John Bruce Yeh Remembers Pierre Boulez

Assistant Principal Clarinet and E-flat Clarinet John Bruce Yeh remembers special collaborations, performances and interactions with Pierre Boulez (1925–2016) in honor of his centennial.

I feel privileged to have developed a close association with Pierre Boulez during the years when he regularly visited Chicago. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Maestro Boulez gave landmark performances, toured with the CSO to Japan and New York, and made many now legendary recordings of a wide variety of music from Bartók to Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Varése and more.

In conjunction with his work with the CSO in 1985, he brought his Ensemble intercontemporain (EIC) from Paris. At their concert, on a very snowy winter evening, I heard Alain Damiens brilliantly perform Pierre’s recently composed Dialogue de l’ombre double (Dialogue of the Double Shadow), the fascinating, kaleidoscopic live-clarinet solo alternating with swirling prerecorded “shadow clarinet” played through nine loudspeakers, spatially surrounding the packed audience at Northwestern University’s Patten Gymnasium. Pierre was very gracious when I asked about the possibility of my playing this monumental work. He invited me to visit IRCAM (Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique) in Paris while the CSO was on tour in 1986. There he presented me with freshly copied music and the technical instructions to record and realize the swirling prerecorded clarinet sections.

Since Dialogue had not yet been performed outside of the Ensemble intercontemporain’s concerts, I enlisted the collaboration of my friend, the distinguished Chicago composer, electronicist, and educator Howard Sandroff, who created a portable, computer-controlled, spatialization system so we could perform Dialogue on tour. Pierre generously worked with Howard and me, and ultimately invited us to play at his 1992 Ojai Festival in California. Howard Sandroff subsequently composed his own companion work for clarinet and computer-controlled sound processors, Tephillah, and we took our program around the U.S., Canada and Europe, in the early 1990s. We then recorded it for a 1997 Koch International Classics CD release.

Over the years, Howard and I looked forward to dining out with Pierre at various Chicago area restaurants ranging from fancy to simple. We made an annual tradition of it. One day, after a long evening’s work on Dialogue, the only place open near Howard’s Wilmette studio was a pasta restaurant that offered an unusual menu from which the customer could choose from a list of ingredients, pasta shapes, styles, sauces, and various toppings. Pierre, who loved jokes, found this place rather amusing and dubbed it a “concept restaurant.” Whenever he saw Howard and me after that he’d ask about “that concept restaurant.”

Another time, we dined at a fancy downtown restaurant, where they served warm crusty bread along with fresh butter once we were seated at our table. I was somewhat surprised to hear Pierre firmly remark, “You can leave any butter in front of me for a million years. I will never touch it.” I thought that was curious, especially coming from a Frenchman. He did love creme brûlée for dessert though.

Another collaboration very dear to my heart is Elliott Carter’s Clarinet Concerto, which Pierre had commissioned for EIC. I was honored to be the soloist at the U.S. premiere of this fascinating work here at Orchestra Hall with the CSO conducted by Pierre Boulez in April 1998. During the course of Carter’s concerto, the clarinet soloist moves around the stage between six stations, performing at each with a different group of musicians: a string quintet, brass quartet, woodwind quartet, pitched percussion, drums, and harp and piano. Even though when I asked him, Carter disavowed any knowledge of Boulez’s spatialized clarinet works, I was convinced that this choreographic stage arrangement was a nod to Boulez’s compositional style in Pierre’s two great clarinet works, Domaines and Dialogue.

I also played in the 1995 premiere of Carter’s esprit rude/esprit doux II (for flute, clarinet, and marimba) in a CSO celebration honoring Pierre’s 70th birthday. I will always cherish my relationships with both Carter and Boulez. It has been a major highlight of my career to collaborate with these musical giants. I marvel at their obvious admiration and respect for one another, and at their great generosity towards me and the CSO. I am now delighted to honor Pierre on the occasion of his 100th Birthday Anniversary. I look forward to performing Boulez’s Domaines on the March 23 CSO MusicNOW concert in Orchestra Hall.