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Home , Musical quotation, Sinfonia (Berio), Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)

Musical and Literary Quotations in the Third Movement of ’s

Richard Lee-Thai 30024611

MUSI 333: Late Romantic and Modern Music Dr. Freidemann Sallis Due Date: Friday, April 6th

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Luciano Berio (1925-2003) is an Italian composer whose works have explored serialism, extended vocal and instrumental techniques, electronic compositions, and quotation music. It is this latter aspect of quotation music that forms the focus of this essay. To illustrate how Berio approaches using musical and literary quotations, the third movement of Berio’s Sinfonia will be the central piece analyzed in this essay. However, it is first necessary to discuss notable developments in Berio’s compositional style that led up to the premiere of Sinfonia in 1968.

Berio’s earliest explorations into come from his studies at the Milan

Conservatory which began in 1945. In particular, he composed a Petite Suite for in 1947, which demonstrates an active imitation of a range of styles, including , Sergei

Prokofiev and the neoclassical language of an older generation of Italian composers.1 Berio also came to grips with the serial techniques of the Second Viennese School through studying with

Luigi Dallapiccola at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 1952 and analyzing his music.2 The result was an ambivalence towards the restrictive rules of serial orthodoxy. Berio’s approach was to establish a reservoir of pre-compositional resources through pitch-series and then letting his imagination guide his compositional process, whether that means transgressing or observing his pre-compositional resources. This illustrates the importance that Berio’s places on personal creativity and self-expression guiding the creation of music. He makes his position clear when he says that “it is poetics which guide discovery and not procedural attitudes.”3 Furthermore, he explains that while each individual carries with them “a mass of experiences,” it is important to be able to filter that mass to best their own needs and to more accurately represent themselves.4

1 David Osmond-Smith, Berio (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 4. 2 Osmond-Smith, Berio, 6. 3 Luciano Berio, “Composer on His Work: Meditation on a Twelve-Tone Horse,” in Classic Essays on Twentieth- Century Music: A Continuing Symposium (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996), 171. 4 Luciano Berio, Two Interviews (London: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1985), 66.

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The next significant development for Berio was an introduction to electronic music through composers such as Edgard Varèse, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and , as well as collaborating with Bruno Maderna to found an electronic studio in Milan in 1955. One of the most significant works to emerge from that studio is Berio’s : Omaggio a Joyce in

1958.5 This work used a limited sound source, in this case, a magnetic tape recording of Cathy

Berberian reading from the “Sirens” chapter of James Joyce’s . The intention of the

“Sirens” chapter is for Joyce to associate it with music. He achieves this by weaving song quotations and juxtaposing isolated images so that the reader can build their own new meanings in the ensuing narrative.6 Berio subjected Berberian’s words to a range of tape manipulations, including montage, intercutting, looping and tape delay, to break down the text to its component phonetic materials.7 The result was extending the musical quality of Joyce’s language to its logical conclusion by exploring the boundary of where sound loses its linguistic meaning and dissolves into purely musical meaning. It is notable that comprehensibility was treated as a compositional parameter because comprehensible speech does occasionally emerge, only to be quickly engulfed again. The process of tape manipulation in Thema: Omaggio a Joyce is an extension of Berio’s early interest in manipulating pre-existing material and reflects an interest in providing musical commentary on literary sources. Furthermore, comprehensibility of the literary and musical quotations will come to play an important factor in Sinfonia.

The last significant development in Berio’s compositional style that should be discussed is the influence of the Darmstadt School. Maderna was involved in the development of the

Darmstardt School since 1949 and this allowed Berio to be exposed to the radical new ways of

5 Elliot Schwartz and Daniel Godfrey, Music since 1945: issues, material, and literature (New York: Schirmer Books, 1993), 115. 6 Osmond-Smith, Berio, 62. 7 Elliot Schwartz and Daniel Godfrey, Music since 1945, 116.

