Andrea Cremaschi* Parrrole: Berio’s Words and Francesco Giomi† *Via Michelangelo 2 on Music Technology 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy [email protected] †Centro Tempo Reale Villa Strozzi-Via Pisana 77 50143 Florence, Italy [email protected]

Numbers in music, from Aristotle to the Giomi et al. (2003). Further historical and biograph- late Middle Ages, were inhabited by ical information can be found online at the Univer- heaven and earth, by the entire universe. sal Edition Web site (www.uemusic.at) and in some Nowadays, numbers are uninhabited, or comprehensive studies about the composer, includ- rather, inhabited at will; sometimes ing Stoianova (1985), Osmond-Smith (1991), and they are metaphors, or alibis, or some- Restagno (1995). thing else. It is perhaps still too early to take stock of Be- —Luciano Berio rio’s musical and theoretical contributions to the (Rizzard and De Benedictis 2000, p. 164) field of electroacoustic music. Given the variety of solutions, techniques, and aesthetics Berio used, a For fifty years, Luciano Berio (1925–2003) (see Fig- comprehensive examination of his work is likely to ure 1) worked with music technology, beginning be somewhat disorienting. Nonetheless, it is possi- with the now distant concert on October 28, 1952, ble to trace certain hypotheses and lines of research where he heard his first piece of tape music, and that characterized Berio’s language from the very extending to the recent works Ofanı`m, Outis, beginning. Cronaca del Luogo, and Altra voce. It was not al- One of these is surely the centrality of the act of ways a steady relationship; moments of extraordi- creation and its absolute preeminence in his tech- nary creativity were mixed with moments of nological inquiries—the centrality of the music it- apparent disinterest in technology resulting from self in comparison to its productive mechanisms. problems posed by the electronic manipulation of In this, obviously, he never intended to devalue the sound. Nevertheless, it was an enduring relation- technological component (without which of course ship—surviving even to recent years—thanks to his electroacoustic music would not exist), but Berio’s personal interest in live electronics, which rather to reaffirm the role of the composer as crea- led to the creation of new masterworks. tor, particularly when faced with the vast possibili- This very relationship and the theoretical appara- ties of electronic means. tus that developed is the focus of this article. This Another characteristic is his criticism of those is not meant to be a musicological study, but who consider the electroacoustic resources avail- rather a tribute, a brief retrospective. It is mostly able as a simple ‘‘sampler’’ programmed with new composed of quotations taken from essays or inter- sounds. The revolution in new technologies has views in order to cover the entire arc of Berio’s pro- brought us far beyond this, as is clearly evident in duction, and it is organized as a sort of the generation of new musical processes, in the si- multi-voiced dialogue. Therefore, there is no sys- multaneous control of micro- and macro- tematic purpose, nor is there a desire to present an structures, and thus in the elimination, as we will analysis of Berio’s music. We refer the reader will- see, of a dualistic conception of the material. For ing to investigate the matter deeper to a number of Berio, not to understand how we arrived at this rev- contributions on specific subjects, including Berio olution is one of the most serious dangers that can befall a composer. (1956), Delalande (1974), Berio (1975), Vidolin As will become evident, central to Berio’s think- (1992), Menezes (1993), Scaldaferri (1994), and ing was his desire to create a continuity between Computer Music Journal, 28:1, pp. 26–36, Spring 2004 electroacoustic music and instrumental music. He ᭧ 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. imagined no clear separation between genres nor

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 Figure 1. Luciano Berio. ᭧ Universal Edition/ Eric Marinitsch.

