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"Parrrole": Berio's Words on Music TechnologyAuthor(s): Andrea Cremaschi and Francesco GiomiSource: Computer Music Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), pp. 26-36Published by: MIT Press
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8/17/2019 "Parrrole" Berio
2/12
Andrea remaschi*
andFrancesco
iomit
*
Via
Michelangelo
2
27058
Voghera (PV), Italy
andreacremaschi@tiscali.it
tCentro Tempo
Reale
Villa Strozzi-Via Pisana 77
50143
Florence, Italy
fg@centrotemporeale.it
Parrrole B e r i o s W o r d s
o u s i c
echnology
Numbers
in
music,
from
Aristotle to the
late Middle
Ages,
were inhabited
by
heaven
and
earth,
by
the entire universe.
Nowadays,
numbers are
uninhabited,
or
rather, inhabited at will; sometimes
they
are
metaphors,
or
alibis,
or some-
thing
else.
-Luciano
Berio
(Rizzard
and De
Benedictis
2000, p. 164)
For
fifty
years,
Luciano Berio
(1925-2003)
(see
Fig-
ure
1)
worked with music
technology, beginning
with the now distant concert
on
October
28, 1952,
where he heard his first
piece
of
tape music,
and
extending
to the recent works
Ofanim, Outis,
Cronaca del
Luogo,
and Altra voce. It was not al-
ways
a
steady relationship;
moments of extraordi-
nary creativity
were
mixed
with moments of
apparent
disinterest in
technology resulting
from
problems posed
by
the electronic
manipulation
of
sound.
Nevertheless,
it was an
enduring
relation-
ship-surviving
even to
recent
years-thanks
to
Berio's
personal
interest
in
live
electronics,
which
led
to
the creation
of
new masterworks.
This
very relationship
and the theoretical
appara-
tus that
developed
is
the
focus of this article. This
is not
meant to be a
musicological study,
but
rather a
tribute,
a
brief
retrospective.
It is
mostly
composed
of
quotations
taken from
essays
or
inter-
views in order to
cover the entire are of Berio's
pro-
duction,
and it
is
organized
as a sort of
multi-voiced
dialogue.
Therefore,
there is
no
sys-
tematic
purpose,
nor is
there
a
desire to
present
an
analysis
of Berio's music. We refer the
reader will-
ing
to
investigate
the
matter
deeper
to a number
of
contributions on
specific subjects,
including
Berio
(1956),
Delalande
(1974),
Berio
(1975),
Vidolin
(1992),
Menezes
(1993),
Scaldaferri
(1994),
and
Computer
Music
Journal,28:1, pp. 26-36,
Spring
2004
? 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Giomi et al.
(2003).
Further historical and
biograph-
ical information can be found
online at the Univer-
sal Edition Web
site
(www.uemusic.at)
and in
some
comprehensive
studies about the
composer,
includ-
ing Stoianova (1985), Osmond-Smith (1991), and
Restagno (1995).
It is
perhaps
still too
early
to take stock of Be-
rio's musical and theoretical contributions to the
field of
electroacoustic music. Given the
variety
of
solutions,
techniques,
and
aesthetics
Berio
used,
a
comprehensive
examination of his work is
likely
to
be somewhat
disorienting. Nonetheless,
it is
possi-
ble to trace certain
hypotheses
and lines of research
that
characterized Berio's
language
from the
very
beginning.
One of these is
surely
the
centrality
of
the act of
creation and its absolute preeminence in his tech-
nological
inquiries-the centrality
of
the music
it-
self
in
comparison
to its
productive
mechanisms.
In
this,
obviously,
he
never intended to devalue the
technological
component (without
which of course
his electroacoustic music would not
exist),
but
rather to reaffirm the role of the
composer
as crea-
tor, particularly
when faced with the vast
possibili-
ties of electronic means.
Another
characteristic is his criticism of
those
who
consider the electroacoustic
resources avail-
able as a
simple
"sampler" programmed
with
new
sounds. The revolution in new technologies has
brought
us far
beyond this,
as is
clearly
evident in
the
generation
of new musical
processes,
in the si-
multaneous
control of micro- and
macro-
structures,
and thus in the
elimination,
as we will
see,
of a
dualistic
conception
of the
material. For
Berio,
not
to understand how we
arrived
at
this rev-
olution is one of
the most serious
dangers
that can
befall a
composer.
As will become
evident,
central to Berio's
think-
ing
was his desire to
create a
continuity
between
electroacoustic music and
instrumental music. He
imagined no clear separation between genres nor
26
Computer
Music
Journal
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8/17/2019 "Parrrole" Berio
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Figure
1.
Luciano Berio.
?
Universal
Edition/
Eric
Marinitsch.
??:.?e:.1::~.;~?~s.;x-rn~
-
: ? ??
??-*?
-ii?.r~.
i :.:
;*
...~
:,???
jF1
id81Bii?i ::
:I;
???::;;:::~:::
i??i?~ii
between means of
production,
but rather creative
acts that are
fundamentally
defined
by
the
imagina-
tions of
composers
and
by
their
capacities
to inte-
grate
various materials and memories
they bring
to
music.
Many
other
dilemmas that Berio addressedwill
be
easily
traceable
in
the citations that follow. We
therefore leave it to the composer himself to intro-
duce the
topic
of
this
article. This
first
essay,
from
1976,
serves as a sort of "balance sheet" for the
first
twenty-five years
of the
history
of electro-
acoustic music. At the time he wrote this
essay,
Berio was
midway through
his
career,
both
crea-
tively
and
theoretically.
