Luciano Berio’s Postmodern Paths

[@ClassicalNerd]

*INFORMATION AND SHOW NOTES* The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: ​skl.sh/classicalnerd08221 *Show notes:* 7:08 - Sources are somewhat vague as to the extent of RAI’s support of the studio. While housed at Radio Milan, and containing equipment far outside Berio’s budget, interviews Berio gave implied that RAI did not fund the studio _as much_ as Berio and Maderna wanted or needed, hence the extra-often collaborative-work they pursued. 7:45 - Cathy Berberian is generally credited as a _mezzo​_ but she had such an incredible range that pieces _for_ soprano were written for her, and she is sometimes credited as such. Notably, _Sequenza III_ is listed as being for “female voice” without specifying a type. 44:03 - IRCAM’s doors officially opened in 1977. but Boulez spent most of the 70s working diligently in preparation for this official opening. Berio’s hiring came during this liminal period. Finally (for those who have clicked through), a word about sponsorships: the PhD-student life puts enormous pressure on my time. Regardless of my passion for making this content, it isn't financially sustainable without sponsorships. Without Skillshare stepping in, it'd be unlikely that I'd be able to carve out the time to produce monthly videos.

[@Drakethatsme]

As a soon-to-start theory PhD with a love for Berio, thanks for making this, and oh my god how do you put out this quality content so regularly on a PhD student's schedule

[@ilikeplayingffftonecluster851]

Chad levels of time management

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

exactly because he is on Phd.

[@davidmfoxe]

"That is the show!"... stunningly well assembled. As a child of the 80s/90s surrounded by sequencers and synthesizers, I saw the Sequenzas referenced long before I heard them. I thought that "Sequenza" was just as natural a term as "Sonata" or "Partita" for a composition, and was promptly shocked to realize it was specific to Berio.

[@dariocaporuscio8701]

It is a style of early music, Berio took the term from there

[@ernstbechert]

Thank you very much for this great video. I spent several weeks with Berio in 1985 and 1986, in the village Radicondoli in Tuscany where he lived with his third wife Talia and his youngest two children. It was after I got my diploma in composition. We had daily meetings, and I learned a lot about composition - not only about techniques but also about concepts and ideas. I had a commission from the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin that I was working on and he looked at my freshly written pages every day and commented on them. I also worked for him, but not in the way you are describing it (at 34:00). At that time he composed „Voci“ and I wrote a reduction of the orchestral score for the soloist Aldo Bennici - similar to a piano reduction. It was very interesting for me (of course) - and useful for him. He didn’t want any other payment for the lessons he gave me. You are quite right: he was absolutely undogmatic and open to the most diverse kinds of music.

[@felixp7]

I love this. When I was at BoCo, I took a seminar on Berio's Sequenza's. It was the most difficult/exciting thing! Our class as a collective, was incredibly intimidated by this topic. We each had to analyze and present on one of the Sequenza's. Mine was Sequenza VIII and I remember very well one classmate who analyzed the Sequenza XIV. At the time, there was very little analytical information for this particular piece and she did such a stellar job on it. I will always remember that class!!

[@timothysullivan7656]

Thank you for this panoramic yet detailed overview of Berio's Life and Work. In the early 80s, Berio came to Toronto to participate with New Music Concerts in an evening of his work that included "Points on a Curve to Find" and Heinz Holliger performing "Sequenza VII" for oboe. I was very fortunate to spend an afternoon with him, interviewing him for CBC Radio in a conversation that started with the works to be performed by NMC, but quickly spread to themes of technique, material and philosophy. Your wonderful presentation here rings true to almost all of Berio's comments, from the virtuoso (Sequenzas, etc.) to pluralism (Sinfonia, A-Ronne, Circles, etc.) to text and transcription (Coro, Cries of London, La Vera Storia, etc.) Thank you for discussing the many facets of this genius, and sharing an appreciation for his talent and oeuvre that truly places him in the uppermost ranks of composers of the 20th century. The continuing interest in, and performance of, his music has already separated him from most of his contemporaries.