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 between means of production, but rather creative among extremely diverse acoustic characters, acts that are fundamentally defined by the imagina- whether they be produced by voices, instru- tions of composers and by their capacities to inte- ments, electronic generators, or other means. grate various materials and memories they bring to As a result, a musician of today who does music. not explore the world of electronic music is Many other dilemmas that Berio addressed will necessarily incomplete. In the same way, a be easily traceable in the citations that follow. We musician who ignores voices and instruments therefore leave it to the composer himself to intro- to concentrate only on sounds produced and duce the topic of this article. This first essay, from transformed electronically is not a total musi- 1976, serves as a sort of ‘‘balance sheet’’ for the cian. Not surprisingly, the most important first twenty-five years of the history of electro- ‘‘electronic’’ works of the last twenty-five acoustic music. At the time he wrote this essay, years are those that have sought a mediation Berio was midway through his career, both crea- between the acoustic dimension and another tively and theoretically. realm—those that expanded the continuity be- tween ‘‘electronic’’ sounds and ‘‘natural’’ sounds, enabling interaction between the dif- Parrrole ferent levels through reciprocal transformation. So, electronic music is not news today because For some time now, electronic music has not it is an integral part of that factory of meaning, been news. We discuss it less than ever and it of relationships, and of expression that we con- is rare to meet musicians who still speak of it tinue to call music. with that optimistic, futuristic vocabulary of The first works of electronic music in the the 1950s, who embrace it as the banner of the 1950s were as if wrapped in silence, not only avant-garde, as the symbol of liberation from because the concert halls that occasionally the slavery of instrumental academia. Not only hosted them were often empty, but also be- is it difficult to find someone still willing to cause they did not make reference to the musi- defend and describe the infinite possibilities of cal work of humans. They lacked the electronic music and the lusty cheek-to-cheek well-known behaviors associated with musical relationship of the musician to sonic material, legacy. Often, these electronic works were like it has become quite difficult to use and to de- bottles tossed in the sea; only some contained fine the term itself, electronic music. We can a message that was then picked up and trans- no longer define it solely by its methods, in formed. (Berio 1976a, pp. vii–viii)

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 In My Beginning sound, from which different musical functions can be derived through an analysis; and an ad- We now return to the story of Berio’s personal, al- ditive pole, essentially based, in those years, on most fortuitous introduction to electronic music in the addition and combination of sine waves. I 1952. In the succeeding years, his efforts expanded would say that these two conceptions, these on this first experience, culminating in the creation two different operative setups, influenced for a of the Studio di Fonologia (1955) at the Radio Audi- few years the work of various studios in the zioni Italiane (RAI) in Milan, the history of which world, as if it were an ideological alternative. is already well known. (Rizzardi and De Benedictis 2000, p. 162)

My first contact with the possibility of new Our work at the Studio di Fonologia, at least means of productions happened, quite when I was there, was not a synthesis between strangely, in 1952 at the Museum of Modern two existing entities. I prefer to describe it as a Art in New York, during a concert dedicated dialogue between different dimensions, rather for the most part to [Edgard] Vare`se and di- than as the synthesis of two specific entities. rected by Leopold Stokowski. I say ‘‘strangely,’’ (Rizzardi and De Benedictis 2000, p. 164) because I was completely in the dark about what [Werner] Meyer-Eppler and [Herbert] Ei- It seemed to me that I was flying in those mert were preparing in Germany, and I knew years. I was aware of embracing and beginning of what Pierre Schaeffer was doing in Paris to master new dimensions, both musical and only by word of mouth. In that concert in New acoustic, that appeared to me through my early York, for the first time, a piece of tape music studies and my early electroacoustic experi- was presented, based on the elementary manip- ences. In that period, between 1953 and 1954, I ulation of piano sounds recorded on tape. It truly regained the time I had lost from living was called Sonic Contours, and [Otto] Luening in the city—particularly during the war—and and [Vladimir] Ussachevsky were the compos- in Milan, in the immediate postwar period, I ers. It was an experience without any musical worked in every possible musical occupation content, perfectly innocuous, but I remained to survive. My musical ear was further refined, profoundly struck by the new sound and by the and, for example, an orchestra ceased to be the possibilities of magnetic recording—by the pos- orchestra, an historic organization of acoustic sibility of cutting sound with scissors. When I