Edward Campbell, Boulez, Music and Philosophy (Cambridge:

University of Cambridge Press, 2010).

Most readers will find Edward Campbell’s Boulez, Music and Philosophy to be one of the most
approachable and significant English-language publications on the composer in over a decade.
Campbell’s study follows several recent developments in current scholarship on the composer,
including a new appreciation for the study of Boulez’s intellectual influences and mentors, an in-
depth engagement with his correspondence, an awareness of new sketch and manuscript studies
of his works, and an increasingly critical engagement with the composer’s own writings.1 More
than this, Campbell’s is one of the first English-language studies to engage at length with the
important aesthetic and theoretical revisions found in Boulez’s later Collège de France lectures
(1976-1995).2 However, those expecting a comprehensive discussion of Boulez’s music and
philosophy will soon discover Campbell neither sees Boulez as a philosopher, nor does he present
any new structural outlines for Boulez’s many works.3 Instead, Campbell’s book follows a smooth,
linear trajectory in two parts: first, Campbell dispels many false assumptions regarding the
sources of Boulez’s thought by situating the composer’s writings among a variety of intellectual

1. See, for example, Jonathan Goldman, Jean-Jacques Nattiez and François Nicolas, La Pensée de Pierre Boulez à
travers ses écrits: actes du colloque tenu à l’École Normale Supérieure, les 4-5 mars 2005 (Paris: Éditions Delatour,
2010); Pascal Decroupet and Jean-Louis Leleu, eds., Pierre Boulez: Techniques d’écriture et enjeux esthétiques (Geneva:
Éditions Contrechamps, 2006); Paolo Dal Molin, “Introduction à la famille d’oeuvres ...explosante-fixe... de Pierre
Boulez: Étude philologique” (PhD diss., Université de Nice, 2007); and Jonathan Goldman, e Musical Language of
Pierre Boulez: Writings and Compositions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

2. Campbell’s 2000 dissertation, which forms the basis for the second half of his book, was not reviewed in time for
publication, but my correspondence with the author confirms that it includes an even earlier review of the Collège
lectures. Goldman 2011 (above) also cites the Collège lectures at length.

3. While Campbell does provide a new hermeneutics for characterizing and deriving meaning from the musical
parameters of Boulez’s works, most of his “objective” analytical observations can be found in secondary sources. He
does, however, provide a number of rare images from the Boulez collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel,
Switzerland to demonstrate these observations.

voiceXchange Vol. 5, No. 1 (Fall 2011): 53–59.

figures and contexts; and second, he develops a hermeneutic method to suggest the presence of
Deleuzian “difference” and “repetition” in Boulez’s most widely appreciated compositions.
Campbell opens and closes his book with firm statements regarding the focus and claims
made therein: while Boulez acknowledges having read works by Descartes, Rousseau, Nietzsche,
Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida, and while he has been the subject of many philosophical and
aesthetic debates between philosophers, the composer “generally declares his lack of philosophical
expertise” (p. 5), and his prolific writings “do not amount to an overt or fully worked-out
philosophy of music” (p. 255). Similarly, while Campbell finds “key issues linking [the]
composer, philosophers and ideas” through a close examination of the composer’s interviews,
writings, and correspondence, the author avoids claiming that Boulez would acknowledge any
such genealogy of influences (p. 8). As a result, rather than placing any kind of philosophical
intention in the mind of the composer, the “focus throughout [is] to consider composition and
musical theory in relation to primarily philosophical ideas, and to discuss certain relationships
and corollaries in musical and philosophical thinking” (p. 254). Latent in this last quotation is
the two-part structure of his book: the earlier philosophical chapters do not so much critique
Boulez’s writings and arguments – his aesthetics and thoughts on composition – as situate the
composer’s words within a rich complex of ideas. e final chapters of the book then build on
these intellectual contexts, becoming increasingly emphatic about the philosophical relationship
between Boulez’s use of various musical parameters and a number of potential corollaries in
Deleuze and Guattari’s aesthetics.4
e focus of the first part, which runs roughly from chapters 2 through 7, isolates the
intellectual currents surrounding the composer from his first years in Paris through his later
Collège writings, the Leçons de musique. Chapter 2 begins by suggesting that three key mentors
joined a group of younger artists as frequent guests at Boulez’s Paris apartments. Pierre
Souvtchinsky, Boris de Schloezer, and André Schaeffner are grouped together as a local
“triumvirate,” while a fourth, André Souris, provides Boulez with early publishing opportunities
from Brussels.5 roughout chapters 2 and 3, Campbell quotes frequently and liberally from the
private correspondence between Boulez and these figures, as well as between these figures and
other key musicians and intellectuals (including Stravinsky, Leibowitz, Adorno, and Pousseur).
ere is much to learn from Campbell’s research, including the “secret” opinions of these figures
regarding the published work of their mutual friends (Leibowitz and Boulez are common topics),
the assistance these figures provided to Boulez’s early publication efforts, and the way their

