The music of Luciano Berio is a rollercoaster ride of tonal color, striking contrasts among instruments and exploration of the sound possibilities of solo performers, small groups and orchestras. Berio was also interested in reprocessing his works in varied contexts, as is the case with the first two pieces of this remarkable recording, issued by the Col Legno label from Vienna.
A previous post here was on his astounding Sequenzas I-XIV, which dynamically expounded on solo instruments of various kinds and, here, Chemins I from 1965 and Chemins IIb from 1970 take those sequences for harp and viola and place them within an orchestral context. The result is a depth and richness to the pieces, spectacular as they previously were in isolation, that reinvents the works in notable ways, especially as the playing of these typically "softer" instruments interacts with the range of those around them.
The expansive Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, the juxtaposition of the keyboards and their relation to each other and the orchestral instruments. Berio once wrote that the traditional concerto was passé when he wrote this work in 1972 and 1973 because he felt that the relations between the orchestra and soloists were totally changed from the days of Baroque, Classical and Romantic composition. He noted that this piece was one in which "the soloist develops mobile, diversified, and very unstable relationships between themselves and with the soloists of the orchestra, creating chamber ensembles." While there are major contrasts in these interactions, which is exciting, if also disconcerting, the composer continued that "behind all these differences lies a unifying harmonic process," with the keyboards beginning alone "almost like a map consulted before starting a journey."
The final piece, Formazioni, is from the middle 1980s and the title is crystal clear, as Berio experimented with orchestral formations in arranging instrumental clusters and exploring, as one analysis stated, "relationships within the traditional families of instruments and the roles they are given to play," so that these are "defined and allotted in a new manner." The unfamiliar and unexpected become an exercise in resolution, for the performers and for the listener, and, as an amateur, this blogger can only really go on the feelings generated and they are of intrigue and the position of being unsettled, but ultimately invigorating, especially as Berio mines both space, the quietude of some passages and then jarring densities and great intensity.
These feelings are represented in the notes by Ferdinand Schmatz, an Austrian experimental poet and essayist, who seems to write in a free associative prose poetry for these first three pieces and a more structured and far more concise way with the last. Impressionistic throughout, Schmatz asks questions as well as offers his reactions. It is interesting to read notes that don't inform but share reactions and this listener could certainly relate to much of it.