[@LynnDavidNewton]

Thank you so much for this excellent overview of Berio and his music. He was my favorite composer when he was at his peak, which happened to be my own student days. My own music of that period seems to be more influenced by Berio than any of the others people would frequently mention in the same breath. I wanted very much to study with Berio, but when I was applying for a Fulbright, he was in the US at the time. I did have the opportunity to exchange a couple of letters with Berio in the late 1990s, at which time I told him about that desire and thata we had crossed paths at one time years before, but his attention was being monopolized by someone else and I couldn't even say hello. He responded that if I could get to Firenze to look him up and we could get together. I still have the letter plus an autographed score he sent me.

[@incognitoincognito7390]

Fantastic video! Would love to see a video on Per Nørgård: he seems to be kind of underrated outside of Denmark. Fantastic composer!

[@porcinet1968]

I've been lucky enough to see Sinfonia live twice and it is also one of those rare pieces that is also incredibly funny. I still couldn't say it was the work of the century but it absolutely is all about the 20th century. It is its own deep-dive and always makes me think that it is a kind of snapshot of the time. I am glad you do these videos because you engage in some serious mythbusting about what we used to call "new music" (now they are nearly all dead and too much contemporary music sounds like jazzed up Cecile Chaminade)

[@pauldavies5611]

@keith Clancy. “jazzed up Cecile Chaminade.” Love that! I once had to play a piece by that idiot and I’m sure God will probably forgive many of my sins for the shame I felt afterward.

[@timothybonenfant5448]

Sequenza IX also exists in a version for bass clarinet, transposing it down an octave and a major third, moving the lowest note from a written E for clarinet to a written low C for bass clarinet. This transposition necessitates other changes in the work as well.

[@DaanDaanDaanDaanDaan]

i think this is your best video, amazing

[@BenjaminStaern]

Great program as always, Berio to me is a flexible composer that allows him to do what he wants to do due to the conditions of commissions and so forth.

[@TheSutov]

very well done, chapeau. One of my Yale professors, the late Jacob Druckman was Luciano's good friend. In the mid 90ies, Eliot Fisk premiered Chemin V at Morse Hall and we set throughout rehearsals. Luciano's spouse sat in the hall and was constantly putting notes in a notebook, whatever Luciano told her to. He is in fact one of most influential composers on my list. I also remember a shocking and revelatory experience of LB conducting his Sinfonia in the mid 80ies in Ljubljana. Splendid.

[@johnwade7430]

Excellent Video - thank you I was introduced to the work of Berio when I was studying an MA on contemporary Music Theatre. I was able to see his opera ‘Un Re in Escalto’ which was an amazing production presented at Covent Garden in London in 1988. A truly amazing composer. Thanks once again.

[@johnwade7430]

You mention the interviews that Berio made in the 1960’s - have you got an English translation from the Italian?

[@ClassicalNerd]

Yes-sources in the video description.

[@johnwade7430]

@@ClassicalNerd An after word; are you planning to present a video on Olivier Messiaen?

[@depauleable]

WOOHOO! Thank you so much, been anticipating this video for so long.

[@MrInterestingthings]

I love what you do here ! Our last century and quarter have so many visionaries and geniuses and charlatans . Boulez and Vareses and Scelsi and Ligeti I cant get enough of but now it seems almost every country even Ethiopia ,Nigeria ,Iran and Turkey etc. have composers worth consideration now " Cathy Berberian one of the best sopranos of her time " never heard her spoken of in those terms .

[@nicholasjagger6557]

Excellent. I'm going right now to blow the dust off my collection of Berio. Thank you for all the work.

[@smashissocool65]

Highlights in your collection?

[@kevinbarton7083]

Great video! I would love to see a video over David Maslanka!

[@yaueue]

Ho avuto la fortuna di incotrarlo tante volte, al conservatorio di Torino, e auditorium della rai , mi piace tantissimo la sua musica.

[@JohnMassari]

Excellent overview of LB’s life.

[@MrEdmundHarris]

Superb, as always!

[@groovermctoober4508]

Some of the most memorable concerts I've ever attended "was just looking at loudspeakers!"

[@Tijaxtolan]

Classical Nerd, please do one day a video on books and texts written by classical musicians (such as Berlioz's Treaty on orchestration or Liszt's Life of chopin), because I find none video or Google search about it, only books written ON composers, not by

[@ClassicalNerd]

Like, a book review sort of deal? Kind of unsure what exactly you're requesting, here ...

