Editing Pierre Boulez (section)

==Compositions==
{{See also|List of compositions by Pierre Boulez}}

===Juvenilia and student works===

Boulez's earliest surviving compositions date from his school days in 1942–43, mostly songs on texts by [[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]], [[Gautier le Leu|Gautier]] and [[Rainer Maria Rilke|Rilke]].<ref>Meïmoun, 15 (note).</ref> Gerald Bennett describes the pieces as "modest, delicate and rather anonymous [employing] a certain number of standard elements of French salon music of the time—whole-tone scales, pentatonic scales and polytonality".<ref>Bennett, 41.</ref>

As a student at the Conservatoire Boulez composed a series of pieces influenced first by Honegger and [[André Jolivet|Jolivet]] (''Prelude, Toccata and Scherzo'' and ''Nocturne'' for solo piano (1944–45))<ref>Meïmoun, 22.</ref> and then by Messiaen (''Trois psalmodies'' for piano (1945) and a Quartet for four ondes Martenot (1945–46)).<ref>Bennett, 46–49; Jameux, 13; Campbell and O'Hagan, 29.</ref> The encounter with Schoenberg—through his studies with Leibowitz—was the catalyst for his first piece of serial music, the ''Thème et variations'' for piano, left hand (1945). Peter O'Hagan describes it as "his boldest and most ambitious work to date".<ref>O'Hagan, 31.</ref>
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===''Douze notations'' and the work in progress===
Boulez completed ''Douze notations'' in December 1945. It is in these twelve aphoristic pieces for piano, each twelve bars long, that Bennett first detects the influence of Webern.<ref>Bennett, 54.</ref> Shortly after the composition of the piano original, Boulez attempted an (unperformed and unpublished) orchestration of eleven of the pieces.<ref>O'Hagan, 38–47.</ref> Over a decade later he re-used two of them{{refn|Nos. 5 and 9.|group=n}} in instrumental interludes in his ''Improvisation I sur Mallarmé''.<ref>O'Hagan, 44.</ref> Then in the mid-1970s he embarked on a further, more radical transformation of the ''Notations'' into extended works for very large orchestra,<ref>Samuel (2002), 428.</ref> a project which occupied him to the end of his life.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://explorethescore.org/pgs/boulez/history_and_context/musical_metamorphoses.html |title=Musical Metamorphoses |last1=Bleek |first1=Thobias |website=Klaver-Festival Ruhr |access-date=10 December 2023 |archive-date=10 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231210082111/https://explorethescore.org/pgs/boulez/history_and_context/musical_metamorphoses.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

''Notations'' was only the most extreme example of Boulez's tendency to revisit earlier works: "as long as my ideas have not exhausted every possibility of proliferation they stay in my mind".<ref>Griffiths (1978), 49.</ref> Robert Piencikowski characterises this in part as "an obsessional concern for perfection" and observes that with some pieces "one could speak of successive distinct versions, each one presenting a particular state of the musical material, without the successor invalidating the previous one or vice versa"—although he notes that Boulez almost invariably vetoed the performance of previous versions.<ref>Campbell and O'Hagan, 93 and 96.</ref>

===First published works===
The ''Sonatine'' for flute and piano (1946–1949) was the first work Boulez allowed to be published. A serial work of great energy, its single-movement form was influenced by Schoenberg's [[Chamber Symphony No. 1 (Schoenberg)|Chamber Symphony No. 1]].<ref>Jameux, 228.</ref> Bennett finds in the piece a tone new to Boulez's writing: "a sharp, brittle violence juxtaposed against an extreme sensitivity and delicacy".<ref>Bennett, 57.</ref> In the [[Piano sonatas (Boulez)|Piano Sonata No. 1]] (1946–49) the biographer [[Dominique Jameux]] highlights the sheer number of different kinds of attack in its two short movements—and the frequent accelerations of tempo in the second movement—which together create a feeling of "instrumental delirium".<ref>Jameux, 239.</ref>

