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        • str
        • 11 min
          • 1st January 2025, Barbican Centre, London, United Kingdom
          • 27th March 2025, Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, Chicago, IL, United States of America
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        Programme Note


        Livre pour Quatuor is at the origin of Livre pour cordes (Book for Strings), from which it comes and which is not yet finished itself.
        In 1968, aware of the performing difficulties of the ‘string quartet’ version, Pierre Boulez
        decided to orchestrate his score and, at the same time, ‘completely rethink this music’ (see
        the composer’s statement in the notes on Livre pour quatuor). This ‘re-composition’ initially resulted in a version for (large) string orchestra of movements I a (Variation) and b (Mouvement), the four voices of the quartet becoming a polyphony in 12 and even 16 parts - and replacing its transparency and primal vehemence with a plenitude of sound, a colour that can bring to mind the Bartók of the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.
        The two movements I a and b from the Livre pour cordes were first performed in 1968: in London, on 1st December, for I a, a week later in Brighton for I b with the same musicians for both performances: the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by the composer. A new version of part I a was given under the direction of the composer in Los Angeles on 12 May 1989.
        It was long imagined that the (unfinished) Livre pour quatuor would completely make way for the Livre pour cordes; it would now seem that the two scores, once completed, will co- exist.

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