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[[File:London, Barbican Hall, 2015-5.JPG|upright=1.35|thumb|The [[Ensemble InterContemporain]] after a performance of ''Sur Incises'' in [[Barbican Hall]], London, April 2015]]
'''''Incises''''' (1994/2001) and '''''Sur Incises''''' (1996/1998) are two related works of the [[France|French]] [[composer]] [[Pierre Boulez]]. The pitches of the [[tone row|row]] used in ''Incises'' and ''Sur Incises'' are based on the [[Sacher hexachord]], the same as those used in the rows for ''[[Répons]]'', ''[[Messagesquisse]]'', and ''[[Dérive 1]]''.<ref>Campbell, Edward (2010). ''Boulez, Music and Philosophy'', p.206. {{ISBN|978-0-521-86242-4}}.</ref>
== ''Incises'' ==
''Incises'' ("Interpolations") for solo piano was composed in 1994 as a test piece for the Umberto Micheli Piano Competition, where it was first performed on 21 October 1994. Boulez revised it in 2001. ''Incises'' was Boulez's first work for solo piano since his [[Piano sonatas (Boulez)|Third Piano Sonata]] of 1955–57/63. The piece lasts less than ten minutes.
The work plays with contrasts of gestures and textures, for instance, repeated pitches or chords in an even tempo interrupted by violent melodic arcs, or sparse chordal interjections without discernible rhythm over long held sonorities.<ref name="radice">{{cite book|last1=Radice|first1=Mark A.|title=Chamber Music: An Essential History |date=2012 |publisher=University of Michigan Press|location=Ann Arbor, MI|page=279|isbn=978-0472051656 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SJr7rxTvx2AC&pg=PA279 |accessdate=19 January 2016}}</ref>
Reviewing of a 2005 performance of ''Incises'', [[Tim Page (music critic)|Tim Page]] described it: "''Incises'' is charged with a bright, cold, hard brilliance, like a spray of crushed ice. It is dense with events{{snd}} even when it is silent for a moment, Boulez's music never really 'rests'{{snd}} but also far more generous in its emotional expression than much of his earlier work."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40750-2005Feb20.html|title=Marilyn Nonken's Eloquent Ives|date=21 February 2005|newspaper=Washington Post|last1=Page|first1=Tim|accessdate=19 January 2016}}</ref>
== ''Sur Incises'' ==
Boulez wrote ''Sur Incises'' a few years later and dedicated it to [[Paul Sacher]] on his 90th birthday. It was premiered on 30 August 1998 by the [[Ensemble InterContemporain]] conducted by [[David Robertson (conductor)|David Robertson]] in [[Edinburgh]]'s [[Usher Hall]]. The piece lasts about forty minutes. It was awarded the [[Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition]] given by the [[University of Louisville]].<ref name="radice" />
Based on the material of ''Incises'', ''Sur Incises'' is a two-movement work (the movements are called "Moment I" and "Moment II") for three [[piano]]s, three [[harp]]s, and three [[percussion]] parts, which use a variety of tuned percussion instruments: [[vibraphone]], [[marimba]], [[glockenspiel]], [[steel drums]], [[tubular bells]], and [[crotales]]. Here the sounds of the piano in ''Incises'' are broken into component parts played by the harps and percussion, and they are deployed across space by spreading the three groups apart in the performance area. This kind of reworking of an earlier piece is characteristic of Boulez, the first instance being ''[[Structures (Boulez)|Structures]]''.