3 | P a g e composition that were emerging from there. In particular, it was the notion that not just pitch could be serialized, but so could aspects of dynamics, articulations, timbre and rhythm. This was a phenomenon that Berio approached with “a characteristic mixture of curiosity and caution.”8

This type of ambivalence parallels his attitude towards the twelve-tone system he discovered through Dallapiccola. However, he was still inspired by the Darmstadt School of serial thought and along with his experimentations of electronic music, Berio explored these serial techniques in pieces such as Allelujah composed in 1956. In this piece, his goal was to create a polyphony by superimposing layers of orchestral sound. Additionally, he was interested in the “the aural experience of complexity” and “the new aesthetic regions to which such overloading of sensory input led.”9 However, his original aim of having polyphonic layers interact with each other was not met. Consequently, he ended up composing an Allelujah II in 1958, which radically reworked previous material and was successful in differentiating each sonic layer.10 The superimposition of multiple musical layers, fascination with complexity, and the process of reworking material are all important factors in Sinfonia.

The process of reworking old material relates to Berio’s central philosophy of “work in progress” where there is a continuous process of commentary and elaboration that proliferates from one piece to the next.11 For example, he has frequently adapted his own works, such as his

Chemins which are instrumental elaborations of his Sequenze, a series of solo works.12 This philosophy also comes from Berio’s engagement with the writing of Joyce, as previously seen with Berio’s setting of Ulysses. Joyce wrote installments of a “work in progress” over a period of

8 Osmond-Smith, Berio, 16. 9 Osmond-Smith, Berio, 19. 10 Osmond-Smith, Berio, 20. 11 Angela Ida De Benedictis, “Biography,” trans. Mark Weir, Centro Studi Luciano Berio, http://www.lucianoberio.org/en/node/1154 (accessed January 20, 2018). 12 David Osmond-Smith, Playing on words: a guide to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia (Cambridge: Royal Musical Association, 1985), 5.

4 | P a g e seventeen years that would eventually come to be published as Finnegans Wake. The text was often revised in the direction of greater complexity, such as adding layers upon layers of multilingual puns and associations.13 The result is a labyrinthine, stream-of-consciousness journey. Besides Joyce, Berio has a strong preoccupation with literature and in general, which informs his philosophy and compositions. The philosophy of a work in progress explains Berio’s interest in reworking music and literature, whether from his own output and or the output of another artist. All of this previous discussion has now established the appropriate context for analyzing Sinfonia.

Originally composed as a four-movement work for and eight amplified voices,

Sinfonia was premiered by the in 1968 for its 125th anniversary. In

Berio’s program notes for this piece, he explains that the title “bears no relationship to the classical form, but rather it must be understood in its etymological sense of ‘sounding together’ of different things, situations and meanings.”14 It incorporates a wealth of quotations from musical and literary sources, including Claude Levi-Strauss’ Le cru et le cuit, Berio’s O King

(1967), and ’s The Unnamable. Further demonstrating his desire of combining disparate elements into a unified form, Berio added a fifth movement months after the premiere which synthesizes elements from the previous four movements. Although the musical borrowing and influence found in each movement are all worthy of analysis, this essay will specifically focus on the third movement. The central purpose of this essay is to answer why Berio chose to use these specific musical and literary quotations in this movement. The approach will not be to provide an exhaustive analysis for every single quotation that is used, but rather to explain how

13 David Osmond-Smith, Playing on words, 4. 14 Luciano Berio, “Sinfonia (author’s note),” Centro Studi Luciano Berio, http://www.lucianoberio.org/node/1494?1683069894=1 (accessed January 22, 2018).

5 | P a g e the quotations are logically interconnected and carefully selected to create a larger narrative. This will be divided into an analysis of the relationships between musical quotations, between the text and music, and the work and the audience.

It is appropriate to first discuss the scherzo from ’s Second .