Parrrole
For
some time
now,
electronic music has not
been news. We discuss it less
than ever and it
is rare to meet musicians who
still
speak
of it
with that
optimistic,
futuristic
vocabulary
of
the
1950s,
who embrace it as the banner of the
avant-garde,
as the
symbol
of liberation from
the
slavery
of instrumental academia. Not
only
is it difficult to find someone still
willing
to
defend and describe the infinite
possibilities
of
electronic music and the
lusty
cheek-to-cheek
relationship
of the musician to sonic
material,
it
has become
quite
difficult to use and to de-
fine the term
itself,
electronic music. We can
no
longer
define it
solely by
its
methods,
in
constant and
rapid
evolution,
nor can we de-
fine it
according
to its
general
principles,
by
now shared
by
almost
every
form of musical
thought.
Electronic
music,
in a certain
sense,
no
longer
exists because
it is
everywhere
and is a
part
of
everyday
musical
thought.
We can de-
scribe the
specific techniques
but we can no
longer
hold electronic music
up
as the antithe-
sis of other modes and
conceptions
of musical
creation. Electronic music has
in
fact contrib-
uted
to
developing
a
unitary
vision of musical
process,
to
concretely overcoming
the har-
monic-timbral
dichotomy
and to
discovering
a
true,
musical
homogeneity
and
continuity
among extremely
diverse acoustic
characters,
whether
they
be
produced by
voices,
instru-
ments,
electronic
generators,
or other means.
As a
result,
a musician of
today
who does
not
explore
the
world
of electronic music
is
necessarily incomplete.
In
the same
way,
a
musician
who
ignores
voices and
instruments
to concentrate
only
on sounds
produced
and
transformed
electronically
is not a total musi-
cian. Not
surprisingly,
the most
important
"electronic"
works
of
the last
twenty-five
years
are those that have
sought
a mediation
between the acoustic dimension and another
realm-those that
expanded
the
continuity
be-
tween "electronic" sounds and "natural"
sounds, enabling
interaction between the dif-
ferent
levels
through reciprocal
transformation.
So,
electronic music is not news
today
because
it is an
integral part
of that
factory
of
meaning,
of
relationships,
and of
expression
that we con-
tinue to call music.
The first works of electronic music in the
1950s
were as if
wrapped
in
silence,
not
only
because
the concert halls that
occasionally
hosted them were often
empty,
but
also be-
cause
they
did not make reference to the musi-
cal work of humans.
They
lacked the
well-known behaviors associated with musical
legacy.
Often,
these electronic
works were like
bottles tossed in the
sea; only
some contained
a
message
that was then
picked up
and trans-
formed.
(Berio 1976a,
pp. vii-viii)
Cremaschi and Giomi
27
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8/17/2019 "Parrrole" Berio
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In
My
Beginning
We now return to the
story
of Berio's
personal,
al-
most fortuitous
introduction
to electronic music in
1952.
In
the
succeeding years,
his efforts
expanded
on this
first
experience, culminating
in the creation
of the Studio di
Fonologia (1955)
at the
Radio
Audi-
zioni Italiane
(RAI)
in
Milan,
the
history
of which
is
already
well known.
My
first
contact
with the
possibility
of new
means of productions happened, quite
strangely,
in
1952
at the Museum of Modern
Art
in
New
York, during
a
concert
dedicated
for the
most
part
to
[Edgard]
Varbse
and
di-
rected
by Leopold
Stokowski. I
say "strangely,"
because
I
was
completely
in the
dark
about
what
[Werner] Meyer-Eppler
and
[Herbert]
Ei-
mert
were
preparing
in
Germany,
and I
knew
of what
Pierre Schaeffer was
doing
in
Paris
only by
word of mouth. In that
concert
in
New
York,
for
the first
time,
a
piece
of
tape
music
was
presented,
based
on
the
elementary manip-
ulation of piano sounds recorded on tape. It
was
called Sonic
Contours,
and
[Otto] Luening
and
[Vladimir] Ussachevsky
were the
compos-
ers. It
was
an
experience
without
any
musical
content,
perfectly
innocuous,
but I
remained
profoundly
struck
by
the new sound and
by
the
possibilities
of
magnetic recording-by
the
pos-
sibility
of
cutting
sound with scissors. When I
returned
to
Italy,
it
was
only
a
few
weeks be-
fore
I
began
to
experiment
with
the
tape
re-
corders at
RAI,
in
Corso
Sempione. Every type
of
functional music
became
a
pretext
for
elec-
troacoustic experimentation. The support of
Dr.
[Alfredo]
Lietti of RAI and
my
encounters
with
[Henri] Pousseur, [Bruno] Maderna,
and
[Karlheinz]
Stockhausen did the rest.
(Dal-
monte
1981,
pp. 133-134)
Back
in
Italy,
I
heard
of
works
by Meyer-
Eppler, Eimert, Stockhausen,
and I was
deeply
impressed.
I did not
propose any
particular
technical
or
musical
strategy yet,
but I found
myself-rather
like La Forza del Destino-
moving
between these two
poles:
a
subtractive
pole, concentrating on existing elements of
sound,
from which different
musical functions
can be derived
through
an
analysis;
and an
ad-
ditive
pole, essentially based,
in those
years,
on
the
addition and combination of sine
waves.
I
would
say
that
these two
conceptions,
these
two
different
operative setups,
influenced
for a
few
years
the work of
various studios in the
world,
as if it were an
ideological
alternative.
