PIERRE BOULEZ (b.1925): Mémorial for Flute and 8 Instruments, Dérive 1 for 6 Instruments, Dérive 2 for 11 Instruments.

Description: Three important works from the 1980s, all facets of the fascinating continuum of composition that has occupied Boulez for decades. Many of Boulez's works may be seen as facets of a larger compositional structure, deriving material from earlier works, or elaborating and transforming material within a composition. The material, and the processes to which it is subjected, consist of pitch and rhythm cells and their derivations according to serial processes - Boulez has remained faithful to his principles as have few other representatives of the mid-20th century avant garde. Timbre is also an important structural element of this music, and here Boulez, as usual, demonstrates an uncanny sense of balance and texture, and a feeling for the sensuousness of sound paradoxically at odds - at first impression anyway - with the calculated precision of his compositional method, but which links him definitively with the tradition of French music of which he is a part (most obviously apparent in his dazzling performances of earlier music as conductor). Fabrice Jünger (flute), Ensemble Orchestral Intercontemporain; Daniel Kawka.