[@Tijaxtolan]

@@ClassicalNerd more of a list of books I love reading things written by composers, other examples are Wagner’s essays, and treaty of harmony by Korsakov, or Fundamentals of music composing by Schoenberg

[@ClassicalNerd]

I do quite like the _Harmonielehre_ by Schoenberg! Others I can recommend are: • _Craft of Musical Composition_ by Paul Hindemith • _Genesis of a Music_ by Harry Partch • _A History of 'Consonance' and 'Dissonance'_ by James Tenney • _A Practical Guide to Musical Composition_ by Alan Belkin • _The Joy of Music_ by Leonard Bernstein

[@Tijaxtolan]

@@ClassicalNerd thanks so much 😀

[@sergioscibilia]

@@Tijaxtolan I too think this kind of book can be really interesting; other works I am aware of are Rimsky-Korsakov's Principles of orchestration, Debussy's Mr. Croche, Messiaen's The technique of my musical language, Boulez' Notes of an apprenticeship. Thanks also to the Classical Nerd, really interesting stuff!

[@filippodelnoce9454]

Thank you for your fantastic job!

[@arnoldschondberg8592]

I have really begun enjoying your videos I hope you will make one about Hans Werner Henze

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted.

[@LeRoiJojo]

I'm still dreaming of a 3rd Sequanza "flash mob". Like, in a shopping mall.

[@ogorangeduck]

Great video! It's weird to see Tanglewood without the shed As for video suggestions, I'd really like to see videos on Reger and Wienawski.

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted.

[@PalumboComposer]

my beloved Master

[@marcmosteirin7575]

Wow. Thank you.

[@WBradJazz]

YES! Thank you!!

[@beaudream4548]

Thank you!

[@brendaboykin3281]

Thank you, Thomas 🌹🌹🌹🌹

[@LaMerleNoir]

Very interesting lecture, thank you!

[@NateSassoonMusic]

I am the 8th like, although I didn't reload this page for hours. I love your videos!

[@JohnBorstlap]

Excellent video, well-researched. There does not exist something like 'progress' in the arts, it is an idea borrowed from science, but useless in art. There is change, and the only form of possible progress is progress in a qualitative sense. But what would that be in concert music? And in which context? Yes, Berio was a postmodernist, but he was not a composer, he was a Klangkünstler, a sonic artist. So much attention goes to his material, his 'language', that there hardly remains anything left of the psychological sphere as in music. Also, the focus on the sound material means that intervals no longer relate to each other as intervals, i.e. there is no longer an 'inner space' as defined by tonal coherence. But occasionally there is a tonal space, to be erased again soon after because it never is a part of the overall idea of a piece. In the end, what Berio did was not so interesting from a musical point of view, and his work will remain a marginal historical phenomenon, demonstrating what happened in the 20th century, after the desintegration of tradition and the intention of 'beginning from scratch' in the postwar period. But his longing to engage with premodernist music can clearly be heard in his 'Rendering' (on Schubert's unfinished 10th symphony) and his scoring of Brahms' viola sonata (which is not done very well), and in his inclusion of fragments from tradition, like in Sinfonia. But from a modernist/postmodernist position, a real engagement with the musical tradition is forever closed-off. (Can be compared with Ligeti.)

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

the part about transcription is super important . Unfortunately my boss at Yousician had has no idea of Berio and Busoni in this matter 😂

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

very good!

[@AronLindbergä]

Great video. Could you make a Dietrich Buxtehude video?

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted-Buxtehude is now 88th place at www.lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html

[@_rstcm]

Please do Respighi next...............unless u already have something planned.

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted.

[@seaotter4439]

Could you do a video on Henry Rziewski?

[@mikeytaylor3901]

Would you do one on Anthony Braxton or Wadada Leo Smith?

[@RipplingOphelia]

I second this

[@mikeytaylor3901]

In the spirit of experimental music, can we please get a video on Conlon Nancarrow?

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted!

[@davidbreeze7425]

Thanks. I think the operas are fascinating but require tremendous work input from all parties not least the audience, as you say. Un Re in Ascolto is perhaps the easiest to follow. The other point is the sheer beauty of much of his music and the fact that a lot is about processes rather than direct statements which you can easily memorise. Hence the need for repeated listening.

[@markleneker9923]

Would post-modernism be re-phrased as free eclecticism? A circular type of view where you can have it all in piece if you so chose?

