Sinfonia (Berio)
Encyclopedia
Sinfonia is a composition
by the Italian composer Luciano Berio
which was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic
for its 125th anniversary. Composed in 1968–69 for orchestra
and eight amplified
voices
, it is a musically innovative post-serial classical work, with multiple vocalists commenting about musical (and other) topics as the piece twists and turns through a seemingly neurotic journey of quotations
and dissonant passages. The eight 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, excerpts from Samuel Beckett
's novel The Unnamable
, instructions from the scores of Gustav Mahler
and other writings.
Leonard Bernstein
states in the text version of his Charles Eliot Norton lectures
from 1973 that Sinfonia was representative of the new direction classical music was taking after the pessimistic decade of the sixties .
for its 125th anniversary, Sinfonia was premiered on October 10, 1968 by the orchestra and The Swingle Singers
, with Berio conducting. At the time the work was still in four movements. In the months after the premiere Berio added a fifth movement, which was first played when Sinfonia was performed during the 1969 Donaueschingen Festival
by the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Ernest Bour
. The New York Philharmonic first played the five movement version of Sinfonia on October 8, 1970, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
—to whom the work is dedicated.
The first movement primarily uses a French text source and the third movement primarily uses English text sources. The text for the second movement is limited to the phonemes of the title, "O Martin Luther King." The remaining movements are primarily instrumental with occasional vocal elements. The overall form of the piece is an arch form with elements of the first movement reflected in the fifth and connections between the second and fourth. The third movement, a study of inter-relations, stands on its own.
(The Raw and the Cooked) by the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss
. The form of the piece is also inspired by Lévi-Strauss, who in his work on mythology
had found that many myths were structured like musical compositions, with some myths having a "fugal
" form and others resembling a sonata
. One mythical transformation however, had a structure for which he was not able to find a musical equivalent , and this is the form Berio used in his Sinfonia—though Lévi-Strauss did not notice this. Interviewed by Didier Eribon, he said:
, clarinet
, violin
, cello
and piano
, the other for eight voices and orchestra
. The orchestral version of O King was, shortly after its completion, integrated into Sinfonia. It uses a fair amount of whole tone scale motifs (which also appears in the quote from Le Sacre du Printemps in the third movement).
and has the orchestra play a slightly cut-up, re-shuffled and occasionally re-orchestrated version of it. Many have described Berio's third movement as a "musical collage", in essence using an "Ivesian" approach to the entire movement (American composer Charles Ives
in his Symphony No. 2
first used musical quotation techniques on a grand scale at the turn of the 20th century about 65 years earlier).
The orchestra plays snatches of Claude Debussy
's La Mer
, Maurice Ravel
's La Valse
, Igor Stravinsky
's The Rite of Spring
, as well as quotations from Arnold Schoenberg
, Anton Webern
, Johannes Brahms
, Henri Pousseur
, Paul Hindemith
, and many others (including Berio himself) 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 the introductory chord from Don, the first movement from Pli selon pli
by Pierre Boulez
.
The quoted fragments are often chosen because they bear a rhythmic or melodic likeness to Mahler's scherzo. For example, Berio uses a violin line from the second movement of Alban Berg
's violin concerto
with chromatically descending sixteenth notes two measures before a similarly descending line appears in Mahler's scherzo. This is then accompanied by another violin descent, taken from Johannes Brahms
' violin concerto
.
The eight individual voices simultaneously recite texts from various sources, most notably the first page of Samuel Beckett
's The Unnamable
. Other text fragments include references to James Joyce
, graffiti
Berio noticed during the May 1968 protests in Paris and notes from Berio's diary .
Berio himself describes the movement as a "Voyage to Cythera
", in which a ship filled with gifts is headed towards the island dedicated to the goddess of love. This idea is musically implied by the "flowing" multi-quoted excerpts from Mahlers second symphony, the boat drifting past a variety of historical music quotations.
s used in the third movement of Sinfonia in order of their appearance:
It's worth noting that more than a few of the quoted pieces were performed from time to time in the CBS TV series Young People's Concerts
. Berio may very well have been inspired by viewing these performances as he was living in the United States at the time. This might explain why he dedicated the work to Leonard Bernstein.
s and melodies
at any one time do not seem as important as the fact that we are, for example, hearing a part of Mahler or a particular bit of Alban Berg
with added words by Beckett. Because of this, the movement is often described as one of the first examples of Postmodern music
. It has also been described as a deconstruction
of Mahler's second symphony, just as Berio's Visage was a deconstruction of Cathy Berberian
's voice.
