I once knew a composer who very much liked performances of Mozart’s Symphonies that were unexciting but texturally clear because she enjoyed being able to hear the structure of the piece without interference from an individual interpretation, but I’m fussy. Boulez’ music, on the other hand, is even more severe than Schoenberg’s. With even the “melodic” line consisting of widely-spaced intervallic notes, there is very little room for lyricism, nor do I think the composer wanted any. Idil Biret, I think, has taken the best approach to his piano sonatas, playing them in a taut fashion which gives the music shape. Iman takes a different, more idiosyncratic approach, but despite his not being able to create a musical arch in this sonata, he still gives us various gradations of volume which enhance one’s listening experience.
Both are humanly engineered; both are conceptual and auditory, and these factors have been present …