Luciano Berio
1925
From: Eliott Fisk Program Notes
To achieve extraordinary musical complexities upon a conventional musical instrument using conventional notation in todays music has been successfully accomplished by Italy's foremost contemporary composer, Luciano Berio. He began writing the sequenze series in 1958 dedicating each work to a virtuoso performer. Besides being concerned with the physical activity of making music, Berio at times requires action of a more theatrical kind. The choreography of the hands and fingers in Sequenza XI is such a drama unfolding on the stage. No tricks, devices, gadgets or thingamagigs. Simply, the making of music.
In the book, "Two Interviews," (Marion Boyars, 1985), Berio remarks on virtuosity and the unifying elements of the sequenze: "I hold a great respect for virtuosity even if this word may provoke derisive smiles and conjure up the picture of an elegant and rather diaphanous man with agile fingers and an empty head. Virtuosity often arises out of a conflict, a tension between the musical idea and the instrument, between concept and musical substance. As is well known, virtuosity can come to the fore when a concern for technique and stereotyped instrumental gestures gets the better of the idea, as in Paganini's work - which I'm very fond of, but which didn't really shake up the history of music, although it did contribute to the development of violin technique. Another instance where tension arises is when the novelty and the complexity of musical thought - with its equally complex and diverse expressive dimensions - imposes changes in the relationship with the instrument, often necessitating a novel technical solution (as in Bach's Violin Partitas, Beethoven's last piano works, Debussy, Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, etc.), where the interpreter is required to perform at an extremely high level of technical and intellectual virtuosity. Finally, as I've often emphasized, anyone worth calling a virtuoso these days has to be a musician capable of moving within a broad historical perspective and of resolving the tension between the creativity of yesterday and today. My own Sequenzas are always written with this sort of interpreter in mind, whose virtuosity is, above all, a virtuosity of knowledge. (I've got no interest in, or patience for those who "specialize" in contemporary music.) Another unifying element in the Sequenzas is my own awareness that musical instruments can't really be changed, destroyed or invented. I am very much attracted by this slow and dignified transformation of instruments and techniques across the centuries. This is perhaps why, in all of my Sequenzas, I have never tried to alter the nature of the instrument, nor to use it "against" its own nature. In fact, I have never been able to insert screws and rubbers between the strings of the piano, nor even to attach a contact microphone to a violin."
This work of the '80's represents a major contribution to the guitar repertoire and hopefully its image will be added to the Chemins series, fused with other musical instruments threading the energy of Sequenza XI.
Ron Purcell
- Internationl Guitar Research Archives
- California State University, Northridge
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