The third movement is mostly in 3/4 time, although Berio occasionally adds or takes away a beat or two for temporary effect. It's been suggested by Louis Andriessen
who was interviewed in Frank Scheffer
's short film "Voyage to Cynthera" that the waltz beat pattern was symbolic of the "old school" of composers during the 19th century. Berio's modernistic treatment of it (much the same way Ravel's "La Valse" did earlier in the 20th century) was apparently a statement that the classical music establishment was/is too rooted in its past. It was time to move on from the (as Leonard Bernstein put it) "over-waltzed" Austro-Hungarian empire mentality.
One of the more neurotic moments of the piece takes place during the Wozzeck drowning quotation late in the third movement. At this point separate individual singers are contesting each other, requesting the music to either "stop!" or "keep going!". Another notable quote near the very end of the same movement is when the spotlight tenor voice states "... There was even, for a second, hope of resurrection, or almost". This is a clear reference to Mahler's Second Symphony of which the third movement is quoted throughout the entire third movement of Sinfonia.
There are also brief elements of indeterminacy that pop up in the third movement—mentions of another piece on the program just past midpoint and the singers and conductor at the end. These would change from performance to performance as they are variables. For example, the in-print Erato label 1986 recording thanks "Mr. Boulez" not because one of his pieces is quoted but because he is the conductor on that particular recording.
Because Sinfonia directly quotes from other musical sources as far back as the late baroque
era (Bach
) and as recent as a few years before the 1968 premiere of the piece, it is arguable that Sinfonia uses the widest array of techniques ever employed in a single musical work. Even the latest musical technique to evolve by that time, sound mass
from the early sixties (originated by such composers as Krzysztof Penderecki
and György Ligeti
), is used several times throughout the third movement.
It opens with a quotation from Lévi-Strauss that is at the same time a veiled reference to Mahler's second symphony: the fifth movement of Sinfonia opens with the words "rose de sang" (French for "rose of blood"), and the fourth movement of Mahlers symphony begins with the words "O Röschen roth!" (German for "O red rosebud!") .
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
by the Italian composer 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...
which was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
for its 125th anniversary. Composed in 1968–69 for 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...
and eight amplified
Electronic amplifier
An electronic amplifier is a device for increasing the power of a signal.It does this by taking energy from a power supply and controlling the output to match the input signal shape but with a larger amplitude...
voices
Singing
Singing 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...
, it is a musically innovative post-serial classical work, with multiple vocalists commenting about musical (and other) topics as the piece twists and turns through a seemingly neurotic journey of quotations
Musical quotation
Musical quotation is the practice of directly quoting another work in a new composition. The quotation may be from the same composer's work , or from a different composer's work ....
and dissonant passages. The eight 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
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
, whose Le cru et le cuit
The Raw and the Cooked
The Raw and the Cooked is the first volume from Mythologiques written by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. The original French title was Le Cru et le cuit....
provides much of the text, excerpts from Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's novel The Unnamable
The Unnamable (novel)
The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett. It is the third and final entry in Beckett's "Trilogy" of novels, which begins with Molloy followed by Malone Dies. It was originally published in French as L'Innommable and later adapted by the author into English...
, instructions from the scores of Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
and other writings.
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
states in the text version of his Charles Eliot Norton lectures
Charles Eliot Norton Lectures
The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University was established in 1925 as an annual lectureship in "poetry in the broadest sense" and named for the university's former professor of fine arts. Distinguished creative figures and scholars in the arts, including painting,...
from 1973 that Sinfonia was representative of the new direction classical music was taking after the pessimistic decade of the sixties .
Premieres
Originally commissioned by the New York PhilharmonicNew York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
for its 125th anniversary, Sinfonia was premiered on October 10, 1968 by the orchestra and The Swingle Singers
The Swingle Singers
The Swingle Singers are a mostly a cappella vocal group formed in 1962 in Paris, France by Ward Swingle with Anne Germain, Jeanette Baucomont, Jean Cussac and others. Christiane Legrand, the sister of composer Michel Legrand, was the group's lead soprano through 1972. Until 2011 the group...