families. I was able to reexamine the relations returned to Italy, it was only a few weeks be- and the degree of fusion or separation every fore I began to experiment with the tape re- time. (Dalmonte 1981, p. 68) corders at RAI, in Corso Sempione. Every type of functional music became a pretext for elec- The work at the Studio di Fonologia (which troacoustic experimentation. The support of is why I am grateful to what was then the RAI) Dr. [Alfredo] Lietti of RAI and my encounters allowed me to deepen the dialogue between with [Henri] Pousseur, [Bruno] Maderna, and musical thought and the acoustic or morpho- [Karlheinz] Stockhausen did the rest. (Dal- logical dimension, creating an inner unanim- monte 1981, pp. 133–134) ity, not superimposing language, contributing to the overcoming of sterile and archaic sepa- Back in Italy, I heard of works by Meyer- rate parameters for which we all wish. (Riz- Eppler, Eimert, Stockhausen, and I was deeply zardi and De Benedictis 2000, p. 172) impressed. I did not propose any particular technical or musical strategy yet, but I found A Veil Awave Upon the Waves myself—rather like La Forza del Destino— moving between these two poles: a subtractive With the end of the fecund period in Milan (1961) pole, concentrating on existing elements of that saw the production of some of the most sig-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 nificant works of electroacoustic music in his cata- Even today, especially when dealing with logue, Berio’s interests seem to have moved in new technologies, the input is still more im- other directions, leaving technological experimen- portant than the output. This is to say that it tation in the background and concentrating more is better to use a digital system for its ability on the development of his own personal, orchestral to transform already acquired sound informa- technique. This detachment was owing more to tion than to use it to produce ‘‘new sounds.’’ It extra-musical exigencies—the growing obsoles- is easy to produce new sounds, but it is diffi- cence of the equipment at the Studio di Fonologia cult, for now, for these sounds to emanate and Berio’s move to the United States—than any- from a new musical thought, as they often did thing. Still, this period witnessed a turning point; in the 1950s. New musical thought, especially in the following years, Berio avoided retracing his when espoused via new technological means, steps, except for brief moments or for very particu- has to be conscious of musical experience that lar or limited projects. All this invites us to reflect is not new. It is perfectly useless to contrast a on the maturing relationship Berio had with elec- computer that controls a digital system to a tronic music. This sometimes problematic rapport, conductor who controls an orchestra. Most im- marked by a search for new outlets and for new portant, new technologies have to find ways to ways to use electronic music, saw a composer grap- approach the musical work of the performer pling with new domain that held enormous poten- and to insert themselves into this work—to ex- tial, but that was still, in certain aspects, quite tend it and not to oppose it. (Dalmonte 1981, immature. pp. 140–141) We notice first a clear rejection on Berio’s part of electronic music as a contrasting dimension to in- We often think that new technologies must strumental music. This stance did not reflect so serve primarily to produce new sounds, be- much the technical differences between the two, cause music needs new sounds. I think instead but was based on much more profound conceptual that new sounds are not so important. Sounds problems that Berio saw in the argument. He per- do not get old like ideas get old. In literature, it ceived a risk in the splitting up of music and is not as important to invent new stories as it is to create conceptual organisms eventually thought—of music and meaning, in its broadest capable of generating stories. In the studios sense. He began to reflect with more detachment that use advanced technology, we should look on the conceptual, aesthetic, and even social reper- less toward inventing fresh sonorities and more cussions of the introduction of these new methods toward defining and developing new concep- into musical life. They permitted an incredible ex- tual organisms capable of generating new mu- pansion of the acoustic vocabulary, but—as was ob- sical processes that will eventually be vious to Berio from the beginning—had not recognized precisely for their use of new equivalently brought a store of new musical sounds. Thus, it is incorrect to contrast new thoughts that would render this new vocabulary technologies with traditional vocal and instru- necessary. mental techniques. From a practical point of If the experience of electronic music is impor- view, there can be enormous differences, but tant, as I believe it is, its importance does not on a conceptual level, the two are complemen- reside so much in the discovery of new sounds. tary as long as their evolution is always guided It lies in the possibility that these experiences by musical considerations. (Berio 1996b, p. 140) will allow the composer to extend the field of sonic phenomena and to integrate them into Hisssss his musical thoughts and thus to overcome the dualistic conception of musical material. (Berio For Berio, then, electronic music is not and cannot 1996a, p. 138) be simply the utopian and vaguely solipsistic

