Pli Selon Pli Selon PliAuthor(s): Paul GriffithsSource: The Musical Times, Vol. 124, No. 1690 (Dec., 1983), p. 747Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/962213 .

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association with the Library of Congress, witnessed the founding of an American Brahms Society. Most of its 25 speakers drew on responses to the music itself, whether founded on analytical tradition or personal reactions. Of the latter, Charles Rosen's spontaneous keyboard discussion of aspects of Brahmsian ambiguity and Ed- ward Cone's equally 'practical' though more restrained presentation on music and

words offered extremes of equal excellence. Balance was easier to achieve at the more intimate London gathering, held at Goldsmiths' College in July, six of whose eleven papers dealt with matters broadly 'musicological': reception, in England and Germany, chronology and authenticity (with a feature on the Nachlass by Man- dyczewski's present successor, Otto Biba). Three analytical papers focussed on the

string quartet, revealing a striking contrast in approach between the detailed treatment ofmotifin the C minor by Allen Forte and broader consideration of its relation with its twin by Arnold Whittall. Studies of structure, harmony and features of the Fourth Symphony served also to comple- ment views of Brahms's creative links to the past and his estimate of his own position.

Pli selon pli selon pli Paul Griffiths When so little of the serious music of our time has been recorded, a second version of Pli selon pli* might seem a luxury. It is, though, very far from being so. In the first place, the work is now well established as a major monument to that strange move- ment known as the 'avant garde': compos- ed between 1957 and 1962, it is indeed a testimony to that movement's heyday. When Boulez recorded his first Pli selon pli, for CBS in 1969, the concept of an avant garde was decidedly still current, and so there is certainly room for a view perpe- tuated under the very different conditions of 1981. It is also quite clear that Pli selon pli is rich and open enough to withstand different interpretations - very different, as it turns out.

One might have imagined that this richness and openness depended in part on Boulez's aleatory practices, and in parti- cular on his provision of different routes through the score, for surely a second recording would give him the opportunity to find other paths. In fact he chooses not to. The biggest mobile in the piece - the closing section of the first movement Don - is played exactly as it was in 1969, follow- ing the scheme given at top left in Boulez's block of six possibilities (p.28 of the Univer- sal score). So much for the mutability of this labyrinth.

However, the music is greatly changed in ways more significant than hazards of ordering. It is, for one thing, much slower. The table below gives the durations of the five movements, those of the 1981 record- ing being taken from the labels and those of the 1969 version from my own timings:

1969 1981 Don 14' 07" 15' 28" Improvisation I 4' 58" 5' 30" Improvisation II 10' 53" 12' 17" Improvisation III 15' 42" 18' 25" Tombeau 12' 40" 16' 00"

Of course, clock time is not necessarily any guide to the character of a performance, but the differences here are so large - an extra 26% in the case of Tombeau - that they are bound to be felt. It is possible that in 1969 Boulez was constrained by the need to get the whole of the work on to a single disc (the new version expands over three sides with a blank fourth), but the few checks that I have been able to make sug- gest that the durations on the CBS record (72770) were not unusual for the period, and that Pli selon pli was definitely not un- folding then over the spans it had achiev- ed by 1981. Also, the 1969 tempos would seem to be nearer the metronome markings than those adopted in 1981, though a true following of the markings would probably produce an even quicker performance than that recorded for CBS (one wonders how fast Boulez was taking the music when he first performed it at the beginning of the 1960s). To give an example of Boulez's departures from his own notated tempos, ' the start of Tombeau proceeds at something like minim=40 instead of the marked minim = 60, and the steady deceleration of tempo is then flattened out so that the final speed is just about right. This has the ef- fect of accentuating the acceleration that takes place in spite of the slackening speeds (because increasingly small note values are used), and Boulez had done much the same thing in 1969, though to a lesser degree.

The relative Andante of the new 1981 recording goes along with a more spacious feel and a more relaxed handling of gesture. But here again, before trying to understand Boulez's intentions as performer, one must consider the constraints of the medium. The 1969 Pli selon pli was recorded at a time when CBS were partial to close-up sound, using many microphones to spotlight indi- vidual instruments, and this obviously enhances the severely exposed clarity of the version. Nevertheless, there is an intensi- ty with which ideas are seized that seems to come from the nature of the perfor-

mance: a notable instance is the projection of the cello solo in Don (p.9) where the marking 'sans nuances' should warn one that the music is operating at high voltage, and where one hears indeed a violent out- burst to recall this instrument's history in Pierrot lunaire. By contrast, the same cello solo in the 1981 recording is lazily subdued, with amply shaped phrases rather than an incisive attack on each note. And this more legato approach to the score is responsible more generally, especially in Don, for an increased melodic quality in the new recording, bringing Pli selon pli into line with Boulez's works of the later 1960s and 70s. The difference is further emphasized by the choice of soloist, for where Halina Lukomska in 1969 was inclined to be hard- edged, metallic and vociferous, Phyllis Bryn-Julson in the new recording is angelically gentle. She finds much more in the detail of quarter-tone and glissando in the third Improvisation, and, not surpris- ingly, her vocal demeanour elsewhere is consistent with Boulez's more careful and more detached exploration of the score. Boulez in 1969 appears to have been ex- cited with a work that was still new, in 1981 he was looking back on it with affection, certainly, but perhaps too with a faint sense of regret.

One must be cautious, however, about such interpretations. In other cases where Boulez has re-recorded in the 1970s or 80s works he had previously recorded in the 1960s - Handel's Water Music, Stravin- sky's Rite of Spring, his own Le marteau sans maitre - the newer version is steadier, often slower and fuller in texture. Future students of performing practice will therefore have to consider how much his changed view of Pli selon pli is that of a musician more wholly changed in his nature, how much it owes to maturer ex- perience and how much it represents a realisation of things not achieved before. Others may accept the new record simply as a store of much beauty. *Bryn-Julson/BBC SO/Boulez; Erato NUM 75050

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