The scherzo forms the skeleton of the movement upon which layers of quotations are superimposed as commentary. In his program notes, Berio explains that: “The Mahler movement is treated like a generator - and also as a container - within whose framework a large number of musical characters and references is proliferated.”15 Although Berio had also considered using the last three movements of ’s String Quartet No. 14, and the second movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony, he settled on the scherzo.16 Berio explains that he wanted to analyze the piece through commentary and extension. Furthermore, he chose the

Mahler because “his music proliferates spontaneously.”17 These aspects can be related to Berio’s concept of a work in progress. Similar to Berio’s creation of Allelujah II and Chemins, Mahler’s scherzo is an elaboration of a pre-existing musical text. In this case, it is an expansion of

Mahler’s song Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt which narrates how Saint Anthony preaches to a congregation of the fishes, who are momentarily inspired, but return back to indulging in sin.18 This provides a reference to water and the notion that although art may uplift its audience, it will not change the way they behave. The theme of water and is one of the linking threads between the musical and literary quotations. This is initially introduced in the first movement through text from Levi-Strauss’ Le cru et le cuit that describe mythological origins of

15 Berio, “Sinfonia (author’s note).” 16 Berio, Interviews, 107. 17 Berio, Interviews, 107. 18 Osmond-Smith, Playing on words: a guide to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia (Cambridge: Royal Musical Association, 1985), 40.

6 | P a g e water. It is notable that the tempo indication for Mahler’s scherzo, In ruhig fließender Bewegung

(With quietly flowing movement), also alludes to the flowing of water. Indeed, Berio describes the presence of the scherzo in Sinfonia as “a river flowing through a constantly changing landscape.”19 As such, the theme of water is a good starting point for unpacking the complex relationships of the musical quotations.

Besides the Mahler scherzo itself, the other quotations that have connections with water are ’s (The Sea), Farben from ’s Five Pieces For

Orchestra, the drowning scene from ’s , and the second movement from

Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony.20 Each of these pieces suggest and characterize water in a different way, ranging from serenity to death. Starting with La Mer, it is notable that fragments from the second and third movements of La Mer appear much more frequently compared to the other musical quotations and again emphasize the theme of water as a linking thread.21 The second movement, Jeux de vagues (Play of waves), suggests the innocent and lighthearted aspect of water, whereas the third movement, Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the wind and sea), portrays the more tumultuous and destructive quality of water. The serene nature of water can be seen in Schoenberg’s Farben, which is given the programmatic title of “Summer Morning by a Lake” as well as the second movement of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony which is a “Scene by the Brook.” The most explicit association between water and death is the quotation from the drowning scene from Berg’s Wozzeck. It is important to note that along with water, death is also a theme that connects not just the third movement, but the Sinfonia as a whole.22

19 Berio, “Sinfonia (author’s note).” 20 Matthew Heap, “Keep Going: Narrative Continuity in Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia and Dillinger: An American Oratorio” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2012), 64-65. 21 Heap, “Keep Going”, 66. 22 Osmond-Smith, Playing on words, 2.

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References to death are introduced in the first movement where sang (blood) is one of the words emphasized. This theme is continued in the second movement, O King, a tribute to Martin

Luther King who was assassinated in 1968. Within the third movement specifically, references to death can be found in quotations of ’s , Berg’s

Concerto, and ’s Le sacre du printemps.23 Moreover, the scherzo comes from

Mahler’s Second Symphony, also known as the “Resurrection Symphony.”24 The program concerns Mahler’s views on if there is life after death. More broadly speaking, the Second

Symphony is also a reflection of Mahler’s conception of trying to create a world through the symphony.25 In a way, this can be related to how Berio is also trying to construct a multi-layered world of sounds where quotations range from to . The connection to Mahler is strengthened when Berio explicitly indicates that the third movement of

Sinfonia is “a tribute to Gustav Mahler (whose work seems to bear the weight of the entire history of music of the last two centuries).”26 Berio’s engagement with music history is demonstrated through how he chooses to combine the disparate musical styles of the quotations.

Besides the themes of water and death, another factor that links the musical quotations together are common pitches, a common harmonic basis, or common gestural shapes between the fragments.27 For instance, Ravel’s is one of the frequently quoted pieces in this movement and is related to other musical quotations through common gestural shapes.