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 search for fresh sonorities, disconnected from all exceptional. However, they risk losing momen- other aspects of one’s musical life. Everything must tarily the continuity of their musical decisions depend on a thought, as groundbreaking as it is and of their own presence. . . . Sometimes, one grounded in history. And history is made not only has the impression that they let themselves be of musical forms and structures, but also of ways of chosen by the new technologies without being doing, ways of listening, and social mechanisms able to establish, dialectically, a real rapport that cannot be ignored. Contact with the performer and a true need for them. We can in fact pass and recognition of the history contained in the indifferently from one system to another, from sound of the instruments are some of the elements one computer to another—they are ever faster, that Berio felt were now essential components of more sophisticated, more powerful, and ever music. He recognized the need to heed these indi- smaller—without really using musically that cators as stronger than ever. which was there. Technological development When composers in the 1950s acquired oscilla- (in part owing to industrial applications) tends, tors, filters, and tape recorders—all instruments by nature, to be indifferent to musical consid- borrowed from other fields—they did so because erations and instead follows the law of tech- they were motivated by necessity and saw in these nology and the law of the market: to always instruments a natural outlet for their efforts. With improve and to do so at all costs. Musicians, the advent of synthesizers and the exponential for their part, begin to believe that they are im- growth of the possibilities offered by digital sound proving only when they posses ever more so- editors, we entered into a frantic chase in which phisticated technology. The fact is that the composers end up constrained by the new technol- initial push for improved means must derive ogy. They must constantly upgrade without ever from a musical conception. It is only when be- having assimilated the preceding conquests. Stu- ginning with this idea that we can make dios have begun to exist not to produce music, but profitable exchanges between music and tech- for the sake of their technology. Composers seem nology. to have correspondently fallen into a difficult situa- In music, and I will never tire of saying this, tion, because they lack the premise, the conditions things do not get better or worse. They evolve that would justify the adoption of new means. and they are transformed. We are often incapa- Technology and musical language no longer peace- ble of grasping the connection in these trans- fully coexist. formations and sometimes, we do not know where to look. We do not know how to focus Machines specifically produced for electronic our attention on the best part of ourselves—on music have been around for a long time. The that which we have inside. (Dalmonte 1981, prospective relationship between these ma- pp. 147–149) chines and musical thought is certainly excit- ing, but it is neither easy nor peaceful. It seems In the 1950s and 1960s, analog electronic to me that for some time now, that relation- music studios (where the musician manually ship has been resolved only anecdotally. Every controlled continuous electrical waves that so often, certain works illuminate the relation- were analogous to the forms of sound waves) ship with an original light, but they fail to de- existed for the purpose of producing musical fine a line of conduct. They cannot frame the works. During the 1970s and even before, elec- relationship in a poetic perspective, and there- tronic music studios switched technology and fore, they cannot define a universal element. began to exist only for their own perfection. In Composers who work with new means in short, twenty or thirty years ago, musicians electronic music (computers included) tend to bent nonmusical technologies (oscillators, fil- place their pasts in parentheses. They do this ters, tape recorders, etc.) to fit their ideas and simply to do something different—something their vision. In the last ten or fifteen years, the

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 technology has taken the upper hand. Now, turers of musical life. He sought continuity with composers are struck dumb by new technolo- the past, intended not as a model, but as a context gies created especially for them. In other of which the composer is asked to take notice. words, if in the past—even the distant past— Without recognizing the importance of this con- music was often the testing ground and the text, we risk losing the meaning of music, both in stimulus for scientific research, now it seems its linguistic dimension and in general in its social that science has attracted and taken possession dimension as well. The duty of composers and of music. . . . With or without the new tech- technicians, therefore, is to anchor the new means nologies, electronic music as a means for musi- to the musical reality, in all its complexity. cal thought had arrived at an impasse. The It certainly is not easy. Similarly, it is not easy new medium has taken from us music as a to creatively use and develop one of the most global