Mahler early Songs orch. Berio, Matthias Goerne

Two of the three sets of  Mahler early songs, arranged by Luciano Berio, for baritone and orchestra, with Matthias Goerne, the BBC SO and conductor Josep Pons, HERE on BBC Radio 3.

The Mahler songs start 50 minutes into the broadcast. Berio's orchestrations are interesting, because they are "Berio" though they are absolutely faithful to the spirit of Mahler's original songs for piano. Mahler himself worked from piano song to symphonic movement. Berio's arrangements were premiered at the Mahler Musikwochen in Toblach where serious Mahler minds meet. The two sets on this broadcast are 5 frühe Lieder (1986),and 6 frühe Lieder(1987).  Thomas Hampson made the first recording in January 1992, with Berio himself conducting the Philharmonia, London. It's still the classic, but Goerne and Pons should be strong competition. Goerne has been singing Mahler for more than 20 years - long before Mahler became fashionable. He sang the Rückert-Lieder which is is a treasured collector's item, never commercially released. Goerne's Ich bin der Welt abhanden geworden is moving : a great Mahler enthusiast chose it for her funeral.

Goerne's fondness for Mahler's early songs goes way back. In 2000, he did an unusual programme at the Wigmore Hall, mixing the early songs with songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn The songs date from 1880 to 1896, but, by grouping them by theme, Goerne brought out the connections between them. The earliest songs were not based on Brentano and von Arnim, but they all convey a sense of wonder. Wo die Schone Trumpeten blasen was followed by Erinnerung and Phantasie came after Urlicht. Der Tambourgs'll preceded Zu Strassbourg auf der Schanz. Thematic connections, and a reaffirmation of the way Mahler's morphed from song to symphony. Sixteen years later, Goerne's voice has matured. These Mahler/Berio songs are very well done indeed. Recently, Goerne sang Das Lied von der Erde in Austria, also with Josep Pons, in the tenor/baritone version. Though Fischer-Dieskau sang it several times, it's still "off the beaten track". But I think Goerne would be interesting.

FX Roth Luciano Berio Sinfonia

François-Xavier Roth conducted the LSO in Luciano Berio's Sinfonia at the Barbican Hall, London, the culmination of a two-concert series that also featured Ligeti Atmosphères, Thomas Adès  Chamber Symphony, Schoenberg Chamber Symphony (for contrast) and two world premieres, Darren Bloom's Dr Glaser's Experiment and Elizabeth Ogonek's Sleep and Remebrance. a weeping programme, and an audacious pairing of Adès  and Schoenberg. From Roth, we can always expect the extraordinary, As Luciano Berio said "The unexpected is always with us".

Berio's Sinfonia was written in 1968, one of those watershed years in history, like 1848, when the world seems to undergo a massive sea change even if the results aren't clear for a while. 1968 was also a pivotal year for music. I remember reading about The Raft of the Medusa, (read more |HERE) not yet realizing who Henze was - I was just a kid - but aware it was something I had to find out about.

Berio's Sinfonia symbolizes so much of what 1968 meant - openness and the will to explore,  a sense of endless possibilities, and an awareness that our perceptions of life are shaped by complex and multipole networks of human experience.

Berio describes the Sinfonia  as an "internal monologue" which makes a "harmonic journey". It flows, like a river, bringing in its wake the streams and springs which have enriched it, adapting them and changing them, surging ever forwards towards the freedom of the ocean. It's filled with subtle references to many things: to Cythera, one of the cradles of Greek civilization and the home of the goddess of regeneration.  Sinfonia is truly a "symphony that contains the world" but it is by no means just collage. It's so original that it rewards active, thoughtful listening. 