Specifically, La Valse shares common gestural shapes with quotations of the scherzo from

23 Heap, “Keep Going,” 64-65. 24 Michael Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning in the Third Movement of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia” in Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 20, No. 1/2 (1981-1982), 210. 25 Joseph Auner, Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013), 21. 26 Berio, “Sinfonia (author’s note).” 27 Osmond-Smith, Playing on words, 48.

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Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and ’ .28 Gestural shapes refers to the quotations sharing the same rhythmic pattern and contour of line. By highlighting these similarities, Berio is able to smoothly connect musical styles than span almost a hundred years, with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony being premiered in 1824 and Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier being premiered in 1911. This is further demonstrated when Berio juxtaposes quotations of La

Mer, Mahler’s scherzo, Der Rosenkavalier and Stravinksky’s between measures 187 and

321.29 Programmatically speaking, Agon means “competition” and Berio illustrates this through the above material being tightly interwoven while still highlighting similar gestural shapes. The following figure comes from Matthew Heap’s dissertation “Keep Going: Narrative Continuity in

Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia and Dillinger: An American Oratorio” and is chosen an excellent example of how Berio connects his musical quotations.30

The similar gestural shapes allow for a sense of continuity, while also still juxtaposing

Neoclassical, late-Romantic, and Impressionistic styles.31 As previously mentioned, Berio’s goal

28 Heap, “Keep Going”, 67-68. 29 Heap, “Keep Going”, 68. 30 Heap, “Keep Going”, 69. 31 Heap, “Keep Going”, 69.

9 | P a g e for the third movement is to provide a commentary and extension on Mahler’s scherzo. He has done this through extrapolating the reference to water found in the scherzo and has related it to other musical quotations with references to water. On a broader level, there is also the theme of death and resurrection of Mahler’s Second Symphony that is linking thread of the musical quotations. Lastly, on a local level, there are common pitches, harmonic basis or gestural shapes that smoothly link quotations together. This is in no way an exhaustive list of all the musical interactions that occur, but they are the major elements that tie together the musical quotations.32

To analyze the relationships between the text and music, it is appropriate to first discuss

Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable which provides the majority of the text for this movement.

The text presents the disjointed stream-of-consciousness monologue similar to Joyce’s style of writing. This is the last in a trilogy of novels and follows the experiences of the protagonist, who has descended into a state of limbo. Despite their senses being deadened, there is an incessant play of voices that includes fragmented references to events of earlier books and allusions to other authors, including Joyce.33 Similar to Mahler’s scherzo, The Unnamable can also be considered through lens of a work in progress. Through the novel, Beckett is self-referencing and transforming his own writing as well as the writing of other authors to create a new work.

Furthermore, the fact that the protagonist in the novel is going through a stream-of-consciousness journey parallels the continuous flow of musical quotations that are interacting and proliferating.

Quotations from Beckett’s novel are adapted and used to comment upon processes at work within the movement or upon the situation within the concert hall itself. As a whole, the third movement of the Sinfonia can be viewed as a setting and interpretation of The Unnamable — “a

32 See David Osmond-Smith’s Playing on words: a guide to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia pages 57-71 for a comprehensive, but still not exhaustive, inventory of interrelations for the third movement, along with rehearsal letters and measure numbers. 33 Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning”, 209.

10 | P a g e book turned into music.”34 The setting and interpretation of text can be found in Berio’s earlier works such as Thema: Ommagio a Joyce where he explored the boundary of where sound carries linguistic meaning or dissolves into purely musical meaning. Furthermore, he explored comprehensibility of text as a compositional parameter. Before delving into the details of the specific interactions between the text and music, it is important to discuss if these relationships would even be comprehensible to a listener.

