Hailed as one of the greatest living composers, Pierre Boulez is earning worldwide praise as he approaches 90, even as he sometimes suffers in his native France from the idea that he is stern and dogmatic. Ahead of his birthday on March 26, the Philharmonie de Paris — the brand-new, ultra-modern concert hall that was conceived in no small part by Boulez — is seeking to dispel that notion with a new exhibition. "The cliche is that his music is severe and that he became a dictator, an ayatollah or even the fuhrer from the moment he moved to Germany," said Laurent Bayle, the director of the Philharmonie de Paris and disciple of Boulez. Boulez emerged as a forceful presence after World War II by championing serialism, a rigid version of Arnold Schoenberg's atonality that defied traditional classical conceptions of setting music in keys.

Source: Yahoo Music
Link: Music giant Boulez turns 90 with legacy growing