Quotes from Mahler's Symphony no 2 run through the Sinfonia, like a river, sometimes in full flow, sometimes underground.  Mahler 2 is called the "Resurrection" because it's based on the idea that death isn't an end but a stage on a journey to eternal life.  There are quotes from at least 15 other cpmposers, but specially significant  are references to Don, the first movement of Boulez's Pli selon Pli ( which means fold upon fold, ie, endless layers and permutations).  (Read more HERE)  Don means gift, so this is like a gift  from one composer to another. What has gone before shapes what is to come, but absolutely central is the idea that creativity never ends, but is reborn anew.  Stagnation is death.  Incidentally one of the best recordings of the Sinfonia was conducted by Boulez, who relished its audacity. 

"For the unexpected is always upon us"  illuminates the deliberately obscurantist miasma of the text, partly based on Samuel Beckett, though there are also phrases from Claude Lévi-Strauss, the anthropologist of myth. The style is often almost conversational.  so you're drawn into what's being spoken, only to be confronted by something elusively confusing. You navigate, as on the rapids of a river, by paying attention and being intuitive, Once I heard an apparently true anecdote about someone who built a machine that could write music.  Along came Berio, who twiddled a few knobs and buttons and created something genuinely original.  The machine's inventor was not pleased.  That's the difference between real art and fake.

Berio had a quiet sense of humour. When he quotes Mahler's Des Antonius von Paduas Fischpredikt (read more here) , he knows the fish don't understand and will keep fighting.  Perhaps Berio knew that some folk would never "get" Sinfonia, but he wasn't bothered as he didn't need to prove anything.  Traditionally -- if that's a word which can apply to someone as lively as Berio -- the texts have been semi-spoken at odd pitches, using tuning forks and impossibly clipped British accents, which adds to the sense of quixotic unreality. At the end, the performers name and thank each other -- reality playing tricks with art.

Berio's Sinfonia connects, too, to many other works of the period, such as Stockhausen's Hymnen  (read more HERE) and to Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Requiem for a Young Poet (Read more here).  All three pieces "open windows" in different ways onto other aspects of life, culture, history, literature and music. All attempt a creative and original synthesis of human existence. Not easy goals to achieve. Indeed, I'm not sure that music like that can be written today in times where so many prize insularity and fear diversity.  François-Xavier Roth strikes me as an ideal Sinfonia conductor because his background lies in the adventurousness of the baroque, which has animated his passion for the avant garde. (Read more HERE)   Feview of the second concert coming soon.

Luciano Berio Sinfonia "For the unexpected is always with us"

Luciano Berio, right,  with Schubert.  An apt point on which to start discussing Berio's Sinfonia (1968), a key work of modern times.  Today I watched again Frank Scheffer's film A Voyage to Cythera, which was ground breaking on first release. It remains fresh and challenging sixteen years later, an absolute must for anyone interested in the way artists absorb influences to enrich their own creative imaginations.  There are composers who do pick and mix, (one whom I shan't name) -- a symphony in one style, an opera in another, but being derivative is a dead end. Beware plagiarism, almost inevitably the mark of mediocrity. 

Good composers internalize and learn. Cythera  in mythology was the home of the goddess of renewal and  regeneration.  Thus the film starts with shots of a strange primordial-looking landscape out of which arise strains of Mahler’s Symphony no 2, a "Resurrection" in the deepest sense.  Berio's Sinfonia is no mere collage but a  strikingly original new work that defies conventional ideas of what a symphony "should" be.

Berio describes the Sinfonia  as an "internal monologue" which makes a "harmonic journey". It flows, like a river, bringing in its wake the streams and springs which have enriched it, adapting them and changing them, surging ever forwards towards the freedom of the ocean.  Like Mahler himself, Berio was cerebral. Berio is seen in his study, surrounded by scores and books, with a model ship on display. Riccardo Chailly, also highly focused and erudite, talks about Stravinsky and Schoenberg, who, in their different ways, progressed the direction of modern music. Composers don't operate in "schools".  Schoenberg's great achievement was to opens tonality outwards so others could develop things further.  In Sinfonia, there are references to at least 15 different composers, some quite subtle. There's a  quotation from Don, the first movement of Boulez's Pli selon Pli (fold upon fold).  It's a "gift"  from one master to another, both of them fascinated by multi-dimensional levels and perspectives, ever-changing flurries and eddies.  Incidentally one of the best recordings of the Sinfonia was conducted by Boulez, who relished the wit.

