Epifanie (Berio)
Encyclopedia
Epifanie is a musical composition in twelve movements by the Italian
composer
Luciano Berio
.
In Italian
an epifania (plural
: epifanie, with both forms accented on the second "i") indicates a sudden spiritual manifestation (See: Epiphany
). Berio composed his Epifanie between 1960 and 1963, and published a revised version in 1965. It consists of seven short orchestral pieces, and five vocal pieces. Berio stipulates the possibility of performing these in ten different sequences. When the American premiere of Epifanie took place in Chicago
on July 23, 1967, he said:
The score calls for an unusually large orchestra
: 16 woodwinds
; 6 horns
, 4 trumpet
s and 4 trombone
s plus tuba
, full strings
, including three violin
sections, and a percussion
section calling for a number of performers who address themselves not only to glockenspiel
, celesta
, vibraphone
and marimba
but also to spring coils, tamtam
, tom-tom
, temple blocks, wood blocks, caisse claire, bongos
, timpani
, cowbells, chimes, claves
, guiro
, censerros, cymbal
s, snare drum
, tambourine
, etc.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
.
In Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
an epifania (plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
: epifanie, with both forms accented on the second "i") indicates a sudden spiritual manifestation (See: Epiphany
Epiphany (feeling)
An epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something...
). Berio composed his Epifanie between 1960 and 1963, and published a revised version in 1965. It consists of seven short orchestral pieces, and five vocal pieces. Berio stipulates the possibility of performing these in ten different sequences. When the American premiere of Epifanie took place in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
on July 23, 1967, he said:
- Epifanie is, in essence, a cycleSong cycleA song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
of orchestral pieces into which a cycle of vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
pieces has been interpolatedInterpolation (music)Interpolation in music refers to an abrupt change in musical elements from the main theme.-In classical music:In music and musical composition, especially 20th century and later, interpolation is an abrupt change of elements, with continuation of the first idea...
. The two 'cycles' can be combined together in various ways; they can also be performed separately. The texts of the vocal pieces have been taken from ProustMarcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
(À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs), Antonio MachadoAntonio MachadoAntonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98....
(Nuevas Canciones), JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
(A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManA Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialised in the magazine The Egoist from 1914 to 1915, and published first in book format in 1916 by B. W. Huebsch, New York. The first English edition was published by the Egoist Press in February 1917...
and UlyssesUlysses (novel)Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
), Edoardo SanguinetiEdoardo SanguinetiEdoardo Sanguineti was an Italian writer who was born in Genoa.-Biography:During the 1960s he was a leader of the neo avant-garde Gruppo 63 movement, founded in 1963 at Solunto....
(Triperuno), Claude SimonClaude SimonClaude Simon was a French novelist and the 1985 Nobel Laureate in Literature. He was born in Antananarivo, Madagascar, and died in Paris, France....
(La route des Flandres), and Brecht (An die Nachgeborenen).
- The significant connection between the vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
pieces can thus appear in different lights according to their position in the instrumentalInstrumentalAn instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
development. The chosen order will emphasize the apparent heterogeneity of the texts or their dialecticDialecticDialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
unity. The texts are arranged in such a way as to suggest a gradual passage from a lyric transfiguration of reality (ProustMarcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, MachadoAntonio MachadoAntonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98....
, JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
) to a disenchanted acknowledgment of things (Simon; for this text the voice speaks and becomes gradually nullified by the orchestra). Lastly, the words of Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, which have nothing to do with the epiphany of words and visions. They are the cry of regret and anguish with which Brecht warns us that often it is necessary to renounce the seduction of words when they sound like an invitation to forget our links to a world constructed by our own acts.
The score calls for an unusually large orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
: 16 woodwinds
Woodwind instrument
A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument which produces sound when the player blows air against a sharp edge or through a reed, causing the air within its resonator to vibrate...
; 6 horns
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
, 4 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s and 4 trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s plus tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, full strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
, including three violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
sections, and a percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
section calling for a number of performers who address themselves not only to glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, celesta
Celesta
The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...
, vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
and marimba
Marimba
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
but also to spring coils, tamtam
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
, tom-tom
Tom-tom drum
A tom-tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snare.Although "tom-tom" is the British term for a child's toy drum, the name came originally from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala; the tom-tom itself comes from Asian or Native American cultures...
, temple blocks, wood blocks, caisse claire, bongos
Bongo drum
Bongo or bongos are a Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of single-headed, open-ended drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called in Spanish the hembra and the smaller the macho...
, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, cowbells, chimes, claves
Claves
Claves are a percussion instrument , consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone), consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone),...
, guiro
Güiro
The güiro is a Latin-American percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines along the notches to produce a ratchet-like sound. The güiro is commonly used in Latin-American music, and plays a key role...
, censerros, cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s, snare drum
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
, tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, etc.