During my recent visit to London my eldest son (who is always seeking to
improve his mother's mind) suggested we attend a concert of Berio's music
at the Festival Hall. I was not aware of ever having heard a single note
of Berio's - in fact, I was under the impression he was dead, so I was
considerably surprised to see him appear as the conductor of the concert.
What follows are the impressions of someone coming to this music for the
first time, aided to some extent by the program notes. The orchestra was
the BBC Symphony.
The first piece was Recit (Chemins VII) for saxophone. Apparently Berio
has composed a number of so-called Sequenzas for solo instruments, and
the Chemins series has mostly been a set of elaborations for soloist
and orchestra assembled around pre-existing Sequenzas. This particular
piece originally saw the light of day as a clarinet solo which was then
transcribed for alto sax. It began with flutterings and rustlings in the
strings and then the saxophone took off with a long melodic line which
shortly expanded into a series of exchanges with the woodwinds, especially
the flutes - a combination I found very exciting. The orchestra acted as
a kind of echo chamber to the solo line, sustaining pitches but also
multiplying chords both below and above that line and constantly modifying
textures. What struck me very forcibly was that all one's associations of
the sax with jazz somehow fell away - it was as though it was a completely
different instrument, far more lyrical in feeling.
Very different was the next piece, Sequenza XII for solo bassoon. This
is an amazing tour-de-force for both composer and instrumentalist. It
began with a long descending phrase all sustained as one extended note,
but later used the entire tessitura of the bassoon. It zoomed from one
end of the register to the other with amazing glissandi. At times a long
sustained note was reminiscent of the drone in the bagpipes, with all the
time elaborate staccato effects occuring simultaneously. And at no time
did the soloist appear to draw breath! This in a piece that lasts nearly
20 minutes. It was no surprise to learn that it was composed for this
particular player; there must be very few in the world who could tackle it.
After intermission we returned for Coro for voices and instruments. It is
based on a series of folk texts and some poems by Pablo Neruda: these were
given in the program but I did not want to be distracted by following them
in performance. The piece uses 40 singers and 40 instrumentalists which
are interspersed, with singers sitting next to individual players and also
woodwinds mixed up with the strings and brasses. Right and left of the
orchestra were two percussionists each equipped with a rack of gongs.
The piece begins very simply, with a solo soprano singing over rhythmic
piano accompaniment; then it spreads out with a shared vocal line, while
other instruments first echo the piano and then diverge widely on their
own paths. The individual voices are each twinned with an instrument:
soprano with a flute, a tenor with a horn, a baritone with a trombone, for
example. Then the whole chorus sings, and because each singer is placed
next to an instrumentalist there is a fully integrated tutti which sounds
utterly unlike any choral work I have ever heard. The whole piece is
intensely dramatic, with a number of overwhelming climaxes: the crashing
gongs combine with the ensemble in an effect of terrifying power. This
work seemed to me both utterly original and intensely moving. I felt very
fortunate to have heard it, partly because it must take an incredible
amount of rehearsal and is therefore not performed very often - but mainly
because it seems to me to be a major major work. I would travel a long way
to hear it again.
The Festival Hall was almost full, with an audience of all ages, and all
wildly enthusiastic. What a joy to see contemporary music eliciting so
much fervor! The concert was carried live on BBC 3, so it is possible
some listers heard it.
Julia Werthimer
California USA email: [log in to unmask]
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