There followed two cantatas based on the poetry of René Char. Of ''Le Visage nuptial''{{refn|group=n|name=visage}} [[Paul Griffiths (writer)|Paul Griffiths]] observes that "Char's five poems speak in hard-edged surrealist imagery of an ecstatic sexual passion", which Boulez reflected in music "on the borders of fevered hysteria". In its original version (1946–47) the piece was scored for small forces (soprano, contralto, two ondes Martenot, piano and percussion). Forty years later Boulez arrived at the definitive version for soprano, mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra (1985–1989).<ref name=Visage /> ''Le Soleil des eaux''{{refn|group=n|name=soleil}} (1948) originated in incidental music for a radio drama by Char. It went through three further versions before reaching its final form in 1965 as a piece for soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra.<ref>Samuel (2002), 422.</ref> The first movement (''Complainte du lézard amoureux''{{refn|Lament of the Lovesick Lizard.|group=n}}) is a love song addressed by a lizard to a goldfinch in the heat of a summer day;<ref>Jameux, 23, 40, 257.</ref> the second (''La Sorgue'') is a violent, incantatory protest against the pollution of the river [[Sorgue]].<ref>Griffiths (1978), 18–19.</ref>

The [[Piano sonatas (Boulez)|Second Piano Sonata]] (1947–48) is a half-hour work which requires formidable technical prowess from the performer.<ref>Goldman, 7.</ref> Its four movements follow the standard pattern of a classical sonata but in each of them Boulez subverts the traditional model.<ref>Boulez (1975), 41–42.</ref> For Griffiths the violent character of much of the music "is not just superficial: it is expressive of … a need to obliterate what had gone before".<ref name="Griffiths 1978, 16">Griffiths (1978), 16.</ref> Boulez played the work for [[Aaron Copland]], who asked: "But must we start a revolution all over again?"—"Yes, mercilessly", Boulez replied.<ref>Ross, 378.</ref>

===Total serialism===
That revolution entered its most extreme phase in 1950–1952, when Boulez developed a technique in which not only pitch but other musical parameters—duration, dynamics, timbre and attack—were organised according to serial principles, an approach known as total [[serialism]] or [[punctualism]]. Messiaen had already made an experiment in this direction in his [[Quatre Études de rythme#"Mode de valeurs et d'intensités"|''Mode de valeurs et d'intensités'']]{{refn|Mode of Duration and Dynamics.|group=n}} for piano (1949). Boulez's first sketches towards total serialism appeared in parts of ''[[Livre pour quatuor]]''<ref>Peyser (1976), 32.</ref>{{refn|Book for Quartet.|group=n}} (1948–49, revised 2011–12), a collection of movements for string quartet from which the players may choose at any one performance, foreshadowing Boulez's later interest in variable form.<ref name="Hopkins and Griffiths">Hopkins and Griffiths.</ref>

In the early 1950s Boulez began to apply the technique rigorously, ordering each parameter into sets of twelve and prescribing no repetition until all twelve had sounded. According to the music critic [[Alex Ross (music critic)|Alex Ross]] the resulting surfeit of ever-changing musical data has the effect of erasing at any given point previous impressions the listener may have formed: "the present moment is all there is", Ross observed.<ref>Ross, 363–364.</ref> Boulez linked this development to a desire by his generation to create a ''[[tabula rasa]]'' after the war.<ref name=Toronyi-Lalic>{{cite news|last=Toronyi-Lalic|first=Igor|date=20 July 2012|title=theartsdesk Q&A: Composer Pierre Boulez|url=http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/theartsdesk-qa-composer-pierre-boulez|newspaper=theartsdesk|access-date=14 March 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319022849/http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/theartsdesk-qa-composer-pierre-boulez|archive-date=19 March 2017}}</ref>

His works in this idiom are ''[[Polyphonie X]]'' (1950{{ndash}}51; withdrawn) for 18 instruments, the two ''[[musique concrète]]'' ''[[étude]]s'' (1951–52; withdrawn), and ''[[Structures (Boulez)|Structures, Book I]]'' for two pianos (1951–52).<ref name="Hopkins and Griffiths"/> Speaking of ''Structures, Book I'' in 2011 Boulez described it as a piece in which "the responsibility of the composer is practically absent. Had computers existed at that time I would have put the data through them and made the piece that way. But I did it by hand...It was a demonstration through the absurd." Asked whether it should still be listened to as music, Boulez replied: "I am not terribly eager to listen to it. But for me it was an experiment that was absolutely necessary."<ref name=Toronyi-Lalic />

===''Le Marteau sans maître'' and ''Pli selon pli''===
''Structures, Book I'' was a turning point for Boulez; from here on he loosened the strictness of total serialism into a more supple, gestural music: "I am trying to rid myself of my thumbprints and taboos", he wrote to Cage.<ref>Campbell, 13.</ref> The most significant result of this new freedom was ''[[Le Marteau sans maître]]''{{refn|group=n|name=marteau}} (1953–1955), described by Griffiths and [[Bill Hopkins (composer)|Bill Hopkins]] as a "keystone of twentieth-century music".<ref name="Hopkins and Griffiths"/> Three short poems by Char are the starting-point for three interlocking cycles. Four movements are vocal settings of the poems (one is set twice), the other five are instrumental commentaries. According to Hopkins and Griffiths the music is characterised by abrupt tempo transitions, passages of broadly improvisatory melodic style and exotic instrumental colouring.<ref name="Hopkins and Griffiths"/> The piece is scored for contralto soloist with alto flute, [[xylorimba]], vibraphone, percussion, guitar and viola. Boulez said that the choice of these instruments showed the influence of non-European cultures, to which he had always been attracted.<ref>Boulez (1976), 67.</ref>

[[File:Stephane Mallarme.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|alt=head and shoulders photograph of middle-aged white man with neat beard full head of greying hair|[[Stéphane Mallarmé]]]]
For the text of his next major work, ''[[Pli selon pli]]''{{refn|group=n|name=pli}} (1957–1989), Boulez turned to the symbolist poetry of [[Stéphane Mallarmé]], attracted by its extreme density and radical syntax.<ref>Boulez (1976), 93.</ref> At seventy minutes, it is his longest composition. Three ''Improvisations'' on individual sonnets are framed by two orchestral movements, into which fragments of other poems are embedded.<ref>Peyser (1976), 141–143.</ref> Boulez's word-setting, which in the first ''Improvisation'' is straightforwardly syllabic, becomes ever more [[melisma]]tic, to the point where the words cannot be distinguished. Boulez's stated aim was to make the sonnets ''become'' the music at a deeper, structural level.<ref>Bradshaw, 186.</ref> The piece is scored for soprano and large orchestra, often deployed in chamber groups. Boulez described its sound-world, rich in percussion, as "not so much frozen as extraordinarily 'vitrified{{'"}}.<ref>Boulez (1976), 94.</ref> The work had a complex genesis, reaching its definitive form in 1989.<ref>Samuel (2002), 424–25.</ref>

===Controlled chance===
From the 1950s Boulez experimented with what he called "controlled chance". In his article "Sonate, que me veux-tu?"{{refn|What do you want from me, sonata?|group=n}}, he wrote of "the investigation of a relative world, a permanent 'discovering' rather like the state of 'permanent revolution{{'"}}.<ref>Boulez (1986), 143.</ref>

Peyser observes that Boulez's use of chance is different from [[John Cage]]'s. In Cage's music the performers are often free to create unforeseen sounds, with the aim of removing the composer's intention from the music; in Boulez's music they choose between possibilities that have been written out by the composer.<ref>Peyser (1976), 126–129</ref> When applied to the order of sections, this is sometimes described as "mobile form", a technique devised by [[Earle Brown]], who was inspired by the mobile sculptures of [[Alexander Calder]], whom Boulez met when he was visiting New York in 1952.<ref>Barbedette, 143; Borchardt-Hume, 70–71.</ref>

Boulez employed variants of the technique in several works over the next two decades: in the [[Piano sonatas (Boulez)#Third Piano Sonata|Third Piano Sonata]] (1955–1957, revised 1963) the pianist chooses different routes through the score and in one movement (''Trope'') has the option of omitting certain passages altogether;<ref>Gardner and O'Hagan, 179.</ref> in ''Éclat''{{refn|group=n|name=eclat}} (1965), the conductor triggers the order in which each player joins the ensemble; in ''[[Domaines (Boulez)|Domaines]]'' (1961–1968) it is the soloist who dictates the order in which the sections are played by his movement around the stage. In later works, such as ''[[Cummings ist der Dichter]]''{{refn|Cummings is the Poet.|group=n}} (1970, revised 1986)—a chamber cantata for 16 solo voices and small orchestra using a poem by [[E. E. Cummings]]—the conductor chooses the order of certain events but there is no freedom for the individual player. In its original version ''Pli selon pli'' also contained elements of choice for the instrumentalists, but much of this was eliminated in later revisions.

By contrast ''[[Figures—Doubles—Prismes]]'' (1957–1968) is a fixed work with no chance element. Piencikowski describes it as "a great cycle of variations whose components interpenetrate each other instead of remaining isolated in the traditional manner".<ref>Piencikowski.</ref> It is notable for the unusual layout of the orchestra, in which the various families of instruments (woodwind, brass etc.) are scattered across the stage rather than being grouped together.<ref>Boulez (2003), 101.</ref>

===Middle-period works===
Jonathan Goldman identifies a major aesthetic shift in Boulez's work from the mid-1970s onwards, characterised variously by the presence of thematic writing, a return to vertical harmony and to clarity and legibility of form.<ref>Goldman, xv–xvi.</ref> Boulez himself said: "the ''envelope'' is simpler. The contents are not&nbsp;... I think in my recent work it is true that the first approach is more direct, and the gesture is more obvious, let's say."<ref>Ford, 23.</ref>

For Goldman, ''[[Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna]]'' (1974–75) marks the beginning of this development. Boulez wrote this twenty-five minute work as an epitaph for his friend and colleague, the Italian composer and conductor, who died in 1973 aged 53. The piece is divided into fifteen sections, the orchestra into eight groups. The odd-numbered sections are conducted; in the even-numbered sections the conductor merely sets each group in motion and its progress is regulated by a percussionist beating time. In his dedication Boulez described the work as "a ritual of disappearance and survival";<ref name=SamuelBooklet /> Griffiths refers to the work's "awesome grandeur".<ref>Griffiths (1978), 58–59.</ref>

''Notations I–IV'' (1980) are the first four transformations of piano miniatures from 1945 into pieces for very large orchestra. In his review of the New York premiere, [[Andrew Porter (music critic)|Andrew Porter]] wrote that the single idea of each original piece "has, as it were, been passed through a many-faceted bright prism and broken into a thousand linked, lapped, sparkling fragments", the finale "a terse modern ''Rite''&nbsp;... which sets the pulses racing".<ref>Porter, 88.</ref>

''[[Dérive 1]]''{{refn|Explaining the title in a letter to Glock, Boulez referred to the fact that the music "derived" from material in ''Répons'' but also that one meaning of "dérive" is the drifting of a boat in the wind or current.<ref>Glock, 174.</ref>|group=n}} (1984), dedicated to William Glock on his retirement from the Bath Festival,<ref name="Glock, 139"/> is a short quintet in which the piano takes the lead. The material is derived from six chords and, according to Ivan Hewett, the piece "shuffles and decorates these chords, bursting outwards in spirals and eddies, before returning to its starting point". At the end the music "shivers into silence".<ref>{{cite news|last=Hewett|first=Ivan|date=26 September 2013|title=Ivan Hewett's Classic 50 No 39: Pierre Boulez—Dérive 1|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classical-music-guide/10314695/Ivan-Hewetts-Classic-50-No-39-Pierre-Boulez-Derive-1.html|newspaper=The Telegraph|access-date=1 January 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170102082508/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classical-music-guide/10314695/Ivan-Hewetts-Classic-50-No-39-Pierre-Boulez-Derive-1.html|archive-date=2 January 2017}}</ref>

===Works with electronics===
Boulez compared the experience of listening to pre-recorded electronic music in the concert hall to a crematorium ceremony. His real interest lay in the instantaneous transformation of instrumental sounds but the technology was not available until the founding of IRCAM in the 1970s. Before then he had produced ''Deux Études'' (1951) for [[magnetic tape]] for [[Pierre Schaeffer]]'s Groupe Recherche de la Radiodiffusion Française,<ref>Peyser (1976), 67.</ref> as well as a large-scale piece for live orchestra with tape, ''Poésie pour pouvoir'' (1958){{refn|group=n|name=poesie}}. He was dissatisfied with both pieces and withdrew them.<ref>Rocco, 67; "An Interview with [[Dominique Jameux]]", in Boulez (1981), 201–02; Jameux, 114–16.</ref>

