Pierre Boulez Quotes

• Music is a labyrinth with no beginning and no end,
  full of new paths to discover,
  where mystery remains eternal

  Pierre Boulez

  Music, Discovery, Labyrinth

  121 Copy quote

• Any musician who has not experienced - I do not say understood, but truly experienced - the necessity of dodecaphonic music is USELESS. For his whole work is irrelevant to the needs of his epoch.

  Pierre Boulez

  Musician, Needs, Useless

  "Éventuellement... (Possibly...)". Essay by Pierre Boulez (1952) published in his book "Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship" (p. 133), 1991.

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• The aim of music is not to express feelings but to express music.

  Pierre Boulez

  Feelings, Music Is, Aim

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• For me, curiosity is life. If you are not curious, you are in your coffin.

  Pierre Boulez

  Curiosity, Coffins, Curious

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• It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All art of the past must be destroyed.

  Pierre Boulez

  Art, Past, Doe

  "Boulez in his own words" by Claire Kohda Hazelton, www.theguardian.com. March 26, 2015.

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• More and more I find that in order to create effectively one has to consider delirium and, yes, organize it.

  Pierre Boulez

  Order, Delirium, Organize

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• Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous.

  Pierre Boulez

  Political, Politics, Revolution

  34 Copy quote

• All art of the past must be destroyed.

  Pierre Boulez

  Art, Past, Destroyed

  "Remembering French Composer, Conductor And Musical Provocateur Pierre Boulez". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. January 6, 2016.

  25 Copy quote

• Creation exists only in the unforeseen made necessary.

  Pierre Boulez

  Creation, Made, Unforeseen

  "Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship". Book by Pierre Boulez, 1991.

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• We have to fight the past to survive.

  Pierre Boulez

  Fighting, Past

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• Why compose works that have to be re-created every time they are performed? Because definitive, once-and-for-all developments seem no longer appropriate to musical thought as it is today, or to the actual state that we have reached in the evolution of musical technique, which is increasingly concerned with the investigation of a relative world, a permanent 'discovering' rather like the state of 'permanent revolution'.

  Pierre Boulez

  Musical, Technique, Development

  Pierre Boulez, Martin Cooper (1990). “Orientations: Collected Writings”, p.143, Harvard University Press

  36 Copy quote

• Music should be a collective magic and hysteria.

  Pierre Boulez

  Hysteria, Magic, Should

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• We need to restore the spirit of irreverence in music.

  Pierre Boulez

  Needs, Irreverence, Spirit

  Pierre Boulez, Martin Cooper (1990). “Orientations: Collected Writings”, p.482, Harvard University Press

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• The function of pop music is to be consumed.

  Pierre Boulez

  Music, Function, Pops

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• I suggested that it was not enough to add a moustache to the Mona Lisa: it should simply be destroyed.

  Pierre Boulez

  Add, Moustache, Enough

  Pierre Boulez, Martin Cooper (1990). “Orientations: Collected Writings”, p.481, Harvard University Press

  31 Copy quote

• I shall be the first composer in history not to have a biography.

  Pierre Boulez

  Biographies, Firsts, Composer

  19 Copy quote

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