Introduction. Boulez's compositional path ; Sources for theories of musical form ; Serialism as musical structuralism

Part I. Form as opposition in the writings of Pierre Boulez ; Writings from the first period : serialist doctrine, the open work and strategies of rhetorical displacement ; A portrait of Webern, a self-portrait of Boulez ; The second cantata ; Chronology of writings on Webern and key concepts ; Webern vs. Debussy : observable correspondence or imagined encounter ; The turn towards perception ; Form, thematicism and perceptual categories in the writings from the 1970s to the present ; Lessons for all or personal incantation ; The basic elements of musical language ; The new concepts ; Concept of form in Leçons de musique ; Lessons of Leçons

Part II. Form as opposition in selected works by Pierre Boulez : Analysis by, of, in and according to Boulez ; Boulezian motivations for analysing Boulez ; False or 'mutilating' analysis ; Boulez analyses The rite of spring ; Boulez for the analyst : the didactic work ; Rituel and the architecture of antiphony ; Presentation ; Form ; Pitch in the Repons ; Structure of verses ; Dérive 1 and harmonic control ; Presentation ; Form ; Six harmonic fields ; Anticipations, suspensions and the recovery of classical categories ; Durations, densities and note hierarchies ; Mémoriale and polar mechanics ; Presentation ; Themes in Mémoriale ; Passage from clear to veiled timbre ; Paradigmatic analysis ; Polar notes ; Analysis of pitch content ; Durations ; Unplugged electronics ; Resonator effects ; Delay/echo effects ; Geometric orchestration ; Rhythmic canons ; Anthèmes and virtual thematics ; Presentation ; The virtual theme ; Discontinuities : 'characters', rhythmic canons and non-retrogradable rhythms ; Passage from Anthèmes 1 to Anthèmes 2 ; Incises and the play of recognition and surprise ; Presentation ; Annunciatory opening ; Treslent sections ; A paradigmatic-syntagmatic approach to Section I, Prestissimo ; Boulezian form in theory and practice ; From system to idea : systematic obscuring ; Formal schemas in a comparative approach.