ABSTRACT
The première of Structure 1a took place in Paris on 4 May 1952, and as noted in the previous chapter, Boulez’s duo partner on this occasion was none other than Olivier Messiaen – in effect a public rapprochement following a period of distant professional relations.1 By now, plans were afoot for a first complete performance of the three pieces of Structures premier livre at the Darmstadt Internationalen Ferienkursen für Neue Musik in July as part of a concert, ‘Music of the Young Generation’, in which Boulez would be partnered by Yvonne Loriod. His letter to the Director, Wolfgang Steinecke, confirming the engagement includes a description of the titles of the movements, prefaced by the comment, ‘My Structures for two pianos comprise for the moment three pieces’ – a first hint that they were already envisaged as part of a larger work.2 In the event, Structures was withdrawn from the programme, and an earlier proposal for the first performance in Germany of the Second Sonata performed by Loriod formed part of a programme on 19 July 1952, two days before the cancelled première of Structures.3 One may surmise that, not for the last time, an impossibly ambitious schedule combined with a lack of rehearsal time, particularly in the case of Structure 1b in its originally notated form, were the reasons for this cancellation. In fact, the first complete performance of Structures premier livre was subject to further delay: the advertised première of all three pieces, scheduled for Cologne on 13 November 1953, consisted of only the first and third pieces performed by Loriod and Yvette Grimaud, and it was not until some eighteen months later, by which time Boulez had re-notated the complex rhythms of the second piece, that a complete performance of the work was given by Loriod and Hans Alexander Kaul at a concert of the Domaine Musicale in Paris on 24 May 1955.
