Post by erik on Apr 23, 2022 12:17:43 GMT -5
Arguably the most important Italian composer of the mid-to-late 20th century was Luciano Berio; and one of his most prominent works is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight.
Berio: SINFONIA
One of the most popular of all modern composers from any country in the second half of the 20th century, in this case Italy, Luciano Berio did quite a bit to expand the parameters of modern music, especially during the 1960’s, when he was very much in-demand in the United States. Berio’s time in America included time at Tanglewood in 1960, and, at the invitation of French composer Darius Milhaud, he also acquired a teaching post at Mills College in Oakland, California. Among his compositions that gained fairly instant popularity in his time was his 1968 work “Sinfonia”, scored for a very large modern orchestra and an eight-voice ensemble (for its premiere, the voices were the Swingle Singers). In the five-movement work, Berio also pays considerable homages to other artists. The first movement takes its text from the “The Raw And The Cooked” by the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss; while the second movement is “O King”, which was dedicated to the memory of the recently-slain Martin Luther King. The third movement integrates elements of the scherzo of Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony (#2), as well as many others (including references to Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique”). And the fourth and fifth movements hark back to the first two movements. The composer premiered a four-movement version of “Sinfonia” at Lincoln Center on October 10, 1968 with the Swingle Singers and the New York Philharmonic; he added the additional ending fifth movement to balance out its four predecessors in 1969 for performances at that year’s BBC Proms. The final version of “Sinfonia”, all five movements, was first heard under Leonard Bernstein’s direction at the Lincoln Center on October 8, 1970, and was arguably Berio’s biggest success. The composer would continue to extend himself with other unique works, most notably the 1989 “Rendering”, which was based on the sketches of Franz Schubert’s proposed Tenth Symphony.
Electric Phoenix Vocal Ensemble
Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam/RICCARDO CHAILLY (London/Decca)
Included:
FOLK SONGS (Mezzo-Soprano: JARD VAN NES)
FORMAZIONI
Berio: SINFONIA
One of the most popular of all modern composers from any country in the second half of the 20th century, in this case Italy, Luciano Berio did quite a bit to expand the parameters of modern music, especially during the 1960’s, when he was very much in-demand in the United States. Berio’s time in America included time at Tanglewood in 1960, and, at the invitation of French composer Darius Milhaud, he also acquired a teaching post at Mills College in Oakland, California. Among his compositions that gained fairly instant popularity in his time was his 1968 work “Sinfonia”, scored for a very large modern orchestra and an eight-voice ensemble (for its premiere, the voices were the Swingle Singers). In the five-movement work, Berio also pays considerable homages to other artists. The first movement takes its text from the “The Raw And The Cooked” by the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss; while the second movement is “O King”, which was dedicated to the memory of the recently-slain Martin Luther King. The third movement integrates elements of the scherzo of Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony (#2), as well as many others (including references to Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique”). And the fourth and fifth movements hark back to the first two movements. The composer premiered a four-movement version of “Sinfonia” at Lincoln Center on October 10, 1968 with the Swingle Singers and the New York Philharmonic; he added the additional ending fifth movement to balance out its four predecessors in 1969 for performances at that year’s BBC Proms. The final version of “Sinfonia”, all five movements, was first heard under Leonard Bernstein’s direction at the Lincoln Center on October 8, 1970, and was arguably Berio’s biggest success. The composer would continue to extend himself with other unique works, most notably the 1989 “Rendering”, which was based on the sketches of Franz Schubert’s proposed Tenth Symphony.
Electric Phoenix Vocal Ensemble
Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam/RICCARDO CHAILLY (London/Decca)
Included:
FOLK SONGS (Mezzo-Soprano: JARD VAN NES)
FORMAZIONI