[@ClassicalNerd]

Postmodernism is vague and squishy enough that I'm reluctant to give a broad "yes," but I like that definition, and it holds true for composers who use old and new without much care for historical progression: Berio, Lukas Foss, Alfred Schnittke, etc.

[@giacomopala8389]

It kind of holds true to other arts....postmodern cinema (Tarantino), architecture (Robert Venturi), art (too many) are all kind of "eclectic"

[@wellurban]

One definition that I’ve always liked is “postmodernism is the condition of scepticism towards all metanarratives” (JF Lyotard, I think). That’s pretty jargony, but it basically means that while modernism usually believed in one overarching philosophy that should supplant all others and lead to the future, postmodernism rejected that universalism and considered that history and art were made up of a multitude of narratives that couldn’t be reduced to a grand story of progress. Serialism is one of those modernisms that saw itself as the One True Way, and Berio’s rejection of that sort of absolutism is an example of a more postmodernist world view. I also think of postmodernism as very “linguistic” in a sense, since rather than treating architecture or music as the composition of pure abstract shapes or sounds, it considered that those elements had established meanings that couldn’t be ignored and that could add to the richness of the work. Hence, the wide use of quotation, collage and folk or popular culture in many postmodernist art forms, rather than the “burn it all down and start again” approach of Le Corbusier or (some of) the Serialists.

[@armenghazarian3515]

Can you you please do one on Lutoslawski?

[@ClassicalNerd]

Can't believe I just saw this comment! Duly noted.

[@fenrirwolf7238]

Please! Make a video about Bernd Alois Zimmermann! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted!

[@dieterammann4]

Good video. The singer in Circles is a catastrophe regarding pitches.

[@MrEbertScientist]

I'm sure you are inundated with suggestions for Great Composers videos these days, but I would like to put in a vote for Charles Koechlin.

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted.

[@charlienelson2001]

Hi Thomas, Could you please add the following to your request list? Richard Rodney Bennett Walter Scharf Jerry Goldsmith Andre Previn Dudley Moore Also I would love to see you do a video about Malcolm Arnold at some point. I really like your channel and I've just subscribed!!!

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted: www.lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html

[@bullazzo1]

13:00

[@AbbotXxX]

I think it is time that Paul Hindemith is included in the Request Pool. People, make it happen!

[@MrEbertScientist]

There's already a Hindemith video.

[@lenoakes2450]

Yes, yes, it's all quite wonderful, BUT you need to add another post like this devoted entirely to Visage.

[@erikroovers9911]

Italy is still not being run super efficiently….:-)

[@smashissocool65]

Can i get Giovanni gabrieli plz, my last request. I decided to use my 5 for the most interesting in music history!

[@ClassicalNerd]

Duly noted!

[@smashissocool65]

@@ClassicalNerdthx, ive seen in later vids that you started to like Sinfonia, what recording is that?

[@ClassicalNerd]

Not quite sure what you mean-I've always enjoyed the piece (although it's always overwhelming to try to follow the score). The recordings I use are always listed in video descriptions.

[@smashissocool65]

@@ClassicalNerd i was curious about the berio album on the shelf thats in later vids

[@ClassicalNerd]

Ah! That's actually been in my collection for a while but it was out of view when I had this setup where you can't see as many of the shelves. It's the original 1968 recording featuring the Swingle Singers and NY Phil conducted by Berio himself. To my knowledge it is the only recording of _Sinfonia_ in its original four-movement form, as Berio went on to add the fifth movement shortly after the premiere.

[@georgemontenegro1901]

I concur classical nerd... We like you over here at HQ

[@nigelhaywood9753]

😀It's a scary image of the Fascist HQ, but fortunately I think this was a temporary boarding for the elections in 1934. Hopefully they didn't have to see that for the next ten years.

[@emmetharrigan5234]

29:30 gotta love the age old tradition of composers undertstanding physics only minimally. Matter cannot be created or destroyed but einstein amended that it it can be turned into energy and Berio could have easily made an aesthetic argument for that exact process and yet. 20th century laziness at work

[@ernstbechert]

If you read the quote you'll see that Berio does not use the physical metaphor but a linguistic: you cannot invent a new grammatical rule in language. That is much more how he was thinking. Music was for him not some scientific process but a kind of human language.