Editing Pierre Boulez (section)

===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His works in this idiom are ''[[Polyphonie X]]'' (1950{{ndash}}51; withdrawn) for 18 instruments, the two ''[[musique concrète]]'' ''[[étude]]s'' (1951–52; withdrawn), and ''[[Structures (Boulez)|Structures, Book I]]'' for two pianos (1951–52).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 />