Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work, for example his 1968 composition Sinfonia for voices and orchestra, and also for his pioneering activity in electronic music.

Berio's music

Berio's electronic work dates for the most part from his time at Milan's Studio di Fonologia. One of the most influential works he produced there was Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958), based on Cathy Berberian reading from James Joyce's Ulysses. A later work, Visage (1961) sees Berio creating a wordless emotional language by cutting up and rearranging a recording of Cathy Berberian's voice.

Related Topics:
Cathy Berberian - James Joyce - Ulysses

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In 1968, Berio completed O King a work which exists in two versions: one for voice, flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, the other for eight voices and orchestra. The piece is in memory of Martin Luther King, who had been assassinated shortly before its composition. In it, the voice(s) intones first the vowels, and then the consonants which make up his name, only stringing them together to give his name in full in the final bars.

Related Topics:
Flute - Clarinet - Violin - Cello - Piano - Orchestra - Martin Luther King

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The orchestral version of O King was, shortly after its completion, integrated into what is perhaps Berio's most famous work, Sinfonia (1968-69), for orchestra and eight amplified voices. The voices are not used in a traditional classical way; they frequently do not sing at all, but speak, whisper and shout words by Claude Lévi-Strauss (whose Le cru et le cuit provides much of the text), Samuel Beckett (from his novel The Unnamable), instructions from the scores of Gustav Mahler and other writings.

Related Topics:
Claude Lévi-Strauss - Samuel Beckett - The Unnamable - Gustav Mahler

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In the third movement of the piece Berio takes the third movement from Mahler's Symphony No. 2 and has the orchestra play a slightly cut-up and shuffled around version of it. At the same time, the voices recite texts from various sources, and the orchestra plays snatches of Claude Debussy's La Mer, Maurice Ravel's La valse, as well as quotations from Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and others, creating a dense collage, occasionally to humorous effect; when one of the reciters says "I have a present for you", the orchestra follows immediately with a fragment from Don (French for "gift"), the first movement from Pli selon pli by Pierre Boulez.

Related Topics:
Symphony No. 2 - Claude Debussy - La Mer - Maurice Ravel - La valse - Arnold Schoenberg - Anton Webern - Collage - Pli selon pli - Pierre Boulez

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The result is a narrative with the usual tension and release of classical music, but using a completely different language. The actual chords and melodies at any one time do not seem as important as the fact that we are hearing such and such a part of Mahler, a particular bit of Alban Berg and certain words by Beckett. Because of this, the movement is seen as one of the first examples of Postmodern music. It has also been described as a deconstruction of Mahler's Second Symphony, just as Visage was a deconstruction of Berberian's voice.

Related Topics:
Chord - Melodies - Alban Berg - Postmodern music - Deconstruction

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A-Ronne (1974) is similarly collaged, but with the focus more squarely on the voice. It was originally written as a radio program for five actors, and reworked in 1975 for eight vocalists and an optional keyboard part. The work is one of a number of collaborations with the poet Edoardo Sanguineti, who for this piece provided a text full of quotations from sources including the Bible, T. S. Eliot and Karl Marx.

Related Topics:
Edoardo Sanguineti - Bible - T. S. Eliot - Karl Marx

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Berio also produced work which does not quote the work of others at all. Perhaps best known among these are his series of works for solo instruments under the name Sequenza, the first, Sequenza I came in 1958 and was for flute. The last, Sequenza XIV (2002) was for solo cello. These works explore the possibilities of each instrument to the full, often calling for extended techniques.

Related Topics:
Sequenza - Sequenza I - Flute - Sequenza XIV - Cello

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Berio is known for adapting and transforming the music of others, but he also adapted his own compositions: the series of Sequenze gave rise to a series of works called Chemins each based on one of the Sequenze. Chemins II (1967), for instance, takes the original Sequenza II (1963) for harp and adapts it for solo viola and nine other instruments. Chemins II was itself transformed into Chemins III (1968) by the addition of an orchestra, and there also exists Chemins IIb, a version of Chemins II without the solo viola but with a larger ensemble, and Chemins IIc, which is Chemins IIb with an added solo bass clarinet. The Sequenze were also shaped into new works under titles other than Chemins; Corale (1981), for example, is based on Sequenza VIII.

Related Topics:
Harp - Viola - Bass clarinet

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As well as original works, Berio made a number of arrangements of works by other composers, among them Claudio Monteverdi, Henry Purcell, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler and Kurt Weill. For Berberian he wrote Folk Songs (1964; a set of arrangements of folk songs). He also wrote an ending for Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot (premiered in Los Angeles on May 27 2002 and in the same year in Amsterdam and Salzburg) and in Rendering (1989) took the few sketches Franz Schubert made for his Symphony No. 10, and completed them by adding music derived from other Schubert works.

Related Topics:
Arrangement - Claudio Monteverdi - Henry Purcell - Johannes Brahms - Gustav Mahler - Kurt Weill - Folk song - Giacomo Puccini - Opera - Turandot - Franz Schubert

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Among Berio's other compositions are Circles (1960), Sequenza III (1966), and Recital I (for Cathy) (1972), all written for Berberian, and a number of stage works, with Un re in ascolto, a collaboration with Italo Calvino, the best known.

Related Topics:
Un re in ascolto - Italo Calvino

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See also: List of compositions by Luciano Berio

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