, with Berio conducting. At the time the work was still in four movements. In the months after the premiere Berio added a fifth movement, which was first played when Sinfonia was performed during the 1969 Donaueschingen Festival
Donaueschingen Festival
The Donaueschingen Festival is a festival for new music that takes place every October in the small town of Donaueschingen...
by the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra
Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra
The Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra is a radio orchestra located in the German cities of Baden-Baden and Freiburg...
conducted by Ernest Bour
Ernest Bour
Ernest Bour was a French conductor. Born in Thionville, Moselle, Bour studied at both the University and the Conservatoire of Strasbourg...
. The New York Philharmonic first played the five movement version of Sinfonia on October 8, 1970, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
—to whom the work is dedicated.
Movements
The work is in five movements:- I
- II - O King
- III - In ruhig fliessender Bewegung
- IV
- V
The first movement primarily uses a French text source and the third movement primarily uses English text sources. The text for the second movement is limited to the phonemes of the title, "O Martin Luther King." The remaining movements are primarily instrumental with occasional vocal elements. The overall form of the piece is an arch form with elements of the first movement reflected in the fifth and connections between the second and fourth. The third movement, a study of inter-relations, stands on its own.
First movement
In the first movement of Sinfonia, Berio uses texts from Le cru et le cuitThe Raw and the Cooked
The Raw and the Cooked is the first volume from Mythologiques written by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. The original French title was Le Cru et le cuit....
(The Raw and the Cooked) by the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
. The form of the piece is also inspired by Lévi-Strauss, who in his work on mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
had found that many myths were structured like musical compositions, with some myths having a "fugal
Fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
" form and others resembling a sonata
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
. One mythical transformation however, had a structure for which he was not able to find a musical equivalent , and this is the form Berio used in his Sinfonia—though Lévi-Strauss did not notice this. Interviewed by Didier Eribon, he said:
- [Y]ou know that Berio used The Raw and the Cooked in his Sinfonia. A part of the text is recited, accompanied by the music. I admit that I did not grasp the reason for this choice. During an interview a musicologist asked me about it, and I answered that the book had just come out and the composer had probably used it because it was at hand. Now, a few months ago Berio, whom I don't know, sent me a very disgruntled letter. He had read the interview, several years after the fact, and assured me that the movement of this symphony offered the musical counterpart of the mythical transformation I was revealing. He included a book by a musicologist who had demonstrated the fact. I apologized for the misunderstanding, which was, I said, the result of my lack of musical training, but I'm still baffled.
Second movement: O King
In 1968, Berio completed O King, a work dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King (Berio 1986). This movement exists in two versions: one for voice, fluteFlute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, 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....
, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, the other for eight voices and 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...
. The orchestral version of O King was, shortly after its completion, integrated into Sinfonia. It uses a fair amount of whole tone scale motifs (which also appears in the quote from Le Sacre du Printemps in the third movement).
Third movement
In the third movement of Sinfonia Berio lays the groundwork by quoting multiple excerpts from the third movement scherzo from Mahler's Symphony No. 2Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...
and has the orchestra play a slightly cut-up, re-shuffled and occasionally re-orchestrated version of it. Many have described Berio's third movement as a "musical collage", in essence using an "Ivesian" approach to the entire movement (American composer Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
in his Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 2 (Ives)
The Second Symphony was written by Charles Ives between 1897 and 1901. It consists of five movements and lasts approximately 40 minutes.-Scoring:...
first used musical quotation techniques on a grand scale at the turn of the 20th century about 65 years earlier).
The orchestra plays snatches of Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's La Mer
La Mer (Debussy)
La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre , or simply La mer , is an orchestral composition by the French composer Claude Debussy. It was started in 1903 in France and completed in 1905 on the English Channel coast in Eastbourne...
, Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's La Valse
La Valse
La valse, un poème choréographique pour orchestre , is a work written by Maurice Ravel from February 1919 until 1920 ; it was conceived as a ballet but is now more often heard as a concert work...
, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring, original French title Le sacre du printemps , is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky; and concept, set design and costumes by Nicholas Roerich...
, as well as quotations from Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
, Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, Henri Pousseur
Henri Pousseur
Henri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...
, Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, and many others (including Berio himself) creating a dense collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
, occasionally to humorous effect. When one of the reciters says "I have a present for you", the orchestra follows immediately with the introductory chord from Don, the first movement from Pli selon pli
Pli selon pli
Pli selon pli is a piece of classical music by the French composer Pierre Boulez. It is for solo soprano and orchestra, and is based on the poems of Stéphane Mallarmé...
by Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
.
The quoted fragments are often chosen because they bear a rhythmic or melodic likeness to Mahler's scherzo. For example, Berio uses a violin line from the second movement of Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's violin concerto
Violin Concerto (Berg)
Alban Berg's Violin Concerto was written in 1935 . It is probably Berg's best-known and most frequently performed instrumental piece.-Conception and composition:...
with chromatically descending sixteenth notes two measures before a similarly descending line appears in Mahler's scherzo. This is then accompanied by another violin descent, taken from Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
' violin concerto
Violin Concerto (Brahms)
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 is a violin concerto in three movements composed by Johannes Brahms in 1878 and dedicated to his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim...
.
The eight individual voices simultaneously recite texts from various sources, most notably the first page of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's The Unnamable
The Unnamable
The Unnamable may mean:* The Unnamable , a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett* "The Unnamable" , by H. P. Lovecraft* The Unnamable , a 1988 movie based on the H. P. Lovecraft short story...
. Other text fragments include references to James Joyce
James Joyce
James 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...
, graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
Berio noticed during the May 1968 protests in Paris and notes from Berio's diary .
Berio himself describes the movement as a "Voyage to Cythera
Kythira
Cythera is an island in Greece, once part of the Ionian Islands. It lies opposite the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula. It is administratively part of the Islands regional unit, which is part of the Attica region , Greece.For many centuries, while naval travel was the only means...
", in which a ship filled with gifts is headed towards the island dedicated to the goddess of love. This idea is musically implied by the "flowing" multi-quoted excerpts from Mahlers second symphony, the boat drifting past a variety of historical music quotations.
Musical quotations
A partial list of musical quotationMusical quotation
Musical quotation is the practice of directly quoting another work in a new composition. The quotation may be from the same composer's work , or from a different composer's work ....
s used in the third movement of Sinfonia in order of their appearance:
- SchoenbergArnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's Five Pieces for OrchestraFive Pieces for OrchestraThe Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 16 was composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1909. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upon the request of his publisher, are as follows:...
, fourth movement, "Peripetie" (violent opening scale played by the brass) - Claude DebussyClaude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's La merLa Mer (Debussy)La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre , or simply La mer , is an orchestral composition by the French composer Claude Debussy. It was started in 1903 in France and completed in 1905 on the English Channel coast in Eastbourne...
, second movement, "Jeux de vagues" (opening measures) - A brief quotation of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 (Mahler)Symphony No. 4 (Mahler)The Symphony No. 4 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1899 and 1901, though it incorporates a song originally written in 1892. The song, "Das himmlische Leben", presents a child's vision of Heaven. It is sung by a soprano in the work's fourth and last movement...
just before..... - MahlerGustav MahlerGustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
's Resurrection SymphonySymphony No. 2 (Mahler)The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...
, third movement (the only quotation that is ongoing) - Paul HindemithPaul HindemithPaul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
's Kammermusik IV - RavelMaurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's Daphnis et ChloéDaphnis et ChloéDaphnis et Chloé is a ballet with music by Maurice Ravel. Ravel described it as a "symphonie choréographique" . The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine from an eponymous romance by the Greek writer Longus thought to date from around the 2nd century AD...
, flute solo from the Pantomime - BerliozHector BerliozHector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
's idée fixe from the Symphonie FantastiqueSymphonie FantastiqueSymphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties , Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences...
(played by the clarinets) - RavelMaurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's La ValseLa ValseLa valse, un poème choréographique pour orchestre , is a work written by Maurice Ravel from February 1919 until 1920 ; it was conceived as a ballet but is now more often heard as a concert work...
(orchestra plays octave motif with piccoloPiccoloThe piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
playing a chromatic scale) - StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's Le Sacre du PrintempsThe Rite of SpringThe Rite of Spring, original French title Le sacre du printemps , is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky; and concept, set design and costumes by Nicholas Roerich...