(Rizzardi
and De Benedictis
2000, p.
162)
Our work at the Studio di
Fonologia,
at least
when I was there, was not a synthesis between
two
existing
entities. I
prefer
to describe it as a
dialogue
between different
dimensions,
rather
than as
the
synthesis
of two
specific
entities.
(Rizzardi
and De Benedictis
2000, p. 164)
It
seemed to me that I was
flying
in
those
years.
I was
aware
of
embracing
and
beginning
to master
new
dimensions,
both musical and
acoustic,
that
appeared
to
me
through my early
studies and
my
early
electroacoustic
experi-
ences. In
that
period,
between 1953 and
1954,
I
truly regained the time I had lost from living
in the
city-particularly
during
the war-and
in
Milan,
in the
immediate
postwar period,
I
worked in
every possible
musical
occupation
to
survive.
My
musical ear was further
refined,
and,
for
example,
an orchestra
ceased to be the
orchestra,
an
historic
organization
of acoustic
families. I
was able
to reexamine the
relations
and the
degree
of
fusion or
separation every
time.
(Dalmonte 1981,
p. 68)
The work at
the Studio di
Fonologia (which
is why I am grateful to what was then the RAI)
allowed me
to
deepen
the
dialogue
between
musical
thought
and the acoustic or
morpho-
logical
dimension,
creating
an inner unanim-
ity,
not
superimposing language,
contributing
to the
overcoming
of
sterile and archaic
sepa-
rate
parameters
for which we all
wish.
(Riz-
zardi and De Benedictis
2000,
p. 172)
A
Veil Awave
Upon
the Waves
With the
end
of
the fecund
period
in Milan
(1961)
that saw the production of some of the most sig-
28
Computer
Music
Journal
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8/17/2019 "Parrrole" Berio
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nificant works
of electroacoustic music in his cata-
logue,
Berio's interests
seem to have moved
in
other
directions,
leaving
technological experimen-
tation in the
background
and
concentrating
more
on the
development
of his own
personal,
orchestral
technique.
This
detachment was
owing
more to
extra-musical
exigencies-the growing
obsoles-
cence
of
the
equipment
at the
Studio
di
Fonologia
and Berio's
move
to the United States-than
any-
thing. Still,
this
period
witnessed
a
turning point;
in the
following years,
Berio
avoided
retracing
his
steps, except
for brief
moments or for
very
particu-
lar or
limited
projects.
All
this
invites us to reflect
on the
maturing relationship
Berio
had
with
elec-
tronic music. This sometimes
problematic rapport,
marked
by
a search
for
new
outlets and for
new
ways
to use electronic
music,
saw a
composer
grap-
pling
with new
domain that held enormous
poten-
tial,
but that was
still,
in certain
aspects, quite
immature.
We notice first a clear
rejection
on Berio's
part
of
electronic
music as a
contrasting
dimension to
in-
strumental music. This stance did not reflect so
much the technical differences
between the
two,
but was based on much more
profound conceptual
problems
that
Berio saw
in
the
argument.
He
per-
ceived
a risk in the
splitting
up
of music
and
thought-of
music and
meaning,
in its broadest
sense. He
began
to reflect with more detachment
on the
conceptual,
aesthetic,
and
even social
reper-
cussions of
the introduction of these new methods
into musical
life.
They permitted
an incredible
ex-
pansion
of the acoustic
vocabulary,
but-as was ob-
vious to Berio from
the
beginning-had
not
equivalently brought a store of new musical
thoughts
that would
render this new
vocabulary
necessary.
If the
experience
of electronic music is
impor-
tant,
as
I
believe
it
is,
its
importance
does not
reside so much in the
discovery
of
new sounds.
It lies in the
possibility
that these
experiences
will allow the
composer
to extend the field of
sonic
phenomena
and
to
integrate
them into
his musical
thoughts
and
thus
to
overcome
the
dualistic
conception
of musical material.
(Berio
1996a, p. 138)
Even
today,
especially
when
dealing
with
new
technologies,
the
input
is still more im-
portant
than the
output.
This
is to
say
that it
is better to use a
digital system
for its
ability
to transform
already acquired
sound informa-
tion than
to
use
it to
produce
"new sounds." It
is
easy
to
produce
new
sounds,
but it is diffi-
cult,
for
now,
for
these sounds to emanate
from a new musical
thought,
as
they
often did
in
the 1950s.
New musical
thought, especially
when
espoused
via
new
technological
means,
has to be
conscious
of musical
experience
that
is not new. It is
perfectly
useless to contrast
a
computer
that controls a
digital system
to a
conductor who controls an orchestra. Most
im-
portant,
new
technologies
have to
find
ways
to
approach
the musical work
of the
performer
and to insert
themselves into this work-to ex-
tend
it and not to
oppose
it.
(Dalmonte 1981,
pp.
140-141)
We often
think that new
technologies
must
serve
primarily
to
produce
new
sounds,
be-
cause music needs new sounds. I think instead
that new sounds
are not so
important.
Sounds
do not
get
old like ideas
get
old. In
literature,
it
is not as
important
to
invent
new stories
as
it
is to create
conceptual
organisms
eventually
capable
of
generating
stories.
In
the studios
that use advanced
technology,
we should look
less toward
inventing
fresh sonorities and more
toward
defining
and
developing
new
concep-
tual
organisms capable
of
generating
new mu-
sical
processes
that will
eventually
be
recognized precisely
for their use
of
new
sounds.
