A listener's reaction to Boulez's Le marteau

First of all let me say that I am not a musician. Nor am I particularly knowledgeable about music. So for what it's worth let me tell you what struck me about Boulez's "Hammer without a Master" as performed by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players last Monday night. Here was a piece played by no two instruments alike. A piece devoid of repetition, its singular instruments and crystallized moments circumscribed by the sameness of its middle range (no soaring highs, no sudden drops, no crushing lows). For me the piece was about everything it was not; not lyric, not chordal; neither harmonic, nor percussive; even the overtones and undertones seemed disallowed or cut short; instead we heard distinct, isolate units; closure the common denominator. But the effect of this stringent economy (of metrical variations and pitch shifts) was, surprisingly, what one was left to imagine that wasn't there: wild dynamics, insistent beat patterns, playing up and down the scale. Throughout the performance I imagined a constant musical line, a sonorous lyric, one the music made me compose in my head, then visualize as a dancer weaving between the players, coming dangerously close to their instruments. Could I not tolerate simply listening? All I know is that in the silence of the empty field left by his composition, it was desire I heard; the thing we cannot grasp; the full bore romance of the ineffable.

Post by Ramsay Breslin

Concert Reviews for "Furious Craft"

Last Monday's concert, "Furious Craft" featured the music of Boulez, Francesconi, Saariaho and Zhou. Read reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle and in sfcv.org.

Charles Shere on "Le Marteau"

Writer and composer Charles Shere has recently written a thoughtful blog entry about "Le Marteau sans maitre."