{"id":919,"date":"2016-02-01T14:07:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T19:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/?p=919"},"modified":"2016-02-01T14:07:52","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T19:07:52","slug":"boulez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/2016\/02\/boulez.html","title":{"rendered":"Boulez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"images\"<\/a>Pierre Boulez\u2019s passing last month brought back memories of what a giant he was in his prime.\u00a0 He certainly gave the generations that followed a complex heritage.\u00a0 I really can\u2019t imagine what it must have been like to be one of his contemporaries.\u00a0 A bit like running for president the same year Donald Trump decided to get his name on the ballot.<\/p>\n

Boulez was a terrific composer who exerted a huge influence. \u00a0He was also famously vicious to those who weren\u2019t in his camp.\u00a0 Some artists seem to use belligerence in order to find their own space in which to work. But that sort of behavior is not required of all artists, any more than it is necessary for anyone who runs for President to say that carpet-bombing Syria is the answer to all our problems. \u00a0In other words, bad behavior for an artist can and should be called what it is, even if we find it unsurprising.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t say this to chastise Boulez, who we can only assume was doing the best he could with what he had.\u00a0 I just think it is important to separate artistic achievement from bombast.\u00a0 Otherwise we run the risk of exalting artists for the wrong reasons. \u00a0We have to remember that we are the ones who get to decide who is worth listening to.<\/p>\n

Was Boulez one of the best composers of his generation?\u00a0 He certainly created some unsurpassable work, so the answer is definitely yes.\u00a0 But he was better at blasting out new mine shafts than carving exquisite gems.\u00a0 And, much as the candidate who proposes a nuanced approach to the economy is less likely to get attention than the one who hurls juicy insults, it\u2019s easy to imagine that many 20th<\/sup>-century crafters of fine gems were rendered useless by his attention-getting invective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pierre Boulez\u2019s passing last month brought back memories of what a giant he was in his prime.\u00a0 He certainly gave the generations that followed a complex heritage.\u00a0 I really can\u2019t imagine what it must have been like to be one of his contemporaries.\u00a0 A bit like running for president the same year Donald Trump decided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":921,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}