Too Boulez

Although I greatly appreciate it whenever your paper makes any attempt to cover new music, I found your heroic narrative of the attempts of musicians to meet the challenge of Pierre Boulez’s music (“Expect to Make Mistakes,” by Chris Pasles, May 25) full of glaring irony.

This composer now “dominates the Ojai Music Festival” and rules as virtual musical czar in France, receiving internationally hundreds of highly polished performances of his works every year.

An obvious question arises: Where is the great challenge in performing works that are by now considered nearly war horses on the international “new music” circuit? More to the point, why is there no room in the Ojai festival for radical younger composers, one of whom might prove to be the next Boulez? Where are the authors of substantial, original visions, which would place entirely new sorts of challenges before these experienced musicians?

I would submit that more than a few such composers exist, but these are practically banned from the sort of festivals dominated by retired idealists such as Boulez. For example, among midcareer composers I could mention Chaya Czernowin, Richard Barrett, James Erber, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf and Klaus K. Hubler; and there is a host of promising younger composers in the pipeline. Why does not Boulez feel any responsibility to pass the torch on to the next generation? Why is he so intent on drawing the last drop of idealism from these young musicians to give his career fresh luster?

Franklin Cox

Baltimore