Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez studied mathematics before switching to music in wartime Paris, and he arrived in the postwar scene determined to rebuild composition from scratch. His early works organized pitch, rhythm, and volume by strict numerical rules, and his polemics were as uncompromising as the music. Later he built a second career as a conductor, leading the New York Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, admired for the precision of his ear.

Back in Paris he founded IRCAM, an institute where composers and engineers work side by side on music and technology, along with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, a group devoted to new music.

Start with Le marteau sans maître, a 1955 setting of surrealist poems for voice and six players whose sound world, part gamelan, part jazz vibraphone, is gentler and stranger than his fearsome reputation suggests. Then try Répons, where live instruments are transformed by electronics surrounding the audience.