"[9] He explained: "For me there is a perpetual variation at work... figures and their doubles can make their appearances at certain moments and prisms at others, but the threads of these three aspects of a single reality are constantly present.
"[9] In the program notes for a 1966 performance by the Cleveland Symphony, Boulez wrote: Figures refers to simple elements, sharply characterized by dynamics, violence, softness, slowness, and so forth.
[10] Paul Griffiths stated that, thanks in part to the unusual layout of the instrumental forces in Figures—Doubles—Prismes, "Boulez is able to create orchestral sonorities of marvellously fluid variety and astonishing newness", and that "the rich diversity of the score is also a product of its formal process, by which simple initial ideas are developed in variation and interaction.
Indeed, the very scale of its development makes it reminiscent of an orchestral study in the traditional grand manner... its importance for the future is obvious: by virtue of its existence, Figures—Doubles—Prismes is proof of the previously untested possibility of maintaining the progress of a large-scale work without recourse to melodic characterisation.
"[12] Regarding the relationship between the original and finalized versions, writer Allen Edwards, in a study of the work, commented: "if Doubles could be viewed as a portrait of the polar moods of a volcanic personality – nocturnal brooding, alternately seething and contemplative, giving way to bouts of fiery pugilistic confrontation, Figures—Doubles—Prismes could be said to broaden the portrait by introducing, on the one hand, the playful, childlike and humorous sides of the subject..., and on the other hand its fantastic and lyrical sides.
"[14] In a review of a recording of the work, Andrew Clements called it "fascinating", and, noting the rearrangement of the players, wrote: "For practical reasons more than any other, it is one of the least performed of Boulez's masterpieces.