Thus,
it is incorrect to contrast new
technologies
with traditional vocal and
instru-
mental
techniques.
From a
practical
point
of
view,
there
can be enormous
differences,
but
on a
conceptual
level,
the
two are
complemen-
tary
as
long
as their evolution is
always guided
by
musical
considerations.
(Berio 1996b, p. 140)
Hisssss
For
Berio,
then,
electronic music is not and cannot
be simply the utopian and vaguely solipsistic
Cremaschi
and
Giomi
29
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8/17/2019 "Parrrole" Berio
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search for fresh
sonorities,
disconnected from all
other
aspects
of one's musical life.
Everything
must
depend
on a
thought,
as
groundbreaking
as it is
grounded
in
history.
And
history
is made not
only
of musical forms
and
structures,
but
also of
ways
of
doing, ways
of
listening,
and social mechanisms
that cannot
be
ignored.
Contact with the
performer
and
recognition
of the
history
contained in the
sound of the
instruments are some of the elements
that Berio felt were
now essential
components
of
music.
He
recognized
the need to heed these indi-
cators as
stronger
than
ever.
When
composers
in the 1950s
acquired
oscilla-
tors, filters,
and
tape
recorders-all instruments
borrowed from other
fields-they
did
so
because
they
were motivated
by necessity
and saw in these
instruments a
natural outlet
for
their efforts.
With
the
advent of
synthesizers
and
the
exponential
growth
of the
possibilities
offered
by digital
sound
editors,
we entered into a frantic
chase
in
which
composers
end
up
constrained
by
the new
technol-
ogy. They
must
constantly upgrade
without
ever
having assimilated the preceding conquests. Stu-
dios
have
begun
to exist not to
produce music,
but
for
the sake of their
technology.
Composers
seem
to have
correspondently
fallen into a difficult situa-
tion,
because
they
lack the
premise,
the
conditions
that would
justify
the
adoption
of new means.
Technology
and musical
language
no
longer peace-
fully
coexist.
Machines
specifically produced
for electronic
music have
been around for a
long
time. The
prospective
relationship
between these ma-
chines and musical thought is certainly excit-
ing,
but it is
neither
easy
nor
peaceful.
It seems
to me that
for some time
now,
that relation-
ship
has
been resolved
only anecdotally.
Every
so
often,
certain works illuminate the relation-
ship
with an
original light,
but
they
fail to de-
fine
a line of
conduct.
They
cannot frame the
relationship
in a
poetic perspective,
and there-
fore,
they
cannot define a universal
element.
Composers
who
work
with new means in
electronic music
(computers
included)
tend to
place
their
pasts
in
parentheses.
They
do this
simply to do something different-something
exceptional. However, they
risk
losing
momen-
tarily
the
continuity
of their musical
decisions
and of their own
presence
....
Sometimes,
one
has the
impression
that
they
let
themselves
be
chosen
by
the
new
technologies
without
being
able to
establish, dialectically,
a
real
rapport
and a true
need for them. We can in fact
pass
indifferently
from one
system
to
another,
from
one
computer
to
another-they
are ever
faster,
more
sophisticated,
more
powerful,
and ever
smaller-without
really using musically
that
which
was there.
Technological development
(in
part owing
to industrial
applications)
tends,
by nature,
to be indifferent
to
musical consid-
erations and instead
follows
the
law of tech-
nology
and the law of the market: to
always
improve
and to
do so
at
all costs.
Musicians,
for their
part,
begin
to believe that
they
are im-
proving
only
when
they posses
ever more so-
phisticated
technology.
The fact is that
the
initial
push
for
improved
means must derive
from a
musical
conception.
It is
only
when be-
ginning
with this idea that
we
can
make
profitable
exchanges
between music and tech-
nology.
In
music,
and I
will never tire
of
saying this,
things
do not
get
better or worse.
They
evolve
and
they
are
transformed. We are
often
incapa-
ble of
grasping
the connection in these
trans-
formations and
sometimes,
we do not know
where to
look. We do not know
how
to
focus
our attention on the best
part
of
ourselves-on
that which we have
inside.
(Dalmonte
1981,
pp. 147-149)
In the
1950s
and
1960s,
analog
electronic
music
studios
(where
the
musician
manually
controlled
continuous electrical
waves that
were
analogous
to the forms
of sound
waves)
existed for
the
purpose
of
producing
musical
works.
During
the 1970s and even
before,
elec-
tronic
music studios
switched
technology
and
began
to
exist
only
for
their own
perfection.
In
short,
twenty
or
thirty years ago,
musicians
bent
nonmusical
technologies (oscillators,
fil-
ters,
tape recorders,
etc.)
to fit their
ideas and
their vision. In the last ten or fifteen years, the
30
Computer
Music
Journal
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technology
has
taken the
upper
hand.
Now,
composers
are struck dumb
by
new technolo-
gies
created
especially
for them.
In
other
words,
if
in the
past-even
the distant
past--
music was often the
testing
ground
and the
stimulus for scientific
research,
now it seems
that science has attracted
and taken
possession
of
music
....
With or without the new tech-
nologies,
electronic music
as a means for musi-
cal
thought
had arrived
at an
impasse.
The
new medium
has
taken
from us music as a
global
and total idea.
We lost music
in
not
only
its
technical, historical,
and
expressive
as-
pects,
but also its
immediacy
and its
social as-
pects.
We
realized,
for
example,
that an
audience assembled
to listen to
loudspeakers
is
not
particularly
exciting.
