Luciano Berio Research Articles

Muzički potencijali govora u delu Sekvenca III Lučana Berija

The paper explains the manner in which Luciano Berio treated the literary component in his composition Sequenza III. At the same time, it aims to identify models which might have inspired Berio to 'play' with the chosen poetic text. The characteristic manner in which the Italian composer dealt with words, depriving them of their status of the carrier of meaning, required other codes of communication to be included, such as emphasising the melodic-rhythmic potential of speech, as well as gesture and mimicry. Taking into account all the specifics of Berio's composition, the possibility of classifying it into the performative genre is considered.

Вокальная тембрика в хоровых сочинениях Маурисио Кагеля 1958–1982 годов

The article is devoted to the choral music of Mauricio Kagel from the years 1958–1982, presenting an example of one of the most radical phenomena in choral music of the second half of the 20th century. Most of the attention is focused on examination of the vocal techniques which determined the composer’s choral writing. The article examines the complex of the utilized vocal techniques (singing, Sprechgesang, declamation), the regulators of vocal soundproduction (the character of vibrato, the indicators of the scale of the phonatory exhalation); provides a characterization of the main articulatory techniques: both traditional ones for 20th century choral music (singing with closed mouth, falsetto, whisper), as well as innovative ones, which demonstrated themselves for the first time in Kagel’s compositions (singing with clenched teeth, singing with closed mouth while simultaneously pronouncing the text in a trembling voice). The questions regarding Mauricio Kagel’s work with separate phonemes are highlighted. As part of the analysis of the work “Anagrama” used the first attempt in Western European music of applying quasi-serial procedures to work with a verbal text, stipulating the appearance in the score of signs of tables of the International Phonetic Association. The present composition is examined as the first example of a new vocal genre – phonemic composition. Study of compositions written by the composer during the first two decades of his life in Germany makes it possible to come up with the conclusion about a consistent solution by the composer of a particular goal – the search for a new choral sound capable of enabling choral music to continue its development, to lead it away from a state of stagnation, in which, according to the composer, contemporary choral culture was existing. The publication is prepared within the framework of scholarly project No. 16-04-50011, supported by the Russian Fund for Fundamental Research (RFFI). Keywords: Mauricio Kagel, Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, choral music, post-war avant-garde, vocal timbral patterns, phonemic composition.

Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall

Reviewed by: Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall Lisa Hooper Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall [Berlin, Germany]: Berliner Philharmoniker, (2016–). http://www.digitalconcerthall.com/ (accessed 30 December 2016). [Requires a Web browser and Internet connection or personal device and Internet/data connection. Pricing: varies by institutional or individual subscription.] Introduction The Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall is a Web-based database of streaming video performances, documentaries, and interviews by and related to the Berlin Philharmonic. This resource first became available in beta form in October 2015. Beta testing ended in January 2016, and the resource became available by subscription that spring. The resource Web site does not clearly define its scope but it is self-evident that this is a product of the Berlin Philharmonic. On the How It Works page, it is noted that “each season around 40 concerts are broadcasted live and they can also be viewed at a later date in the concert archive. The archive already contains hundreds of recordings with all the great artists of classical music. There are also fascinating documentaries and bonus films.” (https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/ info, accessed 30 December 2016). Pricing & Access Digital Concert Hall does not publicly share its pricing index, instead requiring institutions to complete a questionnaire to receive a “personalized quote.” Information taken into account includes institution type (university, conservatory, school, other), total FTE enrollment, the number of students majoring or minoring in music, the number of students attending music classes, and the number of students using music resources. Similar information about institutional personnel is required, including the number of faculty, number of librarians, and number of support staff as well as how these groups use musical resources. More common information such as number of concurrent users and subscription duration (one, two, or three years) is also considered. Content Streaming video content begins in 1966 and continues to the present with live concert streams that are subsequently added to the archive. Content is batched into date ranges. The earliest content, 1966 to 1979, contains seventeen concerts and two documentaries all with Herbert von Karajan. The period 1980 to 1989 only contains three items, but all three may be considered significant performances in the orchestra’s history. Seventeen concerts, conducted variously by Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, James Levine, Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, and Sergiu Celibidache, are in the 1990 to 1999 batch. The time period of 2000 to 2008, contains thirty-three concerts conducted by Simon Rattle, Mark Elder, Neeme Järvi, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Mariss Jansons, Claudio Abbado, Plácido Domingo, Lorin Maazel, and Kent Nagano. From 2008 on performances are organized by season, with thirty-five performances in the 2008/9 season and later seasons containing forty-two to fifty items each. The current 2016/17 season contains twenty-three concerts with the promise to grow. Some content is also available on CD or DVD. A comparison of Digital Concert Hall and the Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings Shop (https://www.berliner-philharmoniker-recordings.com, accessed 27 January 2017), linked in the page header, reveals a limited degree of overlap. [End Page 761] For example, both include video of Rattle’s Sibelius symphony cycle (BPHR 150071, OCLC accession number 925527825). Conversely, the interview with Harnoncourt available in the Recordings Shop as a bonus DVD to the conductor’s complete Schubert recordings (BPHR 150061, OCLC accession number 959284299) is sadly omitted from the Digital Concert Hall. Historical recordings may be available via Alexander Street Press’s Music Online as streaming audio only. However, content originally released on the Berliner Philharmoniker label is not duplicated by other streaming resources. All of the conducting giants, and many more, that worked with the orchestra since the mid-60s are represented. The database reveals a preference for traditional musical fare: Beethoven (61 performances), Brahms (54), Mahler (39), and Mozart (38). Although far fewer, works from the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries are represented as well, with compositions by Luciano Berio (12), Elliot Carter (3), George Crumb (1), Luigi Dallapiccola (1), Jonathan Dove (1), Osvaldo Golijov (1), Paul Hindemith (6), Kaija Saariaho (1), and TMru Takemitsu (1), among others. The resource undoubtedly has commercial drivers behind it. A direct link...

О ритмической природе музыкального жеста: к постановке проблемы

The predominance of rhythm as an organizing and forming factor in the musical art of the twentieth century is obvious. Perhaps this was due to the desire of modern man to reflect in an effective motor and emotionally music swiftness of human society. New rhythmic conception of the musical art of the twentieth century composers demanded that the search for new ways of impacting the audience, a new musical language, new means of expression. We can say that expressive musical gesture (a gesture, through the musical embodiment), various forms of movement that can cause the most immediate reaction of the listener, are one of the methods to ensure adequate perception and understanding of contemporary music the listening audience. In a number of musical styles, from the second half of the twentieth century, the use of musical gesture is the best way to disclose the essence of the artistic design. Beyond the musical gesture concept is difficult to define the specifics of the works of such composers as Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann, Morton Feldman and others. Nevertheless, the theory of musical gesture is still in its infancy. The concept of musical gesture is interpreted very flexible. At the same time I would like to note that attempting to define what is a musical gesture and what is its role in music, you need to pay attention to the following aspects: 1 ) the musical gesture a phenomenon which manifests itself at the level of design and compositional embodiment of a musical work; 2) musical gesture manifests itself on the level of performance, as it is performing the gesture is energy, generating in some cases form; 3 ) musical gesture manifests itself at the level of perception, as the listening emotion, according to some modern scholars, such as Vincent Milberg, Ralph Phifer, Jose Vongard should be realized as a gesture that can pass the value of a musical fabric element works. The close interaction of music and movement at the level of deep psychophysical relations proved by modern science. This allows you to freely transfer one art form to another: the music in choreography and dance, a certain type of movement, gesture in the musical embodiment. Moreover, according to some composers, certain forms of movement can become an impetus for the development of creative ideas to deduce the form, fill expressive gestures, figures (B. Ferneyhough ). These ideas are addressed to the problem of interaction between music and movement are relevant and very promising in the light of modern musicology, music psychology, music theory, the theory of playing, etc. This proves the necessity of a deep scientific study of the problem and its attendant ideas related to musical gesture, gestural music, musical composition born of pulses of different types of movement and gesture.

