4/5/20

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Luciano Berio (1925-2003)

The work of Italian composer Luciano Berio ranges from the incredibly difficult to the downright absurd. His most famous works include a set of 14 “Sequenzas,” each being a very demanding solo piece (all for a different instrument) with anything and everything from extended techniques to clown makeup (which is an integral part of Sequenza V), as well as a five movement work for orchestra and 8 voices titled Sinfonia which at times seems to convey a descent into madness. In addition to his acoustic works, Berio is also regarded as one of the pioneering composers of the 20th century in electronic music. The piece which I’ll be talking about today, however, is one which I believe to be one of his more brilliant yet very approachable works. No need to worry, though, as I have plenty of pieces in mind for future posts that will not be as approachable to the average listener as this piece.

Today’s piece, Rendering, is interesting in that a vast majority of the material is not Berio’s own (which is perhaps why so much of it sounds as if it could’ve been written 150 years before), and instead is taken from Franz Schubert’s sketches of a tenth symphony. Now I’m sure that in hindsight Schubert would not have embarked on a tenth symphony, as everyone knows that a composer must die sometime while working on their ninth symphony or shortly after completing it. Even so, piano sketches of this work were identified more than 100 years after Schubert’s death in the 1970’s, and in 1989-1990 Luciano Berio realized Schubert’s sketches in Rendering.

The piece is about 30-35 minutes in length and is written in three movements. While the opening seems to follow Schubert’s intentions just as he would have composed it, the piece takes an interesting turn when it approaches a section which has no original sketches. In these moments, Berio allows the music to seemingly ‘drift off’ and lose sight of the original ideas. Everything, from the amorphous harmonies to the timbres of the instruments seem to become clouded. Personally, the part of this that intrigues me the most is just how seamlessly Berio is able to ‘fall down the rabbit hole’ and transition to something that, when you listen to it out of context, is so foreign to Schubert’s material. The best analogy which I have heard of this effect comes from a close friend of mine in the composition studio at Vanderbilt, who compared these pockets of floating to a projector’s image going out of focus - you can still tell that something is happening and that it is connected to what you heard before, but you are unable to make out clear melodies or harmonies in the obscured fuzziness of it all. Each time it happens, I would even suggest that you try and take a second to imagine the piece still happening in real-time, but with a piece of frosted glass hindering you from hearing it any more clearly. This “out of focus” effect happens throughout the piece, coming and going but not interfering with the overall symphonic form.

Let’s get at least one thing clear about the piece - the aural experience is truly unlike any other piece, combining the characteristic sound of the earlier Romantic Era with a musical effect that could really only be executed by someone of Berio’s time. What I find to be equally impressive with this piece, however, is knowing how aware Berio had to be of a listener’s experience to write this. The continuity of it all is not to be understated - with all the phases in and out of focus, each time Schubert’s music fades it does so in a way that is gradual and that seems to put distance between it and the listener. What I mean to say by this is that if the listener is not paying close attention, they could likely be fooled completely and imagine that the original music is still going. Berio’s understanding of the real-time effect is clear; without it the transitions would almost certainly come across as more clunky or less nuanced. That is hard to achieve as a composer (or as any type of artist), as they spend so much time polishing a work that it is often hard to step back and listen with objective ears. Below I am linking my favorite recording of Rendering by the Orchestre de Paris, but I am not adding a video with the score. I would highly encourage giving the piece a listen without any visual preparation of where the piece is headed. If the piece intrigues you and you would like to follow the score of the piece as you listen a second time, that video can be found here.