The
experience
of lis-
tening
to music in
public
is made
up
of
many
things-many
different conventions-and
has
roots
in
many
different
aspects
of
society
and
culture. We realized that a concert is not
only
the
piece,
not
only
a
musical
object
to listen
to,
even if said
piece proposes
"new sounds."
By
nature,
a
piece
of
music, by
itself,
is ineffec-
tive at
transforming listening
conventions
and
socio-musical
rapports.
Electronic
music
seemed no
longer
to
regard
a
definite
audience
as
necessary
....
For their
part,
musicians felt
that a
magnetic tape
or
patches
on a
synthe-
sizer
(in
their
fragility,
impermanence,
and
ephemerality,
and
in their
complete
detach-
ment from the usual
gestures
of a musical
work)
were
not the ideal "containers" for
a
type
of
thought
that had
always
been
elabo-
rated in terms of duration. (Dalmonte 1981,
pp.
137-140)
Perspectives
That which Berio
sought
in electronic means was
not the unheard
sound,
nor was
it the
grand
possi-
bilities of sound
manipulation
taken
by
them-
selves;
he
sought
new
continuity
within the
realm
of
thought,
at
a much
higher
level than the
specific
technology.
He
sought continuity
with the work
of
performers, who even today are the principal nur-
turers of musical life. He
sought continuity
with
the
past,
intended
not as a
model,
but as a context
of which the
composer
is asked to take notice.
Without
recognizing
the
importance
of this con-
text,
we
risk
losing
the
meaning
of
music,
both
in
its
linguistic
dimension and
in
general
in its social
dimension as well. The
duty
of
composers
and
technicians, therefore,
is
to anchor
the new means
to the musical
reality,
in all its
complexity.
It
certainly
is not
easy.
Similarly,
it is not
easy
to creatively use and develop one of the most
important aspects
of the new
digital
technolo-
gies generally-the ability
to
simultaneously
control the various
temporal
dimensions.
Composers
must
control,
with
equal
subtlety,
the
microscopic
dimension
(that
which we do
not
perceive
as such and is measured
in milli-
seconds),
the
global, macroscopic
dimension
(that
which
brings together
the different strata
of our
memories),
and the intermediate
dimen-
sion,
made of
the articulation of
perceivable
durations, rhythmic articulations, and,
on
oc-
casion, melodies. To create-to program a mu-
sically
coherent and
meaningful rapport
between these three dimensions-would
mean,
for
me,
to take
a
step
forward
in the
conquest
of a broader
musical
space.
In these last few
years,
we have all
experimented
with
the mu-
sical limits of the
technicians,
and
now,
it
seems to
me,
we are on the
point
of
experi-
menting
with the technical limits of the musi-
cians. And this is wonderful. It is
exactly
in
the slow and laborious research
of a
conver-
gence,
and the identification
(always
a bit uto-
pian) between science and music that new
things
are found.
We can
only
hope
to con-
tinue
to
coordinate
creatively
the acoustic
di-
mension and the musical dimension.
(Dalmonte 1981, pp. 150-151)
By
now
it is
clear
that
only
compositional
criteria based
on a
concrete
reference
united
with the sonic
material allow
the musician to
contemporaneously
coordinate within the vast
field
of
possibilities
in electronic music.
Only
compositional
criteria that
clearly
manifest
their rejection of immutable musical mate-
Cremaschi and Giomi 31
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rial-in which
there is an
implicit
possibility
of
modification from
one work
to the
next,
in
function
of its
incommutable
structural
neces-
sities-permit
the
composer
to
use the im-
mense
sonic richness
that
electronics
have
made
available in
all their
continuity.
And it is
precisely
the
observation of this
continuity
that has
made
possible
the
conception
of
musi-
cal forms
linked to
the
qualitative
evolution
of
the material.
We see
this as the
most
important
aspect
of
electronic music, as the functions of this quali-
tative
evolution can
be
organically
set
outside
of
the
specific
field
of electric
generation
of
sound. In
the
last few
years,
in
fact,
for
the
first
time,
we have heard
compositions
that
combine
instrumental and
electronic means.
Composers
have
attempted
to
create
an
or-
ganic
meeting
of
natural sounds
(including
the
human
voice)
and
synthetic
sounds;
Gesang
der
Jiinglinge by
Stockhausen,
Rimes
by
Pous-
seur,
and
Musica su
due
dimensioni
by
Ma-
derna all
come to
mind. I am
certain
that even
the
antinomy
of the
due
dimensioni-the
con-
trast
between
recorded
music
(electronic
mu-
sic)
and music
actually performed (instruments
as well as
sung
and
spoken
voice)-will
soon
be
overcome. The
possibility
of
intervening
in
the
internal
structure of
sound with
ever
greater
subtlety (which
means
an
improved
control in
"microtempo"
where
this
structure
is
articulated)
will
allow us to
perfectly
inte-
grate
synthetic
sounds into the
complexity
and
the relative
discontinuity
of
natural
phenom-
ena. This integration will happen according to
an
evolutionary process
that
is
simultaneously
broad and
refined. The
sinusoidal
sound
will be
only
the
beginning,
more or
less
symbolic,
of
one
musical
dimension
whose
complexity
and
relational
multiplicity
will
continuously
incor-
porate
all
the sonic
phenomena
of our
audible
world.
The
action-just
the
presence
of
the in-
terpreter
who
sings
or
plays-will
be
com-
pletely
assimilated
in this
enlargement
of the
musical
experience.