The first piece completed at IRCAM was ''[[Répons]]'' (1980–1984).{{refn|The title is a reference to plainchant, in which the solo singer alternates with a choir. It reflects the interplay between the soloists and the ensemble (or, as Samuel puts it: the individual and the community).<ref>Samuel (2013)</ref>|group=n}} In this forty-minute work an instrumental group is placed in the middle of the hall, while six soloists surround the audience: two pianos, harp, cimbalom, vibraphone and glockenspiel/xylophone. It is their music which is transformed electronically and projected through the space. [[Peter Heyworth]] described the moment when they enter, some ten minutes into the piece: "it is as though a great window were thrown open, through which a new sound world enters, and with it a new world of the imagination. Even more impressive is the fact that there is no longer a schism between the worlds of natural and electronic sounds, but rather a continuous spectrum."<ref>Heyworth (1982).</ref>

''[[Dialogue de l'ombre double]]'' (1982–1985){{refn|Dialogue of the Double Shadow. The title refers to a scene in [[Paul Claudel]]'s play ''Le Soulier de satin'' (The Satin Slipper). Boulez acknowledged that the work had a theatrical aspect.<ref name=SamuelBooklet />|group=n}} for clarinet and electronics grew out of a fragment of ''Domaines'' and was a gift for Luciano Berio on his 60th birthday. Lasting around eighteen minutes, it is a dialogue between a solo clarinet (played live, though sometimes reverberated through an offstage piano) and its double (in passages pre-recorded by the same musician and projected around the hall). Boulez approved transcriptions of the piece for bassoon (in 1995) and for recorder (in 2011).

In the early 1970s he had worked on an extended chamber piece called ''[[…explosante-fixe…]]''{{refn|The title of the work is a quotation from [[André Breton]]'s ''L'Amour fou'': "convulsive beauty will be erotic-veiled, exploding-fixed, magic-circumstantial, or it will not be."<ref name=SamuelBooklet/>|group=n}} for eight solo instruments, electronically transformed by a machine called a halophone, but the technology was primitive and he eventually withdrew it.<ref>Vermeil, 207, 209 and 210; Jameux, 176–77.</ref> He re-used some of its material in other works, including a later piece with the same name.<ref>Campbell and O'Hagan, 297.</ref> This definitive version was composed at IRCAM between 1991 and 1993 for [[MIDI|MIDI-flute]] and two accompanying flutes with ensemble and live electronics. By this time the computer could follow the score and respond to triggers from the players.<ref>Rocco, 68.</ref> According to Griffiths, "the principal flute is caught as if in a hall of mirrors, its line imitated in what the other flutes play, and then in the contributions of the larger ensemble".<ref>Griffiths (1995b)</ref> Hopkins and Griffiths describe it as "music characteristically caught between thrill and desperation".<ref name="Hopkins and Griffiths"/>

''[[Anthèmes|Anthèmes II]]'' for violin and electronics (1997) grew out of a piece for solo violin ''Anthèmes I'' (1991), which Boulez wrote for the Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in Paris and which in turn derived from material in the original ''…explosante-fixe…''<ref name=SamuelBooklet/> The virtuoso writing for the instrument is captured by the electronic system, transformed in real time and propelled around the space to create what Jonathan Goldman calls a "hyper-violin". Although this produces effects of speed and complexity which no violinist could achieve, Boulez restricts the palette of electronic sounds so that their source, the violin, is always recognisable.<ref>Goldman, 169–172.</ref>

===Last works===
In later works Boulez relinquished electronics, although Griffiths suggests that in ''[[Incises|sur Incises]]'' (1996–1998){{refn|The title refers to the fact that the piece elaborates "on" the piano piece ''Incises''.|group=n}} the choice of like but distinct instruments, spread across the platform, enabled Boulez to create effects of harmonic, timbral and spatial echo for which he previously used electronic means. The piece is scored for three pianos, three harps and three percussionists (including steel drums) and grew out of ''Incises'' (1993–2001), a short piece written for a piano competition.<ref>Griffiths (2005), 105.</ref> In an interview in 2013 he described it as his most important work—"because it is the freest".<ref>Boulez (2017), 249.</ref>

''Notation VII'' (1999), marked "hieratic" in the score, is the longest of the orchestral ''Notations''. According to Griffiths: "what was abrupt in 1945 is now languorous; what was crude is now done with a lifetime's experience and expertise; what was simple is fantastically embellished, even submerged."<ref>Griffiths (2005), 102.</ref>