"For the unexpected is always upon us"  as a phrase rings out clearly, illuminating the deliberately obscurantist miasma of the text, partly based on Samuel Beckett, though there are also phrases from
Claude Lévi-Strauss, the anthropologist of myth. The style is often almost conversational.  so you're drawn into what's being spoken, only to be confronted by something elusively confusing. You navigate, as on the rapids of a river, by paying attention and being intutitive,. Take nothing for granted:  meaning operates on many levels.  Once I heard an anecdote about someone who built a formidable machine that could invent music, electronically.  Along came Berio, who twiddled a few knobs and buttons and created something genuinely interesting.  He made real music by not being too up himself.

Berio had a quiet sense of humour. When he quotes Mahler's Des Antonius von Paduas Fischpredikt (read more here) , he knows the fish don't understand and will keep fighting. Perhaps Berio knew that some folk would never "get" Sinfonia, but so what as long as a few do.  Traditionally -- if that's a word which can apply to someone as lively as Berio -- the texts have been semi-spoken at odd pitches, using tuning forks and impossibly clipped British accents, which adds to the sense of quixotic unreality. At the end, the performers name and thank each other -- reality playing tricks with art. No performance of Berio's Sinfonia is ever quite the same, and you get something different each time.  "For the unexpected is always upon us".  

Berio Sinfonia Shostakovich Petrenko Prom 26

"For the unexpected is always upon us". a voice cries  out from the swirling complexity that is Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, conducted by Vassily Petrenko and played by the European Union Youth Orchestra at Prom  26. Some theories of the origin of the Universe deal with the concept of primordial chaos from which order, of a sort, emerged. Sinfonia might seem, at first, chaotic, but it is, in fact, a carefully thought through coming together of multiple different strands of human experience, operating independently, yet influencing the way we perceive the parts therein. There are quotes from Samuel Beckett and from Claude Lévi-Strauss, the anthropologist of myth. Musically, there are references to Mahler, Debussy, Hindemith, Strauss and even Stockhausen. Sounds interact, slipping in and out of consciousness. Berio even plays with time: there are sections in which performers can insert the present into the score. Hence, the singers of the London Voices say "Thank you Mr Petrenko" and refer to Shostakovich's Symphony no 4 with which Berio's Sinfonia shared the Prom.

Berio's Sinfonia is very much a piece of its time (1968-9), like Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Requiem for Doomed Youth (read more here)  Both quote Myakovsky, the revolutionary poet much loved by the radical left of the time. For a moment, many believed that a new world might emerge from the chaos of the post-war years. Both pieces create a grand collage of sound, referencing ideas and emotions beyong "pure" music. In our increasingly polarized world today, we should respect composers who believed in letting many different voices contribute.

Much is always made of Mahler's influence on Sinfonia, but unfortunately many who repeat the connection don't realize that the quote comes from Mahler's own quote from the song Sankt. Antonius Fischpredigt, in which Mahler is poking fun at a drunken saint preaching to a collection of fish who would never come together in Nature. Besides, the fish don't take heed. They go back to their fractious ways as soon as the song is ended. Berio is having fun, as was Mahler.  Berio is also alluding to Mahler's statement  that "a symphony contains the world". Perhaps it does, but an artist chooses his materials with purpose. There's nothing derivative in Sinfonia, despite the diverse sources: Berio was a true original.

That said, the European  Union Youth Orchestra should be credited for trying, and learning from the piece. It's not easy to pull off, but one hopes that the young players will have learned that there's more to music than repeating the usual fashionable clichés of Mahler influence.

