The beginning and the end belong to the birthday boy: for the 100th birthday of Pierre Boulez, two of his works for voice and orchestra will be performed, sung by the brilliant young soprano Liv Redpath. The early Le Soleil des eaux, one of Boulez’s most lyrical and expressive scores, is juxtaposed with his masterpiece Pli selon pli, which he worked on from 1957 until the late 1980s. Translated as “Fold upon Fold,” this is a piece in which Boulez portrays the Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé and reflects on the relationship between language and music in ever-changing constellations. In the introductory Don, for example, Mallarmé’s poetry appears only in fragments, yet it determines the character of the music. The Dutch composer Robin de Raaff has also set a text by Mallarmé in his new cantata L’Azur, which he dedicates to the memory of Boulez. The Piano Concerto by the Korean composer Unsuk Chin escorts us into completely different sound worlds: delicately colored dream images meet virtuoso percussive passages in which the extensive percussion blends wonderfully with the rhythmic drive of the solo part. Just the right thing for French star pianist Bertrand Chamayou!