FRANKFURT, Germany —
French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez had a reputation as a hardcore modernist steeped in the dissonances of 20th-century music.
But that didn’t stop him from turning in brilliant performances of decidedly Romantic composers such as Mahler and Wagner as he forged a career as one of the leading figures in contemporary classical music.
Boulez died “peacefully” Tuesday at his home in Baden-Baden, Germany, said his assistant Marion Thiem. He was 90 and had been unable to conduct recently because of eye trouble, she said.
Born in Montbrison, France, on March 26, 1925, Boulez traveled a long path from avante-garde composer to recording star who won 26 Grammy awards. He started out as a rebel who once said any composer who hadn’t mastered the starkly atonal techniques of Arnold Schoenberg was “useless.”
To the end, he continued to reject what he considered easy ways of pleasing audiences or music he found uninteresting.
Yet as a conductor, Boulez ranged well beyond the strict confines of modernism, often favoring Romantic audience favorites such as Bruckner, Mahler and Wagner. And he did a 1984 album with another musician of uncompromising tastes, Frank Zappa, including Zappa compositions such as “The Girl in the Magnesium Dress.”
Boulez never married. He is survived by a brother and a sister.