4. My division of Campbell’s book into parts is a personal observation for illustrative purposes only—the table of
contents is not similarly divided.

5. Campbell’s research builds on recent mentions of these figures literature on the composer. See, for example,
Goldman, Nattiez, and Nicolas 2010, cited above, and the older, but more directly relevant, introduction to Steven
Walsh’s translation of Relevés d’apprenti (Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship, trans. Stephen Walsh, introduction by
Robert Piencikowski [Oxford University Press, 1991]). Campbell notes two articles published by Boulez under
Souris in 1948: “Proposals” and “e Current Impact of Berg” (p. 27).
 Salem, Review of Campbell | 55

combined expertise gave Boulez unique insight into the ethnomusicological, historical, and
intellectual basis of modern music history.
For example, in strategically emphasizing the particular, philosophical contributions of
each mentor, Campbell teaches us that Souvtchinsky was a brilliant Russian émigré with a solid
understanding of structuralism, philosophy, dialectical history, German idealism, and French
intellectual trends; Schloezer was a musicologist of high methodological standards with a
preference for hierarchical music theory and linguistic terms and metaphors; Schaeffner was an
ethnomusicologist interested in African music, the dependence of music on specific cultural
contexts, and the study of instruments; and Souris was an expert in current trends such as Gestalt
psychology and surrealism. Less penetrating analyses of other early influences are presented in
turn (René Char, André Breton, Artaud and Klee), rounding out a rich historical narrative of how
and why these figures are important to our modern appreciation of Boulez’s formative years.
roughout, Campbell’s use of published and unpublished letters allows him to speculate freely
based on select quotations, but he also unintentionally divulges the unreliable nature of these
documents to consistently represent the genuine opinions of their authors. Given the characters
in this drama (Stravinsky and Boulez above all), the reader is occasionally left wondering if
Campbell is interpreting some statements too literally, while over-interpreting others. Regardless,
the clarity and efficiency with which Campbell covers such a broad and varied correspondence is
rich with rewards for the reader, and it will prove to be an invaluable reference for future Boulez
scholarship.
Chapters 3 through 6 switch to specific philosophical topics, including dialectics,
Hegelian negation (dialectical and abstract), Kantian antinomies and binary oppositions,
Adorno’s influence on, and critique of, serialism, deduction in Boulez’s theoretical method, and
finally, the relationship between serialism and structuralism—and all this within a mere 101
pages. ese pages are clearly meant to justify the “philosophy” of Campbell’s title, even while
they expend more time and energy situating Boulez within traditional intellectual trends than
isolating the delicate balance of systemization and intuition that shapes his thought.
In chapter 3, Campbell acknowledges Boulez’s place alongside those post-war composers
who blindly negated the value of previous musical styles, as well as Adorno’s critique of this
practice. But rather than citing the usual, easily targeted polemics of the composer, Campbell
nuances Boulez’s position by highlighting his use of Cartesian doubt in questioning the role of
traditional compositional techniques, a fact that led to Boulez’s later acknowledgement and
(selective) integration of these techniques in his own compositional thinking (p. 42-5). We also
learn that Boulez’s conception of music history is quasi-dialectical, incorporating a combination
of “dynamic” (causal) and “static” (independent) events to construct a progressive, evolutionary
perspective of the development of traditional musical idioms (p. 54). While the depth of Boulez’s
historical perspective is familiar to readers of his most popular essays, Campbell’s ability to
demonstrate the specific influence of Souvtchinksy over Schloezer, Hegel, Adorno, or Leibowitz
allows the reader to synthesize Boulez’s many distinct (and often polemical) positions into a
56 | voiceXchange

