ABSTRACT
There are widely divergent opinions about the merits of Pierre Boulez’s Domaines for solo clarinet. My view is that it is one of the most important solo pieces for the instrument written in the second half of the twentieth century. However, there is no denying that it is a challenging work to present convincingly. To achieve a successful performance requires immense care in its preparation and execution. In coming to the work for the first time, one has to be aware of the background to its composition, and the influences on, and preoccupations of, the composer at the time of writing, along with a broader view of his artistic outlook. As an example of the importance of detail in performance, I shall later focus specifically on how decisions need to be made to perform the various multiphonics, and the repercussions that some of these decisions can have for an interpretation. I believe that these relatively few individual gestures have a significance beyond the decorative. They are influential in forming a view of the piece, and in helping one to choose a pathway through the music. More than that, they seem in places to have a structural weight, and a magnetic attraction for the phrases around them, that contribute to the shaping of larger paragraphs and structures.
