Editing Pierre Boulez (section)

===1943–1946: Musical education===
In October 1943, Boulez auditioned unsuccessfully for the advanced piano class at the Conservatoire, but he was admitted in January 1944 to the preparatory harmony class of [[Georges Dandelot]]. He made rapid progress, and by May 1944 Dandelot was describing him as "the best of the class".<ref>O'Hagan, 13.</ref>
[[File:4 rue Beautrellis, Paris, France.jpg|alt=refer to caption|thumb|left|upright|4, [[rue Beautreillis]] in Paris, where Boulez lived from 1945 to 1958]]
Around the same time he was introduced to [[Andrée Vaurabourg]], wife of the composer [[Arthur Honegger]]. Between April 1944 and May 1946 he studied counterpoint privately with her.<ref>Heyworth (1986), 5; Archimbaud, 24.</ref> In June 1944 he approached [[Olivier Messiaen]] and asked to study harmony with him. Messiaen invited him to attend the private seminars he gave to selected students; in January 1945, Boulez joined Messiaen's advanced harmony class at the Conservatoire.<ref>Heyworth (1986), 9; Merlin, 28.</ref>

Boulez moved to two small attic rooms on [[Rue Beautreillis]] in the [[Le Marais|Marais]] district of Paris, where he lived for the next thirteen years.<ref>Barbedette, 212; Peyser, 30.</ref> In February 1945 he attended a private performance of [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg]]'s [[Wind Quintet (Schoenberg)|Wind Quintet]], conducted by [[René Leibowitz]], the composer and follower of Schoenberg. The strict use of [[twelve-tone technique]] in the Quintet was a revelation to Boulez, who organised a group of fellow students to take private lessons with Leibowitz. It was here that he also discovered the music of [[Anton Webern|Webern]].<ref>Peyser (1976), 32–33; Jameux, 15–16.</ref> He eventually found Leibowitz's approach too doctrinaire and broke angrily with him in 1946 when Leibowitz tried to criticise one of his early works.<ref>Samuel (2002), 24; Peyser (1976), 39; Barbedette, 212–213.</ref>

In June 1945, Boulez was one of four Conservatoire students awarded [[First Prize (music diploma)|''premier prix'']]. He was described in the examiner's report as "the most gifted—a composer".<ref>O'Hagan, 14.</ref> Although registered at the Conservatoire for the academic year 1945–46, he soon boycotted [[Simone Plé-Caussade]]'s counterpoint and fugue class, infuriated by what he described as her "lack of imagination", and organised a petition that Messiaen be given a full professorship in composition.<ref>O'Hagan, 37.</ref><ref>Peyser (1976), 31–32.</ref>{{refn|Messiaen was not appointed professor of composition until 1949.<ref>Peyser (1976), 32.</ref>|group=n}} Over the winter of 1945–46 Boulez immersed himself in [[Balinese music|Balinese]] and [[Japanese music]] and [[African drumming]] at the [[Musée Guimet]] and the [[Musée de l'Homme]] in Paris:<ref>Barbedette, 212; Boulez (2017), 96.</ref> "I almost chose the career of an [[ethnomusicologist]] because I was so fascinated by that music. It gives a different feeling of time."<ref name=Bully>{{cite news |last=Culshaw |first=Peter |date=10 December 2008 |title=Pierre Boulez: 'I was a bully, I'm not ashamed' |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3702982/Pierre-Boulez-I-was-a-bully-Im-not-ashamed.html |newspaper=The Telegraph |access-date=9 April 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160422212009/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3702982/Pierre-Boulez-I-was-a-bully-Im-not-ashamed.html |archive-date=22 April 2016 }}</ref>