Listeners
will less
than
ever
before
be
put
in the
position
of
having
to
close their eyes to abandon themselves to mu-
sical
dreams; they
will be
invited
by
the
situa-
tion itself
to
consciously
participate
in
the
action.
For the sense
to become
intelligible,
they
will have
to follow
the
transformations
and the
unpredictable
proliferation
of
vocal
and
instrumental
sounds
through
various
modes of
practical
expression.
All the
while,
they
will
have to take
into consideration
the
more
or less
effective
presence
of a visible
ac-
tion on
the
part
of
the
performer.
This
dense
fabric of
relations will
unceasingly
stimulate
conscious reactions in
composers
and
perform-
ers alike.
And as it
energizes
an
ever
more
par-
ticipating
public,
it will
definitively purge
our
musical
customs
of
any
residual
duality....
Therefore,
I base
any
prospect
of a
musical
renewal of
contemporary
music
on the
enlarge-
ment of musical
media in
its
broadest
sense.
I
say
this without
in
any
way
impeding
the
no-
tion that
the
personal
styles
of
composers
will
always
act as the
bridge
between
a form
and
the
newly
altered
material. To
this
renovation
of
material and of form
of interest
to
acoustic
research ever
further
afield-we
can
connect
even
our
spiritual
problems.
This
will be a
sign
of a renewal
of the
conscience,
not
just
musi-
cally,
but of the
individual.
(Berio
1976b,
pp.
133-134)
I believe
that if
some
day
we
arrive at a
bet-
ter
understanding
between the different
genres
of
music,
between the different
strongholds
of
music
consumption,
we will
owe this in
part
to our
experiences
with
electronic
music.
We
will also owe a debt to those experiences that
tend
to
assimilate and to
deal
with the
world
of sounds
using
substantially
neutral
opera-
tions
indifferent
to
the intrinsic
cultural
con-
notations of
the
musical
material
they
would
like to
transform.
Often,
it is
those
investiga-
tions,
momentarily ignoring
the
"contents,"
that
eventually get
to the
depths
of
the
experi-
ence
and can
access the
true
meaning.
That
which
has
happened
and is
happening,
espe-
cially
today,
in
electronic
music,
is
somewhat
similar to
that
which
happened
in
linguistics,
where the search for a "universal" grammar
32
Computer
Music
Journal
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necessarily
relegated
the semantic and
expres-
sive
aspects
of
language
to
secondary impor-
tance. But that is another
discussion...
(Dalmonte
1981,
p. 135)
Imperthnthn
hnthnthn
"Another
discussion"-perhaps,
because
it
was ex-
actly
this
problem
of abstraction of contents
that,
in
the
early
1980s
(the
period
in
which the above
interview occurred), faced the musical community.
These
problems
were
already
"in the air" for some
time,
and the
composer
had
already
had the
oppor-
tunity
to
express
his
opinions
on them.
The
following
passage
comes from C'? musica e
musica,
a
cycle
of
television
programs
created and
directed
by
Berio for RAI. These took
place
in
1973,
a time
that,
as far as music
technology
is con-
cerned,
was a moment of
transition. The advent of
synthesizers
at
first,
and then the
appearance
of
digital technology, brought
about a radical
change
in
compositional conceptions
and in the
way
elec-
troacoustic studios operated. The computer took
the
place
of
the cumbersome machines
previously
in
use, and,
with
its
extreme
versatility, quickly
became the
privileged
instrument in the
composi-
tional world. All
this
opened
new avenues for the
manipulation
of
sound,
but it also
posed
new
prob-
lems,
of
which this
passage
is
testimony.
Some of
the
opinions
may
seem a
bit
dated,
especially
as
they
relate to the
conceptions
of that time
(particu-
larly
the
strong dichotomy
between
people
and
computers),
but
they
are
nonetheless indicative of
the direction
of Berio's
thoughts.
In
particular,
his
vision of
technology
as not
only
a
"tool,"
but also
as an
instrument of
thought-and
therefore as a
subject
capable
of
error-is
prescient.
He
envi-
sioned the
computer
not
simply
as a
machine for
the
elaboration of
data,
but as an instrument
acting
directly
in
creation, intending
this term
in
its
high-
est
and most multifaceted sense.
All this is
fascinating,
but is the
intelligence
of
a
computer
sufficient for
composing
music?
I
do not
intend to
reproduce
here
for the nth
time the
conflict
between
people
and ma-
chines; I only want to suggest that the intelli-
gence
of a
computer
remains
only
abstract
even
if it can simulate human
behavior-
abstract because
artificial
intelligence
is
based
only
on
reason,
or
better,
on
logic.
In
other
words,
computers
tend to
process
data
and in-
formation
without much
regard
for
the
circum-
stances or the context from
which
they
are
derived. Our
intelligence
is
capable
of
invent-
ing,
discovering,
and
creating precisely
because
it is
guided by
a human idea-an idea with
a
concrete
awareness of context. I would
say,
paradoxically,
that
computers
will
be further
integrated
into the creative
process,
and
not
only
in
music,
when
they
are able to make
mistakes; they
must err and correct
themselves
as all
humans,
including
those
who construct
computers
and those who make
music,
do.
(Berio
1973)
Listen
We now return to Berio's career, which we left just
after his
experiences
in Milan. In
1974,
Pierre Bou-
lez called
on Berio to
direct the
department
of elec-
troacoustic
music at the Institut
de Recherche et
Coordination
Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM),
a
po-
sition he held
until
1980.
