Vale Pierre Boulez

Arts Update was in the United States when Pierre Boulez died (5 January). The French composer and conductor, who was aged ninety, had remained active well into his eighties, no longer the enfant terrible who had excoriated musical conservatives and led a revolution in music in the 1960s. Arts Update, inured to the desultory coverage of the arts in most Australian newspapers, was struck by the extensive coverage in the New York Times. Attuned and serious newspapers mark the death of such artists. At a time when the North Korean nuclear test was dominating world media, Boulez's death was front-page news in the Times, followed by a 2,000-word obituary inside and a long appraisal of Boulez's contribution, by Anthony Tommasini.

Boulez had of course succeeded Leonard Bernstein as musical director of the New York Philharmonic in 1971, but this hardly explains such lengthy tributes; Boulez's tenure at the Philharmonic was brief and not considered a success.

Boulez is renowned for modernist compositions such as 'Le marteau sans maitre' and 'Sur Incises', a rigorous and acute conducting style, and the 1976 centenary Ring at Bayreuth (which he conducted).