Interpretation of René Char’s Poetry in Pierre Boulez’s “Le Marteau sans Maître”

Abstract

The article presents the results of study of three poems by René Char from the collection
“Le Marteau sans maître” which became the literary basis for the eponymous vocal-instrumental cycle
by Pierre Boulez. It provides information about Char’s poetry collection “Le Marteau sans maître”
and gives a brief stylistic characterization of the poetic miniatures selected by the composer. Based
on her analysis of semantic fields, the author proposes an interpretation of the content of the poems
“L'artisanat furieux,” “Bel édifice et les pressentiments” and “Bourreaux de solitude.” Paradigmatic
and syntagmatic connections uniting these poetic texts into a cycle are established.
Another aspect of the study concerns Boulez’s methods of vocalizing Char's verses in terms
of possible transmission of their content into the context of a musical text. In this regard, only
the third, fifth, sixth and ninth movements of the cycle are examined. By means of syllabic and
melismatic singing of the words, the necessary transformation of the poetic syntax, the changes
in the poems’ compositional structure, various textures and instrumentation, Boulez alternately
complicates or facilitates the perception of the verbal text, depending on the respective artistic
task. On the level of the vocal part, its meaning is explained by the differentiation of articulation
in the range from singing cantilena to Sprechstimme, nuance of timbre, sound-imagery means, and
intonational reminiscences.

Keywords: vocal music, Pierre Boulez, René Char, “Le Marteau sans Maître”.