These
years
were devoted
to
research and
intense
experimentation that,
even
if
they
left almost no
mark
in
his official
catalog
as
composer,
coincided with a
broadening
and
deepen-
ing
of
his
theoretical
writing.
A
number of the cita-
tions
included here derive from reflections in
those
years,
marked
by
a
systematic
rethinking
of the as-
sumptions of the 1950s and 1960s. Yet, it was in
these
years
that
Berio concentrated his
interests on
live
electronics.
(This
is
also thanks to the famous
4X
Synthesizer
by Giuseppe
Di
Giugno.)
Live elec-
tronics
seemed the
response
that best fit
Berio's
needs,
and he
wasted no time in
realizing
this
and
beginning
to
explore
the
consequences.
By 1987,
Berio's
numerous
attempts
to found a
new
center of
electroacoustic
production
in
Flor-
ence had
finally
come to
fruition.
Tempo
Reale was
born,
and Berio
expected
internationally
important
works to
emerge
from this new endeavor.
He
saw
Tempo Reale as the successor to the Studio di Fo-
Cremaschi
and
Giomi 33
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8/17/2019 "Parrrole" Berio
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nologia
from
thirty years
earlier. This testifies once
again
to his
undying
interest in
confronting
the
field of musical research. At the same
time,
as is
evident from the name of the
center,
its establish-
ment indicates the new tendencies that Berio was
then
beginning
to
contemplate.
Chief
among
these was the use of
space,
not
only
as a
simple parameter according
to
(by now)
dated
ideas,
but as the
physical
place
in
which
the
perfor-
mance occurs.
Berio visualized a
space
with its
own
properties,
that
the
performer
then
is
free to
accept, transform,
or reinvent.
When
confronting
these new
technologies,
it
seems to me
improper, today,
to think in terms
of
"good"
and "bad" acoustics and
of
venues
"more"
and "less"
adapted
to
musical
perfor-
mance.
Assuming
the absence of unforeseen
problems,
and
assuming
the
availability
of a
highly sophisticated system
for sound
process-
ing
and
reproduction,
I think that
today
we
could
even create music in real time
(and
lis-
ten to
it)
in the middle of the Sahara
Desert.
Today, a musical thought capable of identify-
ing
with these new
technologies
can
creatively
adapt
itself to
any
real
space,
musically
"legiti-
mate" or not. It can
also
explore
virtual
spaces
created
from those
others that remain acousti-
cally illusory.
The
idea of music as sonic archi-
tecture
is
losing
its
metaphoric
status;
it is
quickly becoming
the
reality, quantifiable
in
all
its
aspects,
whether it be a
cathedral,
a
bridge,
an
apartment building,
or their
respec-
tive,
virtual
reproductions. Yet,
we
are
always
dealing
with an elastic
architecture,
capable
of
re-adaptation to different environments. (Berio
1988, pp.
3-4)
Closely
related to
the
problem
of acoustic
space
is the
problem
of
listening processes
and the
recep-
tion of music.
In
this
case,
the new
technologies
can
play
a
beneficial role
in
the overhaul of certain
ingrained
habits and hence can extend
creativity
into
this realm as well.
For
example,
there is a terrain-almost a no-
man's land-that deserves
exploration:
listen-
ing.
We know
that,
concretely,
a
listening
strategy can be an internal dimension of the
musical
process,
in
proportion
to the
complex-
ity
of
the
perceived
connections the work is
able to
provoke.
Music
conceived
for
tradi-
tional instrumental and vocal
performance
tends to
implicate
more or
less standardized
collective
listening
situations
(concert hall,
theater, auditorium, etc.).
The new music tech-
nologies
instead do not
usually
impose
an ideal
listening
location tied to
permanent
criteria
of
collective
aggregation.Tempo
Reale is
particu-
larly engaged
in the
definition and
the
realiza-
tion of flexible acoustic spaces, new and-one
might say-virtual.
But it
also
proposes
to oc-
cupy musically-to
conquer
in the name of
music-real
spaces
not
originally
conceived
of
for
musical
performances:
own
squares,
streets,
buildings,
cloisters, valleys,
etc. The
spatialization
of sounds constitutes
perhaps
the newest and most
stimulating aspect
of our
efforts.
(Berio 1996b,
pp. 140-141)
Berio's final work seemed
to
be ever more di-
rected toward the
phenomenal
aspects
of
music,
to
the detriment of the research centered on inherent
structures
in music. Yet this was on the same
wavelength
as his most recent artistic endeavors
and his interests
in
other areas of
expression.
In
this
sense,
Tempo
Reale set
out,
in
Berio's
mind,
to
become
one of
the
principal
international think
tanks for music
technology,
particularly
in relation
to live electronics.
Here,
as at
the Studio
di Fonolo-
gia
and at
IRCAM,
the
composer
worked
closely
with technicians to
produce
instruments as
respon-
sive
as
possible
to
his
musical
exigencies.
He
sought
instruments that would
permit
the
creation
of the imaginaryspaces needed for his most recent
works.
And,
as
always,
it was the
musical ideas
that were
fundamental,
as Berio never tired of re-
peating.
Composers
cannot be
ignorant
of the tech-
niques they
want to use. A vision and a musi-
cal
project
must
develop
and move in a
technological
realm
organically
homogeneous
to both that
vision and
that
project.
The rea-
sons that lead a
composer
in one direction in-
stead of another
must
always
be musical
reasons. The field of research is immense, even
34
Computer
Music
Journal
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8/17/2019 "Parrrole" Berio
11/12
when it is
limited
to the
study
of a
particular
"instrument,"
and it is
appropriate
hat a com-
poser
work with
highly
specialized
technicians
in
applying technology
to music.