and total idea. We lost music in not important aspects of the new digital technolo- only its technical, historical, and expressive as- gies generally—the ability to simultaneously pects, but also its immediacy and its social as- control the various temporal dimensions. pects. We realized, for example, that an Composers must control, with equal subtlety, audience assembled to listen to loudspeakers is the microscopic dimension (that which we do not particularly exciting. The experience of lis- not perceive as such and is measured in milli- tening to music in public is made up of many seconds), the global, macroscopic dimension things—many different conventions—and has (that which brings together the different strata roots in many different aspects of society and of our memories), and the intermediate dimen- culture. We realized that a concert is not only sion, made of the articulation of perceivable the piece, not only a musical object to listen durations, rhythmic articulations, and, on oc- to, even if said piece proposes ‘‘new sounds.’’ casion, melodies. To create—to program a mu- By nature, a piece of music, by itself, is ineffec- sically coherent and meaningful rapport tive at transforming listening conventions and between these three dimensions—would mean, socio-musical rapports. Electronic music for me, to take a step forward in the conquest seemed no longer to regard a definite audience of a broader musical space. In these last few as necessary. . . . For their part, musicians felt years, we have all experimented with the mu- that a magnetic tape or patches on a synthe- sical limits of the technicians, and now, it sizer (in their fragility, impermanence, and seems to me, we are on the point of experi- ephemerality, and in their complete detach- menting with the technical limits of the musi- ment from the usual gestures of a musical cians. And this is wonderful. It is exactly in work) were not the ideal ‘‘containers’’ for a the slow and laborious research of a conver- type of thought that had always been elabo- gence, and the identification (always a bit uto- rated in terms of duration. (Dalmonte 1981, pian) between science and music that new pp. 137–140) things are found. We can only hope to con- tinue to coordinate creatively the acoustic di- mension and the musical dimension. Perspectives (Dalmonte 1981, pp. 150–151)

That which Berio sought in electronic means was By now it is clear that only compositional not the unheard sound, nor was it the grand possi- criteria based on a concrete reference united bilities of sound manipulation taken by them- with the sonic material allow the musician to selves; he sought new continuity within the realm contemporaneously coordinate within the vast of thought, at a much higher level than the specific field of possibilities in electronic music. Only technology. He sought continuity with the work of compositional criteria that clearly manifest performers, who even today are the principal nur- their rejection of immutable musical mate-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 rial—in which there is an implicit possibility sical dreams; they will be invited by the situa- of modification from one work to the next, in tion itself to consciously participate in the function of its incommutable structural neces- action. For the sense to become intelligible, sities—permit the composer to use the im- they will have to follow the transformations mense sonic richness that electronics have and the unpredictable proliferation of vocal made available in all their continuity. And it is and instrumental sounds through various precisely the observation of this continuity modes of practical expression. All the while, that has made possible the conception of musi- they will have to take into consideration the cal forms linked to the qualitative evolution of more or less effective presence of a visible ac- the material. tion on the part of the performer. This dense We see this as the most important aspect of fabric of relations will unceasingly stimulate electronic music, as the functions of this quali- conscious reactions in composers and perform- tative evolution can be organically set outside ers alike. And as it energizes an ever more par- of the specific field of electric generation of ticipating public, it will definitively purge our sound. In the last few years, in fact, for the musical customs of any residual duality. . . . first time, we have heard compositions that Therefore, I base any prospect of a musical combine instrumental and electronic means. renewal of contemporary music on the enlarge- Composers have attempted to create an or- ment of musical media in its broadest sense. I ganic meeting of natural sounds (including the say this without in any way impeding the no- human voice) and synthetic sounds; Gesang tion that the personal styles of composers will der Ju¨ nglinge by Stockhausen, Rimes by Pous- always act as the bridge between a form and seur, and Musica su due dimensioni by Ma- the newly altered material. To this renovation derna all come to mind. I am certain that even of material and of form—of interest to acoustic the antinomy of the due dimensioni—the con- research ever further afield—we can connect trast between recorded music (electronic mu- even our spiritual problems. This will be a sign sic) and music actually performed (instruments of a renewal of the conscience, