Livre pour quatuor (1948–1949), Boulez's only work for string quartet, presented numerous performative challenges resulting from the composer's inexperience at the time it was written.
[2] According to Boulez biographer Dominique Jameux, Livre pour cordes sounds "infinitely better" than the version for string quartet, although he acknowledged that it lacks some of the earlier work's "extraordinary vigour, vehemence and alacrity.
"[1] Writer Paul Griffiths called the work "an elaborate amplification which spreads in varying densities around the original, giving it veils of fine counterpoint and harmonic breadth.
[6] In a review of a 2010 concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Boulez, Steve Smith of The New York Times described Livre pour cordes as "crepuscular, fitful and dreamy by turns... a compelling display for the Chicago strings,"[7] while Los Angeles Times reviewer Mark Swed called it "exquisite, eventful music, full of darting gestures and tiny brilliant explosions.
"[8] Reviewing a 2018 London Symphony Orchestra concert, Bachtrack's Chris Garlick portrayed the piece as "a work of dense dodecaphony which, despite itself, sounds refined and sensuous almost in the manner of Debussy himself.