BOULEZ IN ROYCE HALL CONCERT

The same elite crowd of composers, new-music devotees and cross-cultural-generational sophisticates that came to Wooden Center earlier this week to witness musical computer marvels followed Pierre Boulez and his Ensemble InterContemporain to Royce Hall, UCLA, on Thursday.

But this time the showcaseproved relatively conventional and the audience was rewarded with a more visually focused sampling of what the French guru and his crack ensemble commonly deliver back home in Paris at IRCAM.

As is his wont, Boulez presided as the champion of others’ music Thursday--already having given his own masterwork, “Repons.” And, typically, he put together a program of forbiddingly difficult pieces. There were no bagatelles, no whimsical exercises in modernity, nor any of the mixing and matching of old and new he indulged with the Philharmonic two years ago. The Royce Hall concert seemed to be the last word in dedication to the cerebral.

Hearing the select scores by Franco Donatoni, York Hoeller, Elliott Carter (premieres) and Gyorgy Ligeti, one could perceive Boulez’ obsession with complexity of design.

As he conducted the four works--his signature karate chops marking with razor-sharpness the labyrinthine rhythms--it became clear that this Oppenheimer of new music represents a whole way of thought, indeed, he is its catalyst. Here, with his small, hand-picked ensemble that raised virtuosity to the nth degree, he illuminated those notions with dazzling clarity.

The first half of the program featured Donatoni and Hoeller, two disciples from Darmstadt, that Los Alamos of the musical avant-garde prior to IRCAM. Donatoni’s “Tema” turned out to be a thing of brittle aggression and electric, if not electrified, energy. Using an array of instrumental devices--everything from blazing unisons, abrupt disjoinings, strings slithering relay-race style, lyric moans and a pizzicato caprice--these variations managed to be acerbic and sprightly at the same time. The ensemble played the piece with the exquisite precision that is the hallmark of Boulez.

If “Tema” was of chamber proportions, Hoeller’s “Resonance,” outfitted with four-channel tape and using 27 players, seemed orchestral. Not just in the scope of the scoring but also in emotional size. Its mood is taut with suspenseful, almost melodramatic foreboding, and its long-lined tensions flirt occasionally with tonality.

But Carter’s “Penthode,” defies easy access to its intent. Sounding confused in its meanderings, this quintuple quartet projects mostly a sense of laxity, finally exploding in a climactic burst.

Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto, however, simply seduces. There is his characteristically mysterious drone that comes from subtle fragmentations of a single note. There is the tremendous instrumental display conjuring all sorts of expressive meaning. A proper finish.