Milan's Studio di Fonologia: Voice Politics in the City, 1955–8

ABSTRACTThe Studio di Fonologia Musicale of Milan, Italy's first electronic music studio, opened in 1955. Housed in the national broadcasting (RAI) studios in Milan, the studio was founded by two celebrated Italian composers: Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna. The institution is often remembered nowadays for being the first electronic music studio to focus its activity on the human voice. As I argue, this focus was not only of an aesthetic nature, but rather reflected long-standing political and intellectual conceptions of voice, speech and public space that were rooted in Italy's early days as a republic, and in mid-twentieth-century Milan as the flagship city for this newly achieved political modernity.

Paweł Szymański’s Self-Analyses Reread

Abstract The article is an attempt to present important categories of composer Paweł Szymański’s musical language, based on his self-analytical statements, which were in major part answers to musicologists’ questions. Luciano Berio pointed out why the situation of a composer who would like to address questions about his or her music is difficult - a lack of necessary detachment would be one of the reasons. A musicologist, on the other hand, is tempted to construct their own supposedly objective analytical view of a composer’s musical language. The dialogistic approach proposed by anthropological musicology may be a solution to these dilemmas. Other main topics mentioned in the article are related to the role of meta-concepts in Szymański’s musical language.

Up a Half-Step (omaggio a Luciano Berio), for oboe and i-phone, by Amelia Kaplan (b. 1963)

Up a Half-Step (omaggio a Luciano Berio), for oboe and i-phone, by Amelia Kaplan (b. 1963)

Composing *Rayuela*: The Musical Element in Julio Corrazar’s Narrative

"I am interested in the possibility that the relationship to music in Cortazar's works can be analysed through the equally contemporaneous practices of experimental music of the mid and late twentieth century. Composers such as John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and Luciano Berio challenged the 'positivism' of the modernist generation that preceded them, and were prompted to explore the limits of their 'authorial' roles in the artistic process, a strategy that resulted in various forms of 'indeterminate' and 'aleatory' compositions. The creative principles that directed the works of these composers can provide the alternative musical models through which we can interpret and appreciate Rayuela, and it is on this basis that I would like to explore the proposition of 'Cortazar the composer'.

Digital Philology in Audio Long-term Preservation: A Multidisciplinary Project on Experimental Music

This paper presents the methodology of a multidisciplinary project aimed at the preservation of the audio collection of the Centro Studi Luciano Berio, coordinated by and carried out at the laboratory for audio preservation and restoration of the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale (CSC) in Padua. The expected output of the project is a digital audio collection of preservation copies that meet the requirements of accuracy, reliability and authenticity necessary to serve as a valid documentary source for scholarly studies. The paper addresses the problem of digital philology applied to audio documents, and provides salient information about the implementation of the digitization process.

"Ritratto di città": Hearing, Listening, Imagining

This article proposes an educational path based on Ritratto di citta , a radio composition (1955) by Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna and Roberto Leydi. Relying on activities that focus on the analysis of both the general structure and specific parts of the composition, the didactic path aims at conveying to students the high image-evoking power of sound, in this case, how music can enhance a ‘visual translation’ of the places described by the narrators in the radio work. The didactic path also provides food for thought about the way in which the emergence of sound reproduction equipment has boosted research and experimentation in the field of musical composition.

