Composer Refused to Name Symphony Hall After Himself

Which composer would be offered a Parisian symphonic hall like the Philharmonie today, simply because he requested it, built by Nicolas Sarkozy for the modest sum of 386 million euros? With a “Grand salle Pierre Boulez” named after him? No one.

The end of “incestuous connections” – to quote journalist Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent from an article in Le Point on Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) and political power. It raised questions about the composer and controversial conductor’s taste for power, and the influence he may have had on decisions regarding French music policy. It was quite a mess at the time.

“It all started with a six-page article titled ‘The Boulez System,’ which angered Pierre Boulez a lot. I wrote that he was the reincarnation of Jean-Baptiste Lully (superintendent of music under Louis XIV, editor’s note), never seen in the France of the Fifth Republic, such musical power. This musician, whose atonal music was not very popular, got everything he wanted from four presidents: Pompidou, Giscard, Mitterrand, and Sarkozy”, recounts Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent.

Twenty years after this controversy, the essayist and musicologist, who was the general director of Heritage at the Ministry of Culture from 1993 to 1997, concludes with Musicians and Power, from Lully to Boulez, released by Gallimard (2025). “This is a book that I have contemplated for a long time: 25 years. I realized that I was mistaken about the exceptional cases of Lully and Boulez. There were other examples, Rameau, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, the group of Six (1), etc. France is probably the only democratic country where such a continuity of musical power is exercised in its close relations with the executive, spanning more than three centuries,” specifies the author.

“This Story is Definitely Over”

And what about after Boulez? That’s the problem addressed in this book, where the conclusion is clear: “This story is definitively over. Power is no longer interested in serious music; it has ceased to be an electoral subject, even for the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron (ten years of piano and a 3rd prize at the Amiens Conservatory,” she remarks), who no longer programs it for his music party,” she notes.

Farewell to Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, or the grand operas, hello Band’a’part, Kassav, the Avener, invited in June 2025 in the courtyard of the Elysée Palace.

Threat to Classical Music?

A observation, which may not necessarily be a tragedy for classical music sent back to its own audience, encourages Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent to sound the alarm. “There’s a risk of weakening public support for institutions that are not profitable. Like provincial operas, which are the most costly institutions for public authorities because they employ a lot of highly qualified staff. Their operating costs increase faster than inflation, they cannot make money unless they raise ticket prices. However, people find classical music too expensive, they are not willing to pay for an opera ticket, while they spend fortunes on a Celine Dion concert. This could lead policymakers to divest from sectors that do not bring in as much as the most popular music,” she points out.

Facing this risk for the French cultural scene, the essayist reminds us that the great works of the classical repertoire are engines for new creations. “There would be no Picasso if he hadn’t been an extraordinary draftsman with a culture of art history. Even the most radical innovation needs heritage; without heritage, it does not exist,” insists Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent, painting a bleak picture of a world without serious music: canceled shows, deprogramming, erosion of artistic margins. A situation that deserves reflection.

1. Group of French composers (with the exception of one Swiss) bringing together, between 1916 and 1923: Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre.

Alert on Heritage

Deterioration, poor general condition, risk of fire, repeated thefts, the blacklist of French heritage at risk continues to grow since Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent, interviewed by the media after the Louvre museum heist, decided to deliver her harsh verdict in a highly anticipated book, Alert on Heritage, released on January 29.

“Gallimard asked me to make it a manifesto, that’s the essence of the Tracts collection, and I complied with this exercise, which I consider as current literature, where I analyze the extremely serious crisis of heritage policy in France: the problem is not limited to the Louvre, where the disappearance of a centuries-old cathedral like Notre-Dame in a matter of hours, these two cases are just symptoms of a disaster to come,” alerts the former general director of Heritage at the Ministry of Culture.

For Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent, the “sacrifice of heritage in favor of other areas of public intervention such as ephemeral, immediate, visible, even flashy ones,” is a dead end. “This is even more serious because it is one of the few sectors where investment is extremely profitable. What do foreign tourists come to see in France? They come in droves to see our heritage; it is one of the top attractions in tourism,” insists the essayist, who presides over the Treilles Foundation in Var.

In this department, as in many others in France, the threat looms over cultual heritage (abbeys, collegiate churches, charterhouses, Romanesque churches, etc.) whose free access burdens municipalities with the entire responsibility for their maintenance. “The state has to deal with its cathedrals; we must save the regions’ heritage,” argues Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent, who proposes in her essay a surcharge on tourism revenue to finance the religious heritage of municipalities classified as Historical Monuments, or not. A kind of heritage lottery. Stéphane Bern, of course, has been approached.