The Ensemble intercontemporain will present a significant concert at the Cité de la musique – Salle des concerts in Paris on Friday, December 12, 2025, at 20:00. The program, which marks the conclusion of the Pierre Boulez centenary celebrations, is headlined by the French premiere of Boulez’s early electronic work “Poésie pour pouvoir.”
Written in 1958 and based on Henri Michaux’s poem “Je Rame,” “Poésie pour pouvoir” is scored for three orchestras and electronics. Though limited by the technology of its time, the piece prefigures the spatialized sound concepts Boulez would later explore in “Répons.” The performance will feature two orchestras and a group of soloists in dialogue with fixed electronic sounds, alternating the psalmody of Michaux’s text with electronic textures. The electronic part has been reconstructed for this performance by Marco Stroppa and Carlo Laurenzi, with sound diffusion by Luca Bagnoli of Ircam.
The concert situates this early work within Boulez’s artistic affinities, pairing it with Igor Stravinsky’s “Symphonies of Wind Instruments” and Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto “To the Memory of an Angel,” the latter performed by violinist Diego Tosi. The program also includes “Ces belles années…” by Betsy Jolas, a piece for soprano and orchestra commissioned by the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2023, performed here by soprano Tamara Bounazou.
The Ensemble intercontemporain and the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris will be conducted by Pierre Bleuse, with Jean Deroyer conducting for “Poésie pour pouvoir.” A pre-concert talk will be held at 19:00. The concert will be recorded by France Musique for broadcast on January 7, 2026.
This event is a co-production of the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, and the Philharmonie de Paris, in partnership with Ircam-Centre Pompidou.
© Photo: Pierre Boulez, BBC Maida Vale studios, 27 February 1989. Photograph: Jane Bown