single, if complex, psychology of the composer. Finally, Boulez’s extensive use of binary
oppositions prompts a discussion of two more heavily mediated influences: Kantian antinomies
and German Idealism (Tables 3.1 and 3.3, p. 58 and 62-3).
Despite Campbell’s success in elucidating the above themes in Boulez’s writings, his
extended list of philosophical topics and influences is more successful in debunking previous
assumptions than creating new, concrete assertions. Note, for example, the difficulty in
attributing Boulez’s argumentative style and historical perspective to a single source or influence:
“It is perhaps not surprising in this climate that composers such as Leibowitz and Boulez, with no
professional philosophical training, made dialectical statements which are undertheorized, and
sometimes misconceived, factors [that] make detailed and consistent evaluations of their positions
somewhat problematic” (p. 66).6 Such statements reveal a significant bias in Campbell’s
investigation, regardless of his success in dissociating Boulez’s thought from the overpowering
gravity of any single philosophical tradition. While it is important to resist simplifying the
thought and philosophical influences of any composer to a single intellectual trend or mentor, the
unresolved ambivalence as to whether Boulez is more indebted to Hegel or Schelling seems less
relevant to me than identifying what the ramifications are for labeling Boulez’s oppositions as
either dialectical or binary, or for attributing his primary influence to a minor “amateur of
philosophy” rather than Adorno or the competitive and complex politics of Darmstadt.7
Campbell is clearly aware that choosing one or the other side would oversimplify the complexity
of Boulez’s creative influences, yet he often stops short of directly addressing the scholastic
ramifications of such false dichotomies. Given that so much of Campbell’s book tacitly challenges
any simplification of a mind so prolific as Boulez into a perfectly static, or coherent, logical
model, it is surprising that he still expresses frustration at his inability to nail down a specific
influence on Boulez’s thought, or that he prefers to pursue the validity of such claims over
exploring the exegetical consequences of any such position for our interpretation of Boulez’s
writings and works.
Turning to the famous, or infamous, subject of serialism-as-structuralism in Boulez’s
music, Campbell bravely suggests that “while it is tempting to read [Boulez’s] appeal to linguistic
terms such as morphology, syntax, codes and so on as providing evidence of a musical
structuralism related somehow to the Saussurean model, the evidence does not bear such an
interpretation” (p. 136-7). Campbell’s evidence for this claim comes from his belief that “while

6. Campbell includes two impressive tables (3.1 and 3.3) outlining the presence of such binaries in select essays by
Boulez (3.1) and their relationship to a number of other dialectical thinkers (3.3). Goldman 2011 (based on his
2005 dissertation) and Jean-Jacques Nattiez [e Battle of Chronos and Orpheus, trans. Jonathan Dunsby (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004)] have also recently stressed Boulez’s penchant for such binaries, although without
deeply questioning the intellectual basis of these binaries.

