PIERRE BOULEZ IN INTERVIEW, 1996 (III) MALLARMÉ, MUSICAL FORM AND ARTICULATION

Abstract

EG: In 1960, in your article ‘Sonate, que me veux-tu’ you introduce the word ‘anonymity’ or anonymat . Here is what you say: ‘The great works of Joyce and Mallarmé are the data for a new age in which texts are becoming – as it were – anonyme – y parlant de lui-même et sans voix d'auteur.’ (Here you are quoting Mallarmé's famous letter to Verlaine.) And you go on: ‘If I had to name the motive underlying the work I have been trying to describe [the Third Sonata], it would be the search for an “anonymity” of this kind.’ This search for an ‘anonymity’ of that kind, is it part of your motive for using serial techniques altogether?