I
would be
tempted
to
say
that as an
organist
does not
necessarily
have to know how
to
construct
an
organ,
a
composer
does not
necessarily
have to
explore
all
the
technological implications
that
are
part
of the
digital
elaboration
of sound.
Technology
is the
means,
not
the
end. It is im-
portant that the composer does not become its
slave. It is
important
that the
composer's
vi-
sion and
project
are
musically
strong
and
con-
ceptually
sensible.
Composers,
like all
mortals,
never
stop learning.
We ask
only
that
they
know that which
they
need
to
know. Simi-
larly,
we ask
the technician to
be
capable
of
identifying musically
with the
composer.
(Scazzola 1996, p.
67)
InMyEnd s MyMusic
We return
in
the end to the
essay
cited in the be-
ginning
of this
article;
in this we find a
passage
that
summarizes, perhaps
in the
clearest
way,
Be-
rio's ideas
regarding
electroacoustic music.
This
constitutes
the ideal
conclusion for our
voyage
through
the words of the
composer along
the are of
his creative life.
I am often asked what is
the
sense,
the
pro-
found "why" of electronic music. Why are we
obliged
to
"compose
the sounds" instead of
just
composing
with the sounds?
Why
must we
take into consideration all
the characteristics
of
the acoustic
space
in
addition to the musical
elements?
Why
must we
consider
the
most
minimal
elements,
the most
elementary
ele-
ments,
as well as the most
global
ones?
I
am
convinced
that the
profound
sense of elec-
tronic music is the same as that of
any
other
experience:
it
reminds
us
of the
"human"
in
"humanity." (Berio 1976a, pp. vii-ix)
I Shall Leave
You
Now,
and Two
Loudspeakers
Will
Take
My
Place
References
Berio,
L.
1956.
"Studio di
Fonologia
Musicale." The Score
15:83.
Berio,
L.
1973. "Nuovo mondo."
C'b
musica e musica IX.
RAI-RadioTelevisione Italiana.
Berio,
L.
1975.
"Chants
parallbles."
Program
Bulletin
GRM 12:41-54.
Berio,
L. 1976a. "Prefazione." n
Pousseur,
H.,
ed.
La mu-
sica elettronica. Milan:
Feltrinelli,
pp.
vii-ix.
Berio,
L.
1976b. "Poesiae
musica-un'esperienza."
In
Pousseur,H.,
ed. Lamusica elettronica. Milan:
Feltri-
nelli, pp. 124-135.
Berio, L. 1988. "Ofanim."
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Prato:Mu-
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L.
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"Thema (Omaggio
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di
Cathy
Berberian u nastro
magnetico (1958).
Testo di
James
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In
Degrada,
F.,
ed. Festival Luciano Berio. Milan: Teatro
alla
Scala,
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138-139.
Berio,
L.
1996b.
"Centro
Tempo
Reale." In
Degrada,F.,
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Berio. Milan: Teatro alla
Scala,
pp.
140-141.
Dalmonte,
R. 1981. Luciano
Berio,
Intervista sulla mu-
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Rome-Bari:Laterza.
Delalande, F. 1974. "L'Omaggioa Joycede Luciano
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Musique
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D.
Meacci,
and K. Schwoon.
2003. "Live Elec-
tronics in LucianoBerio's
Music."
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Menezes,
F.
1993.
Un
essai
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la
composition
verbale
6lectronique. Visage
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Luciano Berio. Modena:
Mucchi.
Osmond-Smith,
D.
1991.
Berio.
Oxford:OxfordUniver-
sity
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Restagno, E.,
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1995. Berio.
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Rizzardi,V.,
and A. I. De Benedictis.
2000.
"A
Conversa-
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In
Rizzardi,
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Cremaschi and Giomi
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rienze allo Studio di
Fonologia
della RAI di Milano
1954-1959. Rome:Cidim-ERI
2000,
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160-174.
Scaldaferri,
N. 1994. Musica
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elettroacu-
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e
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Appendix
This
article,
as
already
mentioned in the introduc-
tion,
is a tribute to Luciano Berio.
Therefore,
ac-
cording
to his
usual
practice (even
in
non-musical
expression),
we decided
to
conceive
it
as
a
sort
of
musical structure. It
develops
on three
polyphonic
layers:
Berio's words
(arranged
ike concordantor
contrasting themes),
our
commentaries,
and the ti-
tles (used
as a third voice that
articulates,
intro-
duces,
or
"disturbs"
the
logical
flow
characterizing
the other
voices).
The
titles of the sections are
taken from the texts of Berio's electroacoustic
and
vocal
works. In
particular,
"Parrrole" omes
from
Visage (1961);
"In
My Beginning"
and
"In
My
End
Is
My
Music" come from
A-Ronne
(1974-75);
"A
Veil
Awave
Upon
the
Waves,""Hisssss,"
"Im-
perthnthn thnthnthn,"
and "Listen " aretaken
from Thema
(Omaggio
a
Joyce) (1958);
and
finally,
"Perspectives"
s
the title
of
a work for
tape
com-
posed
in
1957.
The final sentence
("I
shall leave
you
now..
.")
was uttered
by Leopold
Stokowski
to introduce the
tape
music concert in
New
York
on October
28,
1952.
The authors want to thank
Daniel
Mintz for
the
translation
and
Universal Edition for the
permis-
sion to
publish
Berio's
picture.
36
Computer
Music
Journal