Liberation and Annoyance - the Background of "Marteau sans Maitre" by Pierre Boulez (in German only)

(in German only)

Le Marteau sans Maître is a composition in 3 cycles around three poems, the arrangement of which Pierre Boulez explains thus: "The cycles do not follow one another, they interpenetrate each other, so that the overall form itself grows out of a combination of three simple structures. (...) I have tried to interlock the three cycles in such a way that the flow of the work becomes more and more complex, taking memory and virtual references into account; only the last piece contains, in a certain sense, the resolution, the key to this labyrinth."

Pierre Boulez's "explanation," if it is one, gives more reason for new questions than an answer. After all, we learn that his Hammer without a Master was conceived as a labyrinth - and that, as a result, the hint that there could - perhaps - be a key, an Ariadne thread - in the end - is precisely part of this labyrinthine construction. The composer - it is obvious - does not talk about, but in his work of art - and thus explains, as masterfully as he did, among other things, the immense success that his Marteau sans maître may claim for itself in music history.

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