In November
2001, 75 year old Pierre Boulez (b.
March 26, 1925), one of the world’s most famous
conductors of
classical music, was taken from his hotel and detained by police in
Basel,
Switzerland under the suspicion of being a
terrorist. He and his
passport were only detained three hours, but this silly, silly episode is quite chilling, and it makes you wonder on what grounds all those other terrorism suspects in various countries are being held on.
Accounts differ on how exactly Boulez ended up on the Swiss national list of terrorism suspects. One account is that six years ago a music critic in
Zurich received a crank
bomb threat from someone claiming to be Boulez and he alerted police. (Incidentally, the critic had at the time just given Boulez a scathing review.) Another is that back in the 60s, Boulez made a revolutionary statement about blowing up
opera houses, which was most likely a
metaphorical statement about breaking with
art traditions. (“All the art of the past must be destroyed,” he said once.) But the authorities took it seriously and made a note on his
permanent record.