(the "Dance of the Earth" sequence at the end of the first tableux) - Stravinsky's Agon (upper oboeOboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
part from the "Double pas de quatre") - Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Der RosenkavalierDer RosenkavalierDer Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
(one of the waltzes composed for the opera) - a choraleChoraleA chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
by Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity... - Alban BergAlban BergAlban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's WozzeckWozzeckWozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
(the drowning scene late in the third act) - BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's PastoraleSymphony No. 6 (Beethoven)Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, also known as the Pastoral Symphony , is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, and was completed in 1808...
Symphony, second movement (melody stated with the clarinets) - (Schoenberg segment quoted again)
- DebussyClaude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's La MerLa Mer (Debussy)La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre , or simply La mer , is an orchestral composition by the French composer Claude Debussy. It was started in 1903 in France and completed in 1905 on the English Channel coast in Eastbourne...
, second movement "Jeux de vagues" - BoulezPierre BoulezPierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
's Pli Selon PliPli selon pliPli selon pli is a piece of classical music by the French composer Pierre Boulez. It is for solo soprano and orchestra, and is based on the poems of Stéphane Mallarmé...
, very first chord of the entire piece from the first movement ("Don") - Anton WebernAnton WebernAnton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
's Kantate op.31 - Karlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
's GruppenGruppen (Stockhausen)Gruppen for three orchestras is amongst the best-known compositions of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is Work Number 6 in the composer's catalog of works. Gruppen is "a landmark in 20th-century music . ....
for three orchestras (during the introductions of the vocalists near the end)
It's worth noting that more than a few of the quoted pieces were performed from time to time in the CBS TV series Young People's Concerts
Young People's Concerts
The Young People's Concerts at the New York Philharmonic are the longest-running series of family concerts of classical music in the world.-Genesis:...
. Berio may very well have been inspired by viewing these performances as he was living in the United States at the time. This might explain why he dedicated the work to Leonard Bernstein.
Analysis
The result is a narrative with the usual tension and release of classical music, but using a completely different language. The actual chordChord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
s and melodies
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
at any one time do not seem as important as the fact that we are, for example, hearing a part of Mahler or a particular bit of Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
with added words by Beckett. Because of this, the movement is often described as one of the first examples of Postmodern music
Postmodern music
Postmodern music is either simply music of the postmodern era, or music that follows aesthetical and philosophical trends of postmodernism. As the name suggests, the postmodernist movement formed partly in reaction to modernism...
. It has also been described as a deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
of Mahler's second symphony, just as Berio's Visage was a deconstruction of Cathy Berberian
Cathy Berberian
Catherine Anahid Berberian was an American soprano and composer. She interpreted contemporary avant-garde music composed, among others, by Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henri Pousseur, Sylvano Bussotti, Darius Milhaud, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati , Igor Stravinsky.She also interpreted...
's voice.
The third movement is mostly in 3/4 time, although Berio occasionally adds or takes away a beat or two for temporary effect. It's been suggested by Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
who was interviewed in Frank Scheffer
Frank Scheffer
Frank Scheffer is a Dutch cinematographer and producer of documentary film, mostly known for his work Conducting Mahler .-Education:Scheffer was schooled at the Academy for Industrial Design , the "Vrije Academie" Art College in...
's short film "Voyage to Cynthera" that the waltz beat pattern was symbolic of the "old school" of composers during the 19th century. Berio's modernistic treatment of it (much the same way Ravel's "La Valse" did earlier in the 20th century) was apparently a statement that the classical music establishment was/is too rooted in its past. It was time to move on from the (as Leonard Bernstein put it) "over-waltzed" Austro-Hungarian empire mentality.
One of the more neurotic moments of the piece takes place during the Wozzeck drowning quotation late in the third movement. At this point separate individual singers are contesting each other, requesting the music to either "stop!" or "keep going!". Another notable quote near the very end of the same movement is when the spotlight tenor voice states "... There was even, for a second, hope of resurrection, or almost". This is a clear reference to Mahler's Second Symphony of which the third movement is quoted throughout the entire third movement of Sinfonia.
There are also brief elements of indeterminacy that pop up in the third movement—mentions of another piece on the program just past midpoint and the singers and conductor at the end. These would change from performance to performance as they are variables. For example, the in-print Erato label 1986 recording thanks "Mr. Boulez" not because one of his pieces is quoted but because he is the conductor on that particular recording.
