The new music festivals at Donaueschingen and Darmstadt and Boulez’s Domaine Musical concert series were formative for Boulez’s development as a composer, conductor, writer and institution-builder in the 1950s and 1960s. The Donaueschingen festival was significant for premieres of Boulez’s music, including ‘Tombeau’, the final section of Pli selon pli, which was performed in part there in 1959. Boulez’s attendance was intermittent at the Darmstadt new music courses, but he nevertheless interacted there with key figures from the serial generation, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono, and Darmstadt was the venue where Boulez first delivered the lectures that were published later as Boulez on Music Today. Boulez created his own concert series in Paris, the Domaine Musical, which he oversaw from its inception in 1953 until 1967, with the aim of performing key works from the first phase of musical modernism, along with music composed by his own generation.

This chapter discusses Boulez’s formal and informal music education, beginning with his early musical training and his formal studies in Lyon and Paris. In Paris, the importance of his informal education emerges, including his relationships with important mentors. His development as a conductor and lecturer on music is also considered. Although many would consider these professional activities, Boulez’s emergence as a writer, lecturer and conductor was accomplished during a period of extensive experimentation in composition. He reflected, in retrospect, on his mentors and related ‘apprenticeships’ and how they shaped his thinking as a musician. While Boulez was a lifelong autodidact, the discussion closes at the end of his formative period around 1960.