From a practical standpoint, it is impossible or perhaps against the point to balance the whole orchestra and the eight voices in the piece so that all the musical and literary quotations are audible. Furthermore, the literary quotations are in multiple languages and the listener may not recognize all the musical quotations. The literary text adds another layer of complexity to the already complex web of musical relationships. Berio is aware of these challenges to comprehensibility and says in his program notes that “perception and understanding of the text are never taken for granted, but are integral parts of the work: the different degrees of understanding, even the experience of ‘not quite hearing’, are to be regarded as essential to the nature of the musical process.”35 This relates to Berio’s earlier piece Allelujah where he was exploring the ideas of a polyphony between distinct layers and the new aesthetic regions that are created through sensory overload. For example, the voices are sometimes absorbed into the musical texture when they sing solfège of the Mahler’s scherzo or when words become unintelligible due to being overpowered by the other voices or orchestra. It is different for the musical scholar who has the chance to listen to the piece as many times as they want, follow the score, and unravel the dense of web of interrelationships that may not have been apparent for a listener hearing the piece for the first time. However, Berio addresses both the first-time listener

34 Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning”, 207. 35 Berio, “Sinfonia (author’s note).”

11 | P a g e and scholar when he notes that “the musical development of Sinfonia is always conditioned by the research for a continuity and an identity between voices and instruments.”36 This implies the musical logic that guided Berio throughout the compositional process of this piece and that it is not simply a of random musical and literary quotations. Furthermore, it implies that a first-time listener or music scholar of the piece is also constantly searching for a narrative continuity and deeper meaning. Similar to the beginning of Joyce’s “Sirens” chapter in Ulysses where he juxtaposes isolated images so that the reader can build their own bridges of meaning between the fragments, Berio is recognizing that a listener of Sinfonia will imbue their own personal identity when trying to find the connections between the musical and literary fragments.

While there are too many interactions between the text and music to list, there are some general trends that relate the two elements together.

The text frequently announces or comments on the musical quotations that surround it.

This is immediately evident in the opening measures of the third movement, which begins a quotation of the fourth movement of Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, subtitled

“Peripetie.” This is followed in measure 2 with the voices declaiming “Peripetie.”37

Simultaneously, a quotation of the first movement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony is introduced and is followed in measure 4 by a quotation of the second movement of Debussy’s La Mer.

Corresponding with the quotation of La Mer, Soprano 1 announces “Les jeux des vagues.” In measure 7, the scherzo from Mahler’s Second Symphony appears. Soprano 2 says “quatrième symphonie” and Alto 2 says “deuxième symphonie.” This refers to Mahler’s Fourth Symphony that was introduced earlier and the scherzo from the Second Symphony that is appearing in that same measure. In measure 9, Soprano 1, Alto 1, Tenor 1 and Bass 2 comment further by saying

36 Berio, “Sinfonia (author’s note).” 37 Luciano Berio, Sinfonia (London: Universal Edition, 1972), 34.

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“première partie,” “deuxième partie,” “troisième partie,” and “quatrième partie.” These phrases clarify that it is first movement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, the second movement of La Mer, the third movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony, and the fourth movement of Schoenberg’s

Five Pieces for Orchestra that have been quoted.38 It is also important to point out the dialogue that is happening between the different voices, such as the voices in measure 9 is responding to the voices in measure 7 by further clarifying the movements that the quotations are from. The feature of dialogue between the voices and between the music relates to the stream-of- consciousness journey of Beckett’s protagonist, who must grapple with an incessant play of voices in their head. Furthermore, it illustrates that the voices in the third movement of Sinfonia are active characters in the ensuing musical drama. Indeed, one of the instructions that Berio includes near the end of the movement is for Tenor 1 to introduce the names of all the voices.39

A clear example of this is in measure 25 where Tenor 2 says “nothing more restful than ,” which is answered by Tenor 1 saying “than flute” and Soprano 2 responding

“than two flutes.” At that point, the corresponding passage for two flutes from Mahler’s scherzo begins.40 However, a portion of chamber music does appear a measure later in the form of Paul

Hindemith’s Kammermusik No.4 and continues until Bass 2 and Tenor 1 interrupt: “no time for chamber music…you are nothing but an academic exercise.”41 This example demonstrates how the voices are like characters in a musical drama conversing with one another and also having the power to affect the flow of the music. The reference to “an academic exercise” has larger implications on Berio’s views on the state of music at the time, but that will be discussed in the following section about the relationship between Sinfonia and its audience.

