“Today Boulez has become such a globally venerated figure, that it is difficult to appreciate how radical he was. To say he has mellowed would be an understatement: today he is often found conducting in those very opera houses whose demolition he earlier demanded and conducting operas such as Wagner’s Parsifal, whose lush late romanticism would surely seem to be inimical to the high modernism for which he used to be the noisiest proselytiser.”