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]