Instruments from an Instrument: Schaefferian ‘Instrumental Analysis’ and Berio's Sequenza V for Solo Trombone

Schaeffer's analyses demonstrate unequivocally the intention to generalize his research originating from studio-based experiences and apply its principles to all music, instrumental or electroacoustic. Schaefferian theory acknowledges that the studio environment and its practices challenge the instrument's status. However, the materiality of sound still encourages (and perhaps even demands) an elaboration and assimilation of instrumental thought rather than its outright rejection. The three elements of Schaefferian ‘instrumental analysis’: ‘timbre’, ‘registers’ and ‘play’ can transcend physical source and action. This article uses Schaefferian ‘instrumental analysis’ to investigate the multi-instrumental potential of a solo instrument: the trombone in Luciano Berio's ‘Sequenza V’. The ‘genre’ for Schaeffer clarified the tension between the general ‘timbre’ displayed by an instrument and the particular ‘timbre’ of each individual sound. The ‘genre’ groups sounds together on the basis of common perceived characteristics. Thus, an instrumental ‘timbre’ can comprise many distinct ‘genres’ each with its own registers.

London, Barbican: Dieter Schnebel, David Sawer

In a substantial concert at the Barbican Centre on 15 February 2013 the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov, presented the British debut of Schubert Fantasia (1978, revised 1989) – senior German composer Dieter Schnebel's subtle reconstruction of one of Schubert's most original piano sonata movements – and the first performance of David Sawer's dramatic scena for mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists and orchestra, Flesh and Blood (2012). Both premières lasted around 25 minutes. Sawer's new work made a satisfying contrast with its Schubertian surroundings. But an even more rewarding, and certainly more congruent, companion to the Schnebel might have been Luciano Berio's Rendering for Orchestra (1990), which reworks the fragments of Schubert's unfinished Tenth Symphony in D major, D936a into a three-movement symphonic work that would have complemented Schnebel's postmodern re-imaginings. It would also have made some fascinating associations with the Viennese master's last completed work in symphonic form: the ‘Great’ C major Symphony, which was heard after the interval. Enough speculating on what might have been; what of the fare that was actually on offer?

Aesthetic Responses to Repetition in Unfamiliar Music

Listeners who lacked special expertise in contemporary art music were presented with 1-minute excerpts of music by Luciano Berio and Elliott Carter in either their original, unaltered versions or in modified versions such that segments within the excerpt repeated immediately or after a delay. They were asked to rate each excerpt's enjoyability, interest, and artistry on 7-point Likert-like scales. Listeners rated the excerpts in both repetition conditions as more enjoyable, interesting, and artistic than the original, unaltered versions, suggesting that repetitiveness is an important factor in aesthetic responses to unfamiliar styles.

“Fun, Yes, but Music?” Steve Reich and the San Francisco Bay Area's Cultural Nexus, 1962–65

AbstractThis article traces Steve Reich through the Bay Area's cultural nexus during the period 1962–65, exploring intersections with Luciano Berio, Phil Lesh, Terry Riley, Robert Nelson, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the San Francisco Tape Music Center. The aim is to present a revised history of this era by drawing on personal interviews with Tom Constanten, R. G. Davis, Jon Gibson, Saul Landau, Pauline Oliveros, and Ramon Sender. In addition, previously unused source materials and contemporaneous newspaper reception are employed to provide a more nuanced contextual framework. Reich's heterogeneous activities—ranging from “third stream” music and multimedia happenings to incidental scores and tape collage—deserve investigation on their own terms, rather than from within narratives concerned with the stylistic development of “minimalism.” More appropriate and viable aesthetic parallels are drawn between Reich's work for tape and Californian Funk art.

Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers (review)

Reviewed by: Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers Péter Laki Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers. By Bálint András Varga. (Eastman Studies in Music.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2011. [xiv, 333p. ISBN 9781580463799. $49.95.] Illustrations, index. Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers has been almost thirty years in the making. The author, Bálint András Varga, spent his entire career promoting the music of contemporary composers, first at Editio Musica Budapest, and later at Universal in Vienna. His work brought him into contact with many of the most prominent composers of the last half-century. Although not a trained musicologist, his devotion to music, his keen ear and intelligence, as well as his flawless command of the English language have made him one of the most sensitive and successful advocates for new music in recent times. His book-length conversations with Witold Lutosławski, Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis and György Kurtág (Witold Lutosławski [London: Chester Music, 1976]; Luciano Berio: Two Interviews [London: Boyars, 1985]; Conversations with Iannis Xenakis [London: Faber & Faber, 1996]; György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages [Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2009]) are models of insight and empathy. The present project— putting the same three questions to as many composers as possible—has occupied him since the early 1980s, and the first version of the volume under review was published in Hungarian exactly a quarter of a century ago. At that time, 82 composers were included; in the American edition, [End Page 797] Varga eliminated 21 of these and added 4 new ones, arriving at a new total of 65. Prior to the publication of the book’s new incarnation, Varga gave his interviewees a chance to revise or update their answers, and quite a few of them availed themselves of the opportunity. The result is a fascinating panorama of many issues central to music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and a testament to the wide range of aesthetic positions held by composers today. (György Kurtág’s answers to the three questions were already included in the Kurtág interview book referenced above.) The questions have to do, respectively, with any particular pieces of music that changed the composers’ creative lives; their responsiveness to sounds of the everyday environment; and their views on personal style versus self-repetition. They are excellent questions, sufficiently focused to give the book its thematic unity, yet broad enough to allow the composers to discuss their music on their own terms. The answers vary widely not only in their content but also in their length and depth. Some composers provided very brief, one-paragraph responses while others contributed many pages. Some, with whom Varga has enjoyed a closer professional contact, are obviously more comfortable with the interviewer than others. The author describes his connections to the composers in introductory paragraphs inserted before each interview; here we may learn how the meetings came about. Varga also offers thumbnail sketches of his impressions of composers’ personalities, freely admitting if he was unable to get close to a certain composer, either personally or musically. Out of the 65 composers, 10 are from Varga’s native Hungary, and 10 from the United States; the remaining 45 represent 14 more countries. There is only one woman—Sofia Gubaidulina—among the 65. A full 40%, or 26 composers, have passed away since the interviews were made, which gives the volume a certain retrospective character. (Milton Babbitt and Emil Petrovics died since the book was published.) Chronologically, the interviewees represent the entire span of the twentieth and the early twenty-first century: the oldest composer in the volume is Wladimir Vogel, born in 1896; the youngest, Johannes Maria Staud, born in 1974. In general, Varga managed to make contact with the majority of the defining figures of Western music since 1945. As one might expect, there is a great deal of important biographical material here, and, when Varga was able to establish a personal relationship with the composers, quite a few revealing anecdotes. The composers’ philosophical and aesthetic ideas are no less interesting, but what makes the book really unique is the...

Two Fragments of ‘The Music of Luciano Berio’

AbstractAt the time of his death in 2007 David Osmond-Smith had begun work on his second book on Luciano Berio. Planned as a more substantial volume than the earlier one (Oxford University Press, 1991), it aimed to combine what he termed ‘creative biography’ with a multidimensional view of the composer's output, seen through the lens of such categories as text and commentary, density and harmony, voice, and theatre. Published here is the only written-up chapter, covering the early part of the composer's life (1925–53), followed by the outline of the projected book. Preceding these fragments is an introductory note by Talia Pecker Berio. (CW)

Voicing the Labyrinth: the Collaborations of Edoardo Sanguineti and Luciano Berio

AbstractIn this article David Osmond-Smith discusses the ‘creative cross-fertilization’ between Luciano Berio and the poet Edoardo Sanguineti. Berio first approached Sanguineti at the suggestion of Umberto Eco, and the article begins with a discussion of Berio and Eco's radiophonic project Onomatopea nel linguaggio poetico, which in turn stimulated one of the composer's most celebrated electroacoustic works, Thema/Omaggio a Joyce (1958). The author argues that the preoccupation revealed there with ‘working at the boundary where the word as bearer of meaning dissolves into the word as reservoir of sonic potentials’ remained central to the collaborations of Berio and Sanguineti, principally Passaggio (1961–2), Laborintus II (1965), and A-Ronne (1974–5). In particular, the former two works explore their ‘aesthetics of fragmentation and juxtaposition’ in the context of a music theatre that embraces Umberto Eco's poetics of the opera aperta (open work), Guy Debord's notion of ‘spectacularity’, and various dimensions of political and social critique. (CW)

