Luciano Berio (1925-2003)
Coro, for 40 voices and 44 instruments (1975-1976)
Vito Žuraj (b. 1979)
Automatones, for large orchestra (2022-2023)
Chor und Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Sir Simon Rattle
rec. live, 13 October, 2023, Isarphilharmone im Gasteig, Munich, Germany
Libretto with German translation
BR Klassik 900650 [77]
Luciano Berio’s Coro for 40 voices paired with 44 instrumentalists is a classic of contemporary choral music. There is a specified layout, and the chorus does not form the familiar block of singing personnel behind the instruments. To support interaction, Berio requires specific placing of the individual singers and instruments on the platform. A singer sits next to an instrumentalist of roughly comparable timbre and range. Groups of alternating singers and players are arranged in a semicircle to achieve a blend of vocal and instrumental timbre. Berio felt that his work was best experienced live in a hall, not on a sound recording at home. That is discouraging for a CD reviewer.
The work has thirty-one numbers, some quite short, all separately tracked on this recording. Berio based the text of the piece on lyrics from different cultures and languages, and on texts by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, the only named writer. The composer employed folk verses without reference to original settings. Instead, they are rendered mostly in English translation, sometimes in French, Italian, German and Hebrew. The full chorus sings the Neruda settings, the folk sources are given to solo voices. The same text is used in different parts of the piece with different music, and conversely the same musical text can occur several times with different words.
There is a political dimension – anti-fascist. Neruda’s texts, in Spanish, allude to the Spanish Civil War; his cry Venid a ver la sangre por les calles (come and see the blood in the streets) is a refrain. Berio composed Coro after Neruda’s death and Pinochet’s military coup in 1973. Both events resonate in the work, which Berio wrote for the 1976 Donaueschingen Festival.
This recording was my introduction to Coro. I am very glad to have made its acquaintance in what to me seems a fine account of a complex piece. There is a persuasive balance between singers and instruments, and impact when needed from full chorus and from larger instrumental combinations. The work is atmospherically recorded, with an involving sense of a live performance. Sir Simon Rattle and his distinguished Bavarian Radio forces deliver a most committed performance.
The work is a challenging listen at first, but there is much in it that makes the listener want to meet that challenge. There have been earlier recordings, notably an SACD version on BIS by Norwegian forces led by Grete Pedersen, admired not least for the spectacular sound (review).
The title of the Slovenian composer Vito Žuraj’s Automatones refers to automata in Greek mythology, such as those the divine blacksmith Hephaestus created for his workshop, which were mistaken for living beings. Žuraj links them to the topical issue of article intelligence, and this suggests his complicated compositional approach to his work, well explained in an interview in the booklet. The piece has seven sections, in which a large orchestra displays a very varied range of sound; that inevitably oftes sounds mechanical, motored at times by accelerating rhythmic ostinato. The piano, accordion, harp and horn have soloistic roles. The harmonic and melodic sound world is very different from Berio’s, and often fascinating in its complexities.
The material of Automatone was partly from Žuraj’s first large opera, Blühen, left over unused. He was inspired by how Prokofiev used material from his opera The Fiery Angel to write the Third Symphony, still a quite independent work. The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle is Žuraj’s admiration for the work of Sir Simon Rattle, and his wish to show the conductor the new score. This impressive recording emphatically repays that faith in a chosen executant.
Both works are very well engineered. The booklet notes, from which much of the above is taken with thanks, are very valuable in providing context and background.
Roy Westbrook
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