Because Sinfonia directly quotes from other musical sources as far back as the late baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
era (Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
) and as recent as a few years before the 1968 premiere of the piece, it is arguable that Sinfonia uses the widest array of techniques ever employed in a single musical work. Even the latest musical technique to evolve by that time, sound mass
Sound mass
In contrast to more traditional musical textures, sound mass composition "minimizes the importance of individual pitches in preference for texture, timbre, and dynamics as primary shapers of gesture and impact." Developed from the modernist tone clusters and spread to orchestral writing by the late...
from the early sixties (originated by such composers as Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
and György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
), is used several times throughout the third movement.
Fourth movement
The brief fourth movement is a return to the tonality of the second, relatively serene after the frenetic third movement. It begins again with a Mahler quotation -- the chorus taken from the end of the "Resurrection" symphony. The voices make use of various vocal effects, including whispers, syllabic fragments, and distortions of previous textual material.Fifth movement
This movement was added by Berio a year later, intended to balance the first four. The movement revisits the text from the previous sections, organizing the material in a more orderly fashion to create what Berio calls "narrative substance."It opens with a quotation from Lévi-Strauss that is at the same time a veiled reference to Mahler's second symphony: the fifth movement of Sinfonia opens with the words "rose de sang" (French for "rose of blood"), and the fourth movement of Mahlers symphony begins with the words "O Röschen roth!" (German for "O red rosebud!") .
Further reading
- Altmann, Peter (1977). Sinfonia von Luciano Berio. Eine analytische Studie. Vienna: Universal Edition.
- Bandur, Markus (2005). "'I prefer a wake': Berios Sinfonia, Joyces Finnegans Wake und Ecos 'Poetik des offenen Kunstwerks'". Musik-Konzepte, no. 128 (April): 95–109.
- Bayer, Francis (1988). Thèmes et citations dans le 3e mouvement de la Sinfonia de Berio. Analyse musicale, no. 13 (October): 69–73.
- Budde, Elmar (1972). "Zum dritten Satz der Sinfonia von Luciano Berio". In Die Musik der sechziger Jahre. Zwolf Versuche, edited by Rudolf Stephan, 128–44. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung Darmstadt 12. Mainz: Schott Musik International.
- Emons, Hans (1998). "Berios Sinfonia und Mahlers 2. Sinfonie: Re-Komposition als ästhetische Idee". In Musikwissenschaft zwischen Kunst, Ästhetik und Experiment: Festschrift Helga de la Motte-Haber zum 60. Geburtstag, edited by Reinhard Kopiez, Josef Kloppenburg, Heinz von Loesch, Hans Neuhoff, Christian Martin Schmidt, Barbara Barthelmes, Heiner Gembris, and Günther Rötter, 151–60. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. ISBN: 3-8260-1524-X.
- Hicks, Michael (1981). "Text, Music, and Meaning in the Third Movement of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia". Perspectives of New Music 20, nos. 1–2 (Fall-Winter 1980/Spring-Summer 1981): 199–224.
- Krieger, Georg, and Wolfgang Martin Stroh. 1971. "Probleme der Collage in der Musik aufgezeigt am 3. Satz der Sinfonia von Luciano Berio". Musik & Bildung: Zeitschrift für Musikerziehung 3, no. 5 (May ): 229–35.
- Plaza, Eduardo (2009). "La différance y la intertextualidad en el tercer movimiento de la Sinfonia de Luciano Berio". Musicaenclave: Revista venezolana de música 3, no. 1 (January–April): 23.
- Ravizza, Victor (1974). "Sinfonia für acht Singstimmen und Orchester von Luciano Berio. Analyse". Melos 41, no. 5 (September–October): 291–97.
- Schnittke, Alfred (2002). "The Third Movement of Berio's Sinfonia: Stylistic Counterpoint, Thematic and Formal Unity in Context of Polystylistics, Broadening the Concept of Thematicism (1970s)". In A Schnittke Reader, edited by Aleksandr Vasil'evič Ivaškin, with a foreword by Mstislav Rostropovich, translated by John Goodliffe, 216–24. Russian Music Studies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33818-2.