[[Anthony Tommasini]] described a 1999 performance of ''Sur Incises'':<ref>{{cite news|last1=Tommasini|first1=Anthony|title=Boulez Gets a Chance To Make Converts|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/14/arts/music-boulez-gets-a-chance-to-make-converts.html|accessdate=19 January 2016|work=New York Times|date=14 November 1999}}</ref>
{{quote|The sheer riot of color is engrossing. As the music unfolds, episodes of sustained, quasi-lyrical dreaminess alternate abruptly with outbursts of pulsating intensity that suggest "organized delirium", in the term Mr. Boulez has used to describe an effect he is after in his works. When the performance ended ... the audience erupted with its own brand of organized delirium. Perhaps after a couple of decades of neo-Romantic works by composers craving appreciation, the audience found it bracing to hear Mr. Boulez's wildly colorful, almost crazed and uncompromisingly difficult music.}}
[[Paul Griffiths (writer)|Paul Griffiths]] heard echoes of Debussy's ''[[L'isle joyeuse]]'' in ''Sur Incises'',<ref>{{cite news  | first = Paul | last = Griffiths | work = New York Times | title= From Grit to Gleaming Pearl, Through Boulez's Alchemy |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/16/arts/music-review-from-grit-to-gleaming-pearl-through-boulez-s-alchemy.html | date = 16 January 1999}}</ref> while others have noted its debt to Stravinsky's ''[[Les Noces]]''<ref>{{cite news|last1=Clements|first1=Andrew|title=EIC/Boulez|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/sep/06/classicalmusicandopera.proms2004 |accessdate=19 January 2016|work=The Guardian|date=6 September 2004}}</ref> or Bartok's [[Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion]].<ref name=radice/> Griffiths described the work:<ref>{{cite news|last1=Griffiths |first1=Paul |title=Boulez in His New Role: Relaxed, Jovial and Busy|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/22/arts/critic-s-notebook-boulez-in-his-new-role-relaxed-jovial-and-busy.html|accessdate=19 January 2016|work=New York Times|date=22 November 1999}}</ref>
{{Quote|[Boulez's] choice of like but distinct instruments, with the percussionists playing vibraphones and marimba most of the time and the ensemble well spread out, allows him to use his astonishing ear to recreate effects of harmonic, timbral and spatial echo for which in earlier works he had needed electronic means. The command of musical energy and the sense of drama are also spectacular. At least the first two of the high-speed chases are thrilling, and there are marvelous moments when steel drums come in with their exotic disintonations, or when the harps fall silent for an ominous summons of pianos and bells.}}
[[Tom Service]] wrote in ''[[The Guardian]]'' that:<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/22/pierre-boulez-interview|title=Pierre Boulez: Rebel with a cause|date=22 September 2011|work=The Guardian|last1=Service|first1=Tom|author-link=Tom Service|accessdate=19 January 2016}}</ref>
{{Quote|text=[t]he piece is a narration about sound, about the interplay and transformation of the timbres of the pianos, the harps, and the percussion instruments, into one gigantic super-instrument of infinite resonance and reflection. The drama of the music is how Boulez manipulates his musical textures to create moments of stasis and irresistible energy, and everything in between.|sign=|source=}}
Service described a 2008 performance: "There's a polish and a voluptuousness about this music that's instantly appealing and gripping for the whole experience of the piece. A packed Festival Hall gave Boulez a rock-star reception after the music's coda."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Service|first1=Tom|title=Why Boulez is like a bait ball  |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2008/dec/12/boulez-derive-2-sur-incises|accessdate=19 January 2016|work=The Guardian|date=12 December 2008}}</ref>
Of the two works, [[Allan Kozinn]] preferred ''Incises'', writing: "that work's Romanticism becomes portentousness in the update, and its sheer virtuosity have given way to abstraction and clockwork precision."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Kozinn|first1=Allan|title=A Pioneer of Modernism Who's Also Old-Fashioned|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/20/arts/music-review-a-pioneer-of-modernism-who-s-also-old-fashioned.html|accessdate=19 January 2016|work=New York Times|date=20 September 2003}}</ref>
==Sources==
{{Reflist}}
== Further reading ==
*Boulez, Pierre. 2001. ''Incises pour piano (version 2001)''. Vienna: Universal Edition. UE 31 966. {{ISBN|3-7024-1186-0}}
*Fink, Wolfgang. 2000. ''Boulez: Sur Incises'', programme booklet. Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon CD 463 475-2.
== External links ==
* [http://www.universaledition.com/Pierre-Boulez/composers-and-works/composer/88/work/2885 Universal Edition: ''Incises'']
* [http://www.universaledition.com/Pierre-Boulez/composers-and-works/composer/88/work/5114 Universal Edition: ''Sur Incises'']
* [http://www.medici.tv/#!/pierre-boulez-sur-incises Pierre Boulez: ''Sur Incises'': A Lesson by Pierre Boulez], Medici.tv (in French)
* [http://www.jiwa.fr/#album/164128 Listen to ''Sur Incises'' on Jiwa]
{{Pierre Boulez}}
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[[Category:Compositions by Pierre Boulez]]
[[Category:20th-century classical music]]
[[Category:Serial compositions]]
[[Category:Music dedicated to Paul Sacher]]
[[Category:Compositions for solo piano]]
[[Category:1994 compositions]]
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