About this Piece

Perpetual alternation: 

Litany for an  
imaginary ceremonial. 

Ceremonial of remembrance—whence these 
recurrent patterns, changing in profile 
and perspective. 

Ceremonial of death, ritual 
of the ephemeral and the eternal: 
thus the images engraved 
on the musical memory— 
present/absent, in uncertainty. 

—Pierre Boulez 

A year following the death of influential Italian composer and conductor Bruno Maderna (1920–1973), Pierre Boulez began composing an “imaginary ceremonial” to his dear friend and colleague. Commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna premiered in April 1975 and received its first performance in the US at Tanglewood that August. Boulez led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the work’s West Coast premiere on May 20, 1984, as part of Festival Boulez/LA, a three-week event that helped inaugurate the new Royce Hall complex at UCLA. 

On the occasion of Festival Boulez/LA, the LA Phil provided the following program note: 

Rituel is organized in 15 sections of varying lengths, alternating between even-numbered polyphonic sections that are unconducted and unsynchronized and coordinated odd-numbered homophonic sections that are conducted. The large orchestra forces of 32 solo winds, 10 solo strings, and nine percussion players are divided into eight various-sized groups with two of the percussionists functioning as a ninth “group” playing an ostinato of gong and tam-tam sounds. The 15 sections of the work are coordinated by the conductor against this gong/tam background. 

The instrumental groups are constituted as follows: 

   Group 1: one oboe 

   Group 2: two clarinets 

   Group 3: three flutes 

   Group 4: four violins 

   Group 5: wind quintet 

   Group 6: string sextet 

   Group 7: wind septet 

   Group 8: 14 brass 

These groups are placed on the stage so as to achieve a certain amount of acoustic/timbral separation. Each of the groups 1 through 7 is accompanied by its own percussionist who, in the uncoordinated odd sections—completely polymetric with each group playing independently of its neighbors—functions as a kind of “secret” conductor for each group. The brass group does not participate in these odd-numbered sections. Each group has written materials in rhythmic unison within its members, composed of different overall durations. The main conductor cues the entrance of the seven groups, according to a freely chosen sequence, and as the duration of the groups’ materials varies, it follows that the groups end successively. It is also unlikely, given the manifold mathematical variables contained in these sections, that no section would even turn out exactly the same. 

As for the sequence of the work’s 15 sections, Boulez employs an additive approach, successively adding groups until in sections 12 and 13 all instruments are used. From the beginning of section 15 the instrumental groupings are gradually dismantled one by one (as in Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony), until the final segment (a unison E flat) is played by two groups (seven and eight), still against a gong and tam-tam background. 

Not only in its use of a great variety of percussion instruments (66 in all, many originating from Asia or Africa) but in its overall “ritualistic” continuity and in its use of additive rhythmic structuring, Rituel is a work which derives as much from non-Western musical sources as our own European tradition. —From the Los Angeles Philharmonic Archives 

Rituel, a collaboration highlighting Pierre Boulez’s legacy and his impact on contemporary music and dance, is a series of three engagements celebrating the 100th anniversary of the famed composer’s birth. Co-commissioned by the Orchestre de Paris – Philharmonie, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and L.A. Dance Project, this performance brings together the artistic expertise of conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and choreographer Benjamin Millepied. It features Boulez’s composition Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna, honoring his friend and fellow composer.  
  
L.A. Dance Project’s participation in Rituel is made possible with the support of Van Cleef & Arpels.