Le pari sur Michaux: Poésie pour pouvoir

In Poésie pour pouvoir, Pierre Boulez was already sketching, as early as 1958, the spatial contours of Répons and its fragmented sonic architecture. Two orchestras and a group of soloists interact with fixed sounds. Within the electronic textures, the “exorcism” performed by Michaux’s Poésie pour pouvoir, a book-object of poetry and force, can be heard. At the premiere, Michel Bouquet embodied the voice of the poem. Poetry or music? Quoting Michaux, Boulez described poetry as the "center and absence" of musical development. In Michaux, meaning fractures. In Boulez, sound disperses through space.