Pierre Boulez / Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester SCHOENBERG Pelleas and Melisande

Maestro Pierre Boulez’s renowned lucidity makes him an extraordinary conductor of this emotionally luxuriant music.
Celebrated for championing the most daring music of the 20th century, Boulez leads this 2003 Tokyo concert, played in the presence of Japan’s Emperor and Empress. Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande and Wagner’s Prelude to “Tristan und Isolde” could have received no treatment more royal than he gives it at Suntory Hall with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.
The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra was founded by Claudio Abbado to provide young musicians the chance to work with established conductors and soloists. Based in Vienna, they tour during the Easter and summer seasons.
The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, with which Pierre Boulez has toured four times, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2011. The present recording is testimony to Boulez’s esteem for this band.
The Guardian observed, “For a quarter of a century now Boulez’s performances of all the modernists have set benchmarks ... he remains unrivalled in the works of the Second Viennese School, and in Schoenberg in particular.”