Petrenko and the young orchestra followed with Shostakovich Symphony no 4, another piece too frequently discussed in connection with Mahler without much  insight. This symphony is huge - 12 basses - but this is as much part of the Zeitgeist of the 1930s in which it was written. Shostakovich admired Mahler, as did Benjamin Britten: they had a lot in common when they met. But Mahler didn't own the monopoly on funeral marches or on celestes. Like Berio, Shostakovich was writing an original work of his own.  Petrenko is a very good Shostakovich conductor. He approaches the piece with energy, bringing out the spartan  angularity in those syllabic footsteps, which could easily be heard as mocking Soviet conformity as the mimicking of Mahler. For all its vastness, this symphony has an asperity and bite that is all Shostakovich.

Games with Time : London Sinfonietta Prom 44

Delightful Londoin Sinfonietta experience at BBC Prom 44. Ligeti, Xenakis, Berio, Jonarthan Harvey, Louis Andriessen and John Cage. Mentally challenging but also intensely good fun. "Fun?" sneered someone not so long ago "That's not an acceptable term in music" But anyone who can't appreciate fun can't really appreciate creativity.To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "when a man is tired of fun, he's tired of life".

This Prom was also a challenge to creative thinking. No orchestra for Ligeti's Poème Symphonique, . Instead 100 metronomes furiously ticking away until their mechanisms run out of steam. Metronomes count time and tempo is a basic building block of music. Like Poème Electronique, it's an installation piece that breaks down rigid assumptions about how we process sound into music.

I've loved Luciano Berio's Sequenza V for years without knowing its background as it works fine as pure music. It's a study of breath control. The trombone emits tentative blips, then creates long, low lines that seem to probe into space. Trombones call to communicate. Byron Fulcher shows how his trombone can peak, sometimes like a moan, sometimes a long exhalation, probing space and reaching outwards. He's dressed as a clown, mocking the Victorian propriety of the Royal Albert Hall. But it's also a reference to a famous clown who lived near Luciano Berio when Berio was a boy. Berio liked humour because it was anti-authoritarian and broke down barriers.

Xenakis Phlegra  refers to the clash between the Gods of Greece and their predecessors, the Titans. Obviously it's not "pictorial" but a confrontation between jagged,  angular pulses and more complex emanations. Woodwinds, brass and percussion weave zigzags  around each other.. Gutsy, "wooden" sounds from the strings. A huge, elliptical emanation from the brass, then a strange blast that suddenly deflates. There's even a snatch of melody, a brief reprise before the piece speeds up maniacally, and ends with pulsating short signals, like transmissions from distant planets.

In Jonathan Harvey's  Mortuos plango, vivos voco, technology is the instrument. A boy's voice sings agains ta recording of  tolling cathedral bells. But the boy himself is now an adult. while his voice rermains that of a child, recorded when the piece was first created. Harvey is playing with time, for what we hear is both something frozen in the past and reconstituted  anew in performance.

Many of the themes in Prom 44 pulled together in Louis Andriessen's  De Snelheid (Velocity) (1984). Two identical groups (saxophone, brass, piano at the sides, flutes, harps, keyboards in the front and centre back what Andriessen calls "Buddha", woodblock percussion that operates as a giant metronome. Regular, unvarying pulse, but one which speeds up quicker and quicker until you can't count the beats. Any faster and the player might disintegrate. It's gloriously punchy and exuberant, but must be hell to play and keep together. The London Sinfonietta have Andriessen's idiom under their skins, so to speak, and have been playing him for years. André Ridder conducted, stylishly.

And then silence. Or not.  After 60 years, John Cage's notorious 4'33 still draws howls of rage from fundamentalists who don't think about what they listen to.  Cage makes us think about the art of listening, why and how we process what we hear around us. 4'33 is like a Cage Musicircus, where we're presented with layers of multiple stimuli. Every "performance" is unique, created by chance and happenstance. Unfortunately at the Proms everyone keeps reverently silent which defeats the purpose. But 4'33 is "music you can perform at home" at any time.  Indeed, in our 24/7 world of mass instant communication, ruled by technology, we need to heed Cage more than ever.

This Prom ended as performance art, volunteers texting randomly, like in an installation space. A cheeky concept!  But fun.

photo : Peter Forster