Pierre Boulez: Douze Notations, for solo piano

Nataša  Penezić

doi:10.5937/newso2565161P

Nataša Penezić University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Piano Department

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5937/newso2565161P

Keywords: Boulez, Douze Notations, means of expression, tempo, character

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the significance of the role of tempo and its proper regulation under “impossible conditions” – in a modernist score devoid of metronome tempo indications – with a view of tempo as the main driving force of expressivity, using Pierre Boulez’s Douze Notations for solo piano as an example. Although performers are free to interpret means of expression as they see fit, notated indications acquire their meaning only once we interpret them in relation to the proper or right tempo. And since the right tempo in this work is not yet a strictly defined category, we may speak of the acceptable limits of tempo, which, if they are not properly interpreted, lead to a clash between the formative forces that are meticulously notated in the expression markings, that is, the instructions that the composer left to the performer as a roadmap for a correct understanding not only of the character, but also the musical flow of the 12 miniatures.

Author Biography

Nataša Penezić, University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Music, Piano Department

D.M.A. (Novi Sad, 1984), is employed as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade where she teaches the Development of Pianism and Development of Performance courses. At the same Faculty in 2018 she defended her doctoral artistic project titled The Interpretation of New Expressive Means in Selected Piano Works by Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, and Frederic Rzewski. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has participated at various festivals in Serbia and Europe. She has performed with the KREDO orchestra of Moscow, the Chioggia symphony orchestra, the Ensemble of the SYNC centre Novi Sad, as well as Belgrade’s Muzikon Chamber Orchestra. She is dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century music and actively collaborates with a number of composers, most notably Frederic Rzewski (1938–2021), Sofia Gubaidulina (1931–2025), Gavin Bryars, Vladan Radovanović (1938–2023), Miroslav Miša Savić, and Ana Gnjatović.