38 Berio, Sinfonia, 34. 39 Berio, Sinfonia, 94. 40 Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning”, 213. 41 Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning”, 214.

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Besides the text that comments on the musical processes that are happening, it is important to note how Berio manipulates the text from Beckett’s The Unnamable. While there are sections where Berio will use the text verbatim, there are also times when he will change the ending of the quoted text. For example, in measure 98, Tenor 1 says “I am the air, the walls, everything yields, opens, ebbs, flows…”42 Whereas Beckett completes the sentence with “like flakes”, Berio changes it to “like the play of waves,” which is answered by a quotation of Les jeux de vagues from La Mer. This relates to the philosophy of a work in progress, where Berio is transforming an artist’s work and instilling it with his own personal interpretation. When asked about the third movement of Sinfonia in an interview, he has advised not to view it as “a collage of quotes” and that “I’m not interested in , and they amuse me only when I’m doing them with my children.”43 This points to the meticulous construction and artistic intent that Berio has put into the creation of Sinfonia. The appropriate question now is to discuss the intended impact of the work on its audience.

The prior discussion about the comprehensibility of the musical and literary quotations to a listener relates to Berio’s intention for the audience to actively engage with the work. The fourth wall is broken when Berio uses a passage from Beckett’s The Unnamable that directly addresses the audience for the first time starting in measure 234, with Tenor 1 saying “well well, so there is an audience.”44 This goes on to comment the situation in the concert hall and involves the audience as part of “the show.”45 The show referring to the public exchange between the audience, performers, and composer as they are seeking meaning in their existence.46 Referring

42 Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning”, 215. 43 Berio, Interviews, 106. 44 Berio, Sinfonia, 61. 45 Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning”, 217. 46 Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning”, 218.

14 | P a g e back to Mahler’s song Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt and if art has the capacity to influence people, Berio adapts a quotation from his own article “Meditation on a Twelve-Tone

Horse.” Tenor 1 exclaims that “[music] can’t stop the wars, can’t make the old younger, or lower the price of bread.”47 Published in 1968, the same year Sinfonia was premiered, the article expresses Berio’s the danger of composers becoming an extraneous figure in their society, criticizing the “formalistic and escapist attitude of twelve-tone composition” and reasserting the importance of personal poetics in guiding composition.48

As it relates to Sinfonia, Berio uses text and music to further question the power of music and to criticize serial orthodoxy. After Tenor 1 exclaims about the powerlessness of music, he later contradicts himself by asserting that “tomorrow we’ll read that [name of a work on the same program] made tulips grow in my garden and altered the flow of the ocean currents. We must believe it's true.”49 As hyperbolic as this statement is, it does highlight the importance of belief.

The composer must believe that their work is meaningful despite the risk of becoming a “merely decorative” figure in society; the listener also has the chance to believe if music is powerful despite it not being able to “stop the wars.”50 Tenor 1 goes on to comment on the state of modern music when he says “keep going, going on, call that going, call that on” after a quotation of

“Don” from by Boulez.51 This suggests that the Darmstadt School claimed that they were pushing music forward with their serial techniques, but it was no longer a viable way to keep going forward in 1968. This should not be seen as a heavy-handed criticism of the

Darmstadt School, of which Berio was a former member, or cynicism about the specific piece,

47 Berio, Sinfonia, 89. 48 Berio, “Twelve-Tone Horse,” 169. 49 Berio, Sinfonia, 91. 50 Berio, “Twelve-Tone Horse,” 168. 51 Berio, Sinfonia, 94-95.

15 | P a g e but rather that the reject of serialism as a be-all and end-all solution to creating meaningful music. This is in line with the compositional attitudes that Berio had developed since his early encounters with Dallapiccola to having a curious, but cautious attitude towards the notion of serialism that emerged from the Darmstadt School.