''Dérive 2'' started out in 1988 as a five-minute piece, dedicated to [[Elliott Carter]] on his 80th birthday; by 2006 it was a 45-minute work for eleven instruments and Boulez's last major composition. According to [[Claude Samuel]], Boulez wanted to explore rhythmic shifts, tempo changes and superimpositions of different speeds, inspired in part by his contact with the music of [[György Ligeti]]. Boulez described it as "a sort of narrative mosaic".<ref name=SamuelBooklet>Samuel (2013).</ref>

===Unfinished works===
Boulez's unfinished works include several that he was actively progressing, and others which he put to one side despite their potential for further development. In the latter category, the archives contain three unpublished movements of the Third Piano Sonata<ref>Edwards, 4.</ref> and further sections of ''Éclat/Multiples'' which, if performed, would practically double its length.<ref name=Schaufler>{{cite web|author=Wolfgang Schaufler|url=http://www.universaledition.com/Pierre-Boulez/composers-and-works/composer/88/aboutmusic|title=Pierre Boulez, About the Music|work=Universal Edition website|date=December 2010|access-date=4 May 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604050736/http://www.universaledition.com/Pierre-Boulez/composers-and-works/composer/88/aboutmusic|archive-date=4 June 2016}}</ref>

Regarding works Boulez was known to be working on in his later years, the premieres of two more orchestral ''Notations'' (''V'' and ''VI'') were announced by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for May 2006, but postponed.<ref>{{cite news |last=Delacoma |first=Wynne |date=29 March 2006 |title=CSO erases Boulez's latest 'Notations' |url=http://contemporarymusic.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/cso-erases-boulezs-latest-notations.html |newspaper=Chicago Sun-Times |access-date=18 May 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611162848/http://contemporarymusic.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/cso-erases-boulezs-latest-notations.html |archive-date=11 June 2016 }}</ref> He was in the process of developing ''Anthèmes 2'' into a large-scale work for violin and orchestra for [[Anne-Sophie Mutter]], but the project did not come to fruition.<ref>Shave, Nick. (October 2005). [https://www.gramophone.co.uk/editorial/anne-sophie-mutter-interview-by-nick-shave-gramophone-october-2005 "Anne-Sophie Mutter, interview by Nick Shave"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180402040030/https://www.gramophone.co.uk/editorial/anne-sophie-mutter-interview-by-nick-shave-gramophone-october-2005 |date=2 April 2018 }}. ''Gramophone''. Retrieved 1 April 2018.</ref>

[[File:JeanGenet-HansKoechler1983-cropped.jpg|thumb|alt=refer to caption|Jean Genet, 1983]]
From the mid-1960s, Boulez also spoke of composing an opera. His attempts to find a librettist were unsuccessful: "both times the writer has died on me, so I'm a bit superstitious about looking for a third candidate".<ref name=Blight /> From the late 1960s he exchanged ideas with the radical French playwright and novelist [[Jean Genet]] and a subject—treason—was agreed on.<ref>Heyworth (1986), 29.</ref> Parts of a draft libretto were found among Genet's papers after his death in 1986.<ref name=ClementsOpera>{{cite news |last=Clements |first=Andrew |date=March 2016 |title=''Pierre Boulez, 1925–2016'' |newspaper=Opera Magazine |location=London }}</ref> Boulez later turned to the German playwright [[Heiner Müller]], who was working on a reduction of Aeschylus's ''[[Oresteia]]'' when he died in 1995, again without leaving anything usable.<ref name=Blight/> In the 1980s he discussed with Patrice Chéreau an adaptation of Genet's 1961 play ''[[The Screens|Les Paravents]]'' (''The Screens''), which was planned for the 1989 opening of the Opéra Bastille in Paris, but this too came to nothing.<ref>Barulich, 52; Boulez (1981), 26.</ref> In a 1996 interview Boulez said that he was thinking of [[Edward Bond]]'s ''The War Plays'' or ''Lear'', "but only thinking".<ref name=Blight/> When news emerged in 2010 that, at the age of 85, he was working on an opera based on Beckett's ''[[Waiting for Godot]]'', few believed such an ambitious undertaking could be realised so late in the day.<ref name=ClementsOpera/> When Boulez's manuscripts were assembled and catalogued after his death, it appeared that not a single note of any of these projects had been written.<ref>Galliari, 12.</ref>