Folk Songs (Berio)
Folk Songs is a song cycle by the Italian composer Luciano Berio composed in 1964. It consists of arrangements of folk music from various countries and other songs, forming "a tribute to the extraordinary artistry" of the American singer Cathy Berberian, a specialist in Berio's music. It is scored for voice, flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet, harp, viola, cello, and percussion (two players).[1] The composer arranged it for a large orchestra in 1973.[2]
Background
Two of the songs in the cycle, "La donna ideale" and "Ballo", were composed in 1947 by Berio during his second year at the
The Folk Songs cycle was commissioned by
Songs
The full list of songs in the cycle is as follows:
- "Black Is the Colour" (John Jacob Niles, USA)
- "I Wonder as I Wander" (John Jacob Niles, USA)
- "Loosin yelav" (Armenia)
- "Rossignolet du bois" (France)
- "A la femminisca" (Sicily, Italy)
- "La donna ideale" (Luciano Berio, Italy)
- "Ballo" (Luciano Berio, Italy)
- "Motettu de tristura" (Sardinia)
- "Malurous qu'o uno fenno" (Auvergne, France)
- "Lo fiolairé" (Auvergne, France)
- "Azerbaijan Love Song" (Azerbaijan)
The first two of the Folk Songs are not actual folk songs. "
Armenia, the country of Berberian's ancestors, provided the third song, "Loosin yelav", which describes the rising of the moon. In the French song "Rossignolet du bois", accompanied only by the clarinet at first but later by the harp and crotales,[2] a nightingale advises an inquiring lover to sing his serenades two hours after midnight, and identifies the "apples" in his garden as the moon and the sun. A sustained chord colored by the striking of automobile spring coils bridges this song to the next one, the old Sicilian song "A la femminisca", sung by fishermen's wives as they wait at the docks.
Like the first two songs, the sixth, "La Donna Ideale", and the seventh, "Ballo", come not from anonymous folk bards but from Berio himself (see background section above). The old Genoese dialect folk poem "The Ideal Woman" says that if you find a woman at once well-born, well-mannered, well-formed and with a good dowry, for God's sake don't let her get away. "The Ball", another old Italian poem, says that the wisest of men lose their heads over love, but love resists the sun and ice and all else.
"Motettu de tristura" comes from Sardinia[3] and apostrophizes the nightingale: "How you resemble me as I weep for my lover... When they bury me, sing me this song."
The next two songs are also found in Joseph Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne and are in the Occitan language. "Malurous qu'o uno fenno" poses the eternal marital paradox: he with no spouse seeks one, and he with one wishes he had none. A cello echoing the improvisation at the opening of the suite introduces "Lo Fïolairé", in which a girl at her spinning wheel sings of exchanging kisses with a shepherd.
Berberian discovered the last song, known in the suite as "Azerbaijan Love Song", on a
Recordings
- 1971: Luciano Berio, Luciano Berio Conducts His "Epifanie" And "Folk Songs", BBC Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Ensemble, Cathy Berberian, soprano (RCA Red Seal LSC 3189)
- 1990: Luciano Berio, Formazioni, Folk Songs & Sinfonia, Ricardo Chailly, mezzo-soprano: Jard van Nes, (Decca 4258322)
- 1996: Luciano Berio, Folk Songs per voce e orchestra, Luisa Castellani, voice, Orchestra da Camera Italiana, Alberto Veronesi, conductor (CD OCG 004)
- 1997: Luciano Berio, Folk Songs per voce, flauto, clarinetto, 2 percussioni, arpa, viola, violoncello, Luisa Castellani, voice, Mauro Ceccanti, conductor (CD Arts Music GMBH 47376-2)
See also
- Ayre (Golijov), 2005
Notes
- ^ Folk Songs in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- ^ a b c d e f g "Program notes for performances by the Concertgebouw for 10–11 february 2007" (PDF). Barbican Centre. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 July 2009. Retrieved 26 July 2010. These program notes also contain a full set of lyrics with English translations.
- ^ Salvatore Cambosu, Miele amaro, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1954, 176–177; Giulio Fara, L'anima della Sardegna: la musica tradizionale, Roma, Istituto delle Edizioni Accademiche, 1940, 58: in Giulio Angioni, L'usignolo triste, in Tutti dicono Sardegna, Cagliari-Sassari, EDeS, 1990, 116–119
References
- Backsleeve of 1967 RCA record LSC-3189.