Tenor 1 concludes the movement with the sentiment that “we must collect our thoughts, for the unexpected is always upon us, in our rooms, in the street, at the door, on a stage.”52

Different scholars have had different interpretations on the meaning of this movement and

Sinfonia as a whole. For Michael Hicks, the movement signaled the rise of a “new eclecticism” where it became increasingly common for composers to quote and explicitly reference the past.

Moreover, it was an affirmation that “whatever comes in music today or tomorrow or the next day, it will certainly not be the last word.”53 For Matthew Heap, he interprets Sinfonia as a large- scale journey of a hero-composer searching for inspiration, with the third movement being a search for inspiration amongst the masterworks of the past.54 By the end of the movement, the hero-composer has only opened up more questions about existential meaning and the purpose of art, but there is hope in the future that their questions will be answered.55 Lastly, David Osmond-

Smith does not have a specific narrative view on the third movement, but does comment on the

“scholastic exasperation” that comes with grappling with a work like Sinfonia.56 Similar to the labyrinthine and multi-layered allusions found in works by Joyce and Beckett, Berio has created a piece where “the more avidly [the listener] seeks to pin these down these [allusions], the more clear will it become that there is no logical to [the listener’s] activities.”57 Osmond-Smith instead

52 Berio, Sinfonia, 96-97. 53 Hicks, “Text, Music, and Meaning”, 221. 54 Heap, “Keep Going”, 59. 55 Heap, “Keep Going”, 80. 56 Osmond-Smith, Playing on words, 91. 57 Osmond-Smith, Playing on words, 91.

16 | P a g e underlines the necessity in “learning to be receptive to the peculiarly vivid aesthetic impact of the half-understood.”58 Rather than trying to uncover every single interrelationship that exists in

Sinfonia, which is an impossible task, it is important that the listener can step back and just appreciate the music for what it is. The listener will imbue their own personal identity when listening to the work and this will result in varying interpretations, such as the interpretations described above.

Through analyzing the relationships between musical quotations, between the text and music, and the work and the audience, it should be evident that Berio has selected the quotations in a way that is logically interconnected and carefully chosen to create a larger narrative.

However, there is no one correct interpretation to the narrative due to the nature of quotation. A certain quotation evokes certain connotations and when combined with another quotation, the possible meanings are exponentially multiplied. This aspect is made clear when Berio describes his “theatrical ideal” as taking “two simple and banal forms of behaviour…and to put them on stage in such a way that they transform one another and produce by morphogenesis a third form of behaviour: we don’t really know what this is because we’ve never seen it before, and it’s not the elementary combination of the two familiar forms of behaviour.”59 Berio also cites the writer

Umberto Eco: “the form of the work of art gains its aesthetic validity precisely in proportion to the number of different perspectives from which it can be viewed and understood. These give it a wealth of different resonances and echoes without impairing its original essence.”60 The third movement of Sinfonia is a prime example of the richness and aesthetic value that can through a carefully constructed and creative mosaic of musical and literary quotations.

58 Osmond-Smith, Playing on words, 91. 59 Berio, Interviews, 107. 60 Luciano Berio, Remembering the Future (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 82.

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Berio, Luciano. “Composer on His Work: Meditation on a Twelve-Tone Horse.” In Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music: A Continuing Symposium, edited by Richard Kostelanetz and Joseph Darby, 167-171. New York: Schirmer Books, 1996.

Berio, Luciano. Two Interviews. London: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1985.

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Osmond-Smith, David. Berio. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Osmond-Smith, David. Playing on words: a guide to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia. Cambridge: Royal Musical Association, 1985.

Schnittke, Alfred. “The Third Movement of Berio's Sinfonia: Stylistic Counterpoint, Thematic and Formal Unity in Context of Polystylistics, Broadening the Concept of Thematicism.” In A Schnittke Reader, edited by Alexander Ivashkin, 216-224. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2002.

Schwartz, Elliot and Daniel Godfrey. Music since 1945: issues, material, and literature. New York: Schirmer Books, 1993.

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