Musikalisches Zitat als kulturelle Assoziation. Die ästhetische Bedeutung des musikalischen Zitats in der koreanischen Musik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts

Musical quotation, as a technique of using the pre-existing materials in the music composition, has an important significance in both quantitative and qualitative aspects since the late 20th century, as can be seen from works of Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Luciano Berio, Mauricio Kagel, Alfred Schnittke, George Rochberg, George Crumb. In terms of aesthetics, the musical quotation is closely related with postmodernism as the technique deviates from the aesthetics of originality and reveals musical diversity. In this respect, it can be said that ›musical quotation‹ is an important keyword which describes the late 20th century. In this paper, by extending this perspective into the East Asia with a particular focus on South Korea, the musical quotation was investigated. Since the Western music was first introduced into South Korea in the late 19th century, various types of it have been combined in the country to produce works with a wide variety of musical forms and styles. Among these, works of Na, Un Young (1922–1993), Kang, Unsu (*1960), and Chung, Tae Bong (*1952) who employed the technique of musical quotation in their compositions were examined in detail here. Through this study, quotations in Korean music were found to play a semantic role in revealing the cultural context, similar to the West. However, several differences were found as well. First of all, there are only a few works with the quotation technique employed by Korean composers, probably due to the prevailing influence of the modernist aesthetics yet in Korea. Moreover, it is noteworthy that in Korean works, quoted targets were often selected from musical elements which were very familiar to Korean cultural ones. In this respect, the quotation technique which has been shown to embody not only culture and human, but also history and society, plays a significant role in reflecting the identity as a Korean composer.

“A Door to Other Doors”: Henry Threadgill Interview with Daniel Fischlin

Henry Threadgill is one of the great original, iconoclastic voices in American music, and sits comfortably with other great voices from the U.S. and elsewhere: from Charles Ives through to Aaron Copland and Elliot Carter; from Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler through to Anthony Braxton and John Zorn; from Igor Stravinsky through to Edgard Varèse and Luciano Berio. In this extended interview with Daniel Fischlin, Threadgill covers aspects of his personal history as a youth growing up in Chicago, his first contact with the AACM and other experimentalist musicians in Chicago, his thoughts on the connections between improvised music and the Civil Rights Movement, and a lengthy reflection on the importance of improvised music and its pedagogy. Conducted in public before a large audience of 2011 Guelph Jazz Festival goers, the interview shows Threadgill as an eloquent, impassioned, and astute observer of musical phenomena, especially in his appeal to improve access to quality musical education in North America and in his dismissal of the attempt to impose European musical structures on African American forms of musicking based on “replication” as opposed to “creation.”

Studien zu Cathy Berberians New Vocality

During the 1950s and 1960s the musical avant-garde developed a new type of vocal composition (often for solo voice) that recognized and incorporated everyday vocal sounds, such as gestural utterances or expressions of affect, into the aesthetic parameter of a work. The chanteuse Cathy Berberian, who took center stage in this development thanks to the extraordinary range of her vocal capabilities, inspired numerous composers to write in this emerging style and was herself engaged in the creative process. Her unique vocal treatment became known as New Vocality. Part A investigates the significant role of the voice in contemporary music in general and within several compositions written for Berberian by John Cage and Luciano Berio in particular, taking into special consideration the criteria of vocal gesture and affective utterances. Part B focuses on Berberian’s own composition Stripsody, a showpiece of New Vocality, especially as it relates to musical transformations derived from pop art and onomatopoeia in comics.