment, and within the duration of a piece, it becomes us.”The three-day festival included world premieres, 20th-century works and a rare complete performance of the “Rosary” Sonatas by the 17th-century composer Heinrich Biber. It offered a vibrant spectrum of sound worlds, from booming drones amplified at earsplitting levels to placid pools of shimmering textures. As a luxury-cast demonstration of the expressive power of tuning, the concerts were a ringing success. But as an immersive listening experience — as a “space for reflection and transformation where sound becomes landscape, ritual, and revelation,” as the program described it — the festival fell short of its ambitions.The composer and violinist Andrew McIntosh performed a marathon of Biber’s “Rosary” Sonatas.Joseph SinnottDarkness Sounding started out in California as a winter ritual that mixed innovative programs with novel settings, such as moonlit serenades and sound meditations for listeners seated in circles. In New York, Wild Up’s innovative programs were shoehorned into a traditional concert setting. This contrast felt especially jarring during Friday night’s opening concert at Kaufmann Concert Hall, which consisted of three long, static works that ask a listener to surrender control and allow time to dissolve into physical sound, but that would have benefited from a more mindful setting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More