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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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2/12

Andrea remaschi*

andFrancesco

iomit

*

Via

Michelangelo

2

27058

Voghera (PV), Italy

[email protected]

tCentro Tempo

Reale

Villa Strozzi-Via Pisana 77

50143

Florence, Italy

[email protected]

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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3/12

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




4/12

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




5/12

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




6/12

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




7/12

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




8/12

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




9/12

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




10/12

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




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."

Concert

program.

Prato:Mu-

seo d'arte

contemporanea.

Berio,

L.

1996a.

"Thema (Omaggio

a

Joyce).

Elaborazione

elettroacustica della

voce

di

Cathy

Berberian u nastro

magnetico (1958).

Testo di

James

Joyce."

In

Degrada,

F.,

ed. Festival Luciano Berio. Milan: Teatro

alla

Scala,

pp.

138-139.

Berio,

L.

1996b.

"Centro

Tempo

Reale." In

Degrada,F.,

ed. Festival Luciano

Berio. Milan: Teatro alla

Scala,

pp.

140-141.

Dalmonte,

R. 1981. Luciano

Berio,

Intervista sulla mu-

sica.

Rome-Bari:Laterza.

Delalande, F. 1974. "L'Omaggioa Joycede Luciano

Berio."

Musique

en

jeu

15:45-54.

Giomi, F.,

D.

Meacci,

and K. Schwoon.

2003. "Live Elec-

tronics in LucianoBerio's

Music."

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Journal27(2):30-46.

Menezes,

F.

1993.

Un

essai

sur

la

composition

verbale

6lectronique. Visage

de

Luciano Berio. Modena:

Mucchi.

Osmond-Smith,

D.

1991.

Berio.

Oxford:OxfordUniver-

sity

Press.

Restagno, E.,

ed.

1995. Berio.

Turin:

EDT.

Rizzardi,V.,

and A. I. De Benedictis.

2000.

"A

Conversa-

tion with Luciano

Berio."

In

Rizzardi,

V.,

and A. I.

De Benedictis, eds. Nuova Musica alla Radio. Espe-

Cremaschi and Giomi

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rienze allo Studio di

Fonologia

della RAI di Milano

1954-1959. Rome:Cidim-ERI

2000,

pp.

160-174.

Scaldaferri,

N. 1994. Musica

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laboratorio

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stico. Lo Studio di

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e

la

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musicale

negli

anni

Cinquanta.

Lucca: LIM.

Scazzola,

A.

1996.

"La tecnica

6

un

mezzo,

la musica una

ragione.

Intervista

con Luciano

Berio." Telcma

6:67.

Stoianova,

I.

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21/22:13-22.

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

"parrrole" berio

Documents