The new release of Pierre Boulez: Éclat-Multiples brings together Collegium Novum Zürich and Ensemble Contrechamps, conducted by Michael Wendeberg, for an exploration of Boulez’s late-modernist landscapes. This double ensemble realization, spanning both the compact Éclat and the labyrinthine Multiples, approaches these works not as untouchable monuments, but as living, breathing organisms - shifting, unpredictable, and deeply embodied. From the opening, the performance emphasizes contrast and orientation: flickers of prepared piano and cimbalom punctuate luminous layers of winds and strings, while percussion articulates the boundaries of silence with jeweled precision. Wendeberg’s approach foregrounds the volatility and materiality of Boulez’s language, where sudden changes of color or density propel the music to new ground. What’s especially evident is the ensemble’s capacity to hold tension - to allow resonance and pause equal footing within the score - creating corridors of suspense that invite the listener into Boulez’s process of continuous transformation.

In Multiples, the sonic field fractures and reassembles through interplay between ensemble groupings, sometimes collapsing intricate dialogues into sheer force, at other points suspending the form in delicately traced sonorities. The music resists easy resolution; much like Boulez’s own career, it is a laboratory where order and instability are cultivated in equal measure. Throughout, the recording captures the way surface brilliance and structural depth can blur, revealing an ever-present tension between analytical clarity and sensual richness. The result is a portrait of Boulez not strictly as a rigid formalist, but as a composer drawn irresistibly to the textures of chaos and the slow bends of light within a living environment.