Les Siècles II

One of the most-sought-after authentic-sound ensembles on the international scene offers not one but two concerts on the same evening. While the six o’clock concert features Beethoven and Berlioz, Les Siècles leads its Late Night audience into the sonic spheres of music’s Modern era. Pierre Boulez, the great French composer and conductor, would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2025. In his Mallarmé cycle ‘Pli selon pli’ he bears witness to his lifelong passion for language and literature. Written for soprano and large orchestra and set to texts by Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé, the composition is a portrait that pays homage to this revolutionary rejuvenator of French poetry – and at the same time a milestone in the development of the orchestrated song. Words and music, yesterday and today, two worlds reflect themselves as if in a mirror. “Pli selon pli”, literally fold by fold, “like the opening of a curtain” in the words of Boulez, the work reveals secrets, embraces Mallarmé’s imaginative utopias and invites audiences to immerse themselves in the visionary world of a new musical and poetic language.