7. Campbell would almost certainly disagree with the unqualified label of “amateur” for Souvtchinsky, although the
term comes (heavily qualified) from his text: “...Jacques Derrida, with whom Souvtchinksky enjoyed ‘very friendly
contact,’ described him as a ‘philosophical amateur, in the best sense of the term’” (p. 16).
 Salem, Review of Campbell | 57

the structures theorized by Lévi-Strauss are quasi-ontological in status, it is clear that Boulez’s
local structures are not at all essentialist or ontological in nature, being rather functional,
evolutionary and developmental” (p. 121). In other words, Campbell uses a rather restrictive
definition of structuralism – as an essentialist position – in order to distance Boulez’s writings and
hermeneutics from the broader effects of the movement. As a result, Campbell acknowledges
Boulez’s use of linguistic and structuralist lingo to theorize the production and transmission of
music more generally, but he is convinced that Boulez does not conceive serialism as a
structuralist poetics of music. e author stresses this point by reviewing critical comparisons of
serialism and structuralism by Ruwet, Lévi-Strauss, Eco, and Pousseur rather than engaging
recent secondary literature on Boulez and structuralism—a choice that weakens the force of his
thesis in light of other secondary scholarship, even while the validity of his arguments remain
intact.8 Furthermore, rather than using his knowledge of Boulez’s writings to explore the deep
and profound paradox created by Boulez’s obsessive – and sometimes undisciplined – use of
linguistic metaphors, Campbell pushes forward by suggesting Boulez soon “moved on to a more
post-structuralist kind of thinking where it is no longer a question of simply coding and decoding
meaning” (p. 136). is abrupt conclusion may irritate structuralist sympathizers even more than
the logical dismissal of Boulez’s structuralist affiliations, but the passion of Campbell’s treatment,
including the intuitive strength of his claims, should inspire others to follow his lead toward a less
literal reading of Boulez’s linguistic metaphors.
After a brief mention of writings by Foucault and Lyotard, chapter 7 develops a post-
structuralist thesis that associates the published work of Deleuze and Guattari (primarily A
ousand Plateaus and Deleuze’s own Difference and Repetition) with Boulez’s late writings on
musical variation, repetition, and form.9 Derived from Campbell’s 2000 dissertation, this thesis
acts as a precisely engineered bridge between chapter 7 and chapters 8-10, where a musical
hermeneutics combines a number of Deleuzian themes with a reengagement with Boulez’s music.

8. Nattiez has supported structuralist readings of Boulez’s works for decades, and Goldman (his former student) also
stresses the relationship between structuralism and Boulez’s compositional method. Campbell, for his part, relies
heavily on a single secondary source – François Dosse, History of Structuralism, 2 vols., trans. Deborah Glassman
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997) – for his understanding of structuralism as an intellectual
tradition and historical movement. For a recent discussion of the relationship between serialism and structuralist
aesthetics more broadly, see M. J. Grant, Serial Music, Serial Aesthetics: Compositional eory in Post-War Europe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

9. Campbell’s treatment of the relationship between Foucault and Boulez amounts to about two pages, and, while
conceding that they were “never close friends,” he reminds us that Foucault helped elect Boulez to the Collège de
France in 1975, and that their famous dialogue “Contemporary Music and the Public” (1983) as well as Foucault’s
essays “Pierre Boulez, Passing through the Screen” (1982), and his participation in the IRCAM colloquium Le Temps
musical (1978), all demonstrate the influence of these thinkers on one another. Campbell’s coverage of Lyotard’s
influence is similarly short (less than two pages), but touches upon his publications from 1972 through 1993 that
discuss a number of issues related to contemporary music and the arts in general (and which often include brief
mentions of Boulez and his works).
58 | voiceXchange

Here, a foundation is laid for an aesthetics of repetition and difference, where Boulez’s use of
“virtual” musical objects espouses “a general rejection of any principle of [Platonic] identity”
through their “variations and distributions” in composition (p. 149, quoting Deleuze). In other
words, repetition and difference are not defined in relation to a single, Platonic original, but are
instead simulacra of virtual schemas or templates. As such, we experience a theme through its
variations, without the aid of an obvious archetype. Likewise, “difference” is a product of
accumulative developments within a musical form, where layers of thematic activity create a
depth of musical variety without the use of literal comparisons between similar musical phrases.
Both concepts are explained at length, although their application to music remains malleable
throughout.
Campbell devotes the last two-fifths of the book to developing this Deleuzian
hermeneutics and applying it to a number of musical works. Grasping Campbell’s argument has
the effect of changing the function of his earlier chapters, from static examinations situating
Boulez as a non-committal thinker among a number of competing intellectual traditions, to
seeing these earlier intellectual investigations as supporting a specific teleology where the mature
Boulez reflects upon his theoretical experiments from a particularly Deleuzian plateau. Over
nearly one hundred pages, more and more musical parameters are deployed to demonstrate the
relationship between a “virtual archetype” and a series of structural returns or variations; indeed,
midway through we learn that Boulez’s heterophony consists of “the production of virtual
melodic lines, analogous to his virtual themes, virtual forms, and accumulative developments
[i.e., the manifestation of Deleuze’s virtual “difference”]” (p. 209). While the reader may remain
skeptical of any overt relationship between Deleuze’s aesthetics and Boulez’s compositional
method, Campbell’s virtual devices allow him to demonstrate analytical knowledge of Boulez’s
works from a number of recent perspectives, and his insights provide new methods for
interpreting Boulez’s textures, rhythms, and thematic techniques.10 Furthermore, his analytical
insights introduce convenient “hooks” for tracking Boulez’s compositional procedures from work
to work, especially when specific pieces begin to reflect post-war serialism as something both
“near and far” to younger twenty-first century readers. For new and not-so-recent listeners of
Boulez, Campbell’s brief review of a number of select works serves as an excellent introduction to
the main analytical themes surrounding the composer’s music; meanwhile, his hermeneutics

10. It is worth noting that very recent work by Martin Scherzinger challenges overly simplistic philosophical or
aesthetic associations between Deleuze and Boulez, but in a way that differs in kind from Campbell’s treatment.
Scherzinger’s chapter [“Enforced Deterritorialization, or the Trouble with Musical Politics,” in Sounding the Virtual:
Gilles Deleuze and the eory and Philosophy of Music, ed. Brian Hulse and Nick Nesbitt (Ashgate, 2010): 103-128],
highlights the systematic aspects of each philosopher vis-à-vis contemporary capitalism and its effects on markets,
labor, media, and social networking—in short, Scherzinger questions whether we have become a Boulezian or
Deleuzian century by contrasting the relationship between Boulez’s aesthetics of music and Deleuze and Guattari’s
broader philosophical positions. Any reader interested in pondering the deeper philosophical relationship between
these thinkers would find much to consider here, but Scherzinger’s claims should not be considered as a direct
rebuttal of Campbell’s hermeneutics, given their profoundly different concerns.
 Salem, Review of Campbell | 59

promotes a healthy, ongoing dialogue between the interpretation of a composer’s works and their
dynamic intellectual contexts that will remain relevant well beyond Boulez’s still-growing oeuvre.
Oddly, Campbell reserves his short conclusion to justify, rather than answer, his original
goals. In doing so, he shows why one category of recent Boulez scholarship – sketch and
manuscript studies of both published and unpublished works – is relatively underemphasized.
While many of Campbell’s most successful analytical moments are those that briefly incorporate
recent work in sketch studies (such as Chang and Gärtner on the flute Sonatine, O’Hagan on the
First Piano Sonata, Piencikowski on Éclat, Dal Molin on Rituel, Koblyabov, Decroupet and Leleu
on Marteau, and so on), these same moments sometimes reveal the possible tension between
Campbell’s Deleuzian perspective and the composer’s working methods. Often, there are actual,
non-virtual themes and forms that provide the bases for repetition and variation, many of which
appear in the completed works and their corresponding sketches. Campbell would likely celebrate
the pluralistic possibilities of combining this work with his own, especially given the ambiguity
between virtual musical gestures and Boulez’s penchant for endless variation. It remains to be seen
whether the paradoxes and contradictions of Boulez’s aesthetics, or the discarded scraps of his
endless revisions, will be made clearer to readers through Campbell’s Deleuzian lens, or if we need
a more strictly “Boulezian” perspective to keep these works alive. Either way, Boulez, Music and
Philosophy will prove indispensible to exploring the nexus of ideas behind Boulez’s own creative
acts.

Joseph Salem
Yale University