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Performances of Pierre Boulez's Messagesquisse in Hamburg, Vienna, and Budapest

May. 30, 2025

Under the baton of Thomas Adès, members of The Vienna Philharmonic performed Pierre Boulez's Messagesquisse for violoncello solo and six violoncellos at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg (May 24), the Vienna Musikverein (May 26) and the Palace of Arts in Budapest (May 27).

Paul Sacher, the Swiss conductor and patron of music who founded the Basel Chamber Orchestra to perform new music and, in 1933, the renowned Schola Cantorum Basiliensis for the study of early music, turned 70 in 1976. For the occasion, Mstislav Rostropovich asked 12 renowned contemporary composers to write a piece for violoncello. 

Messagesquisse [“Sketched Message”] for solo cello and six violoncellos is the work that Boulez (whose own centenary we celebrate this year) contributed to congratulating Sacher. He added a foreword to the score to express his intentions:

Messages are often secretly hidden
Music has this advantage:
It dispenses with words,
The messages are essentially personal,

decoded by everyone according to the time.
A cipher – symbolic (reduced)
Notes – symbolic (multiplied)
Rhythms – symbolic (split up)
in order to add a certain number of messages, diverse, divergent,
in order thus to let some emotions to pass by, certainly not symbolic ones.

The violoncello is the instrument of choice,
alone, exclusively
able to reflect itself,
able to grow out of itself.

Is a conductor necessary?
Perhaps, to gain time – as always!
Only the metronome marks are missing, but who cares about the Possible when one wants the Impossible?

This manuscript
Dear Paul
Is just as much testimony as it is a message …
Testimony to the cordial bonds made over all the years
            by you to me
                        With deep and faithful affection.

Pierre Boulez
Salzburg Easter Festival 2001


Boulez's Messagesquisse for cello solo and six violoncelli/Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

To learn more about Pierre Boulez, visit universaledition.com.

Pierre Boulez
Messagesquisse (1976)
for violincello solo and six violoncellos
7'
Preview the score

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