Boulez conducts Schoenberg, Stravinsky & De Falla – Triple Bill

In the second half of his long and extraordinary career Pierre Boulez emerged as one of the most compelling exponents of 20th-century music – never more penetrating than when directing the virtuoso players of his own Ensemble Intercontemporain. In this inspired triple-bill from the Theater an der Wien, recorded shortly before the master’s 80th birthday, soprano Anja Silja performs a fully-staged version of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire – paired by Boulez with near-contemporary masterworks by Stravinsky and De Falla. Viennese modernism meets the world of the Ballets Russes, in the hands of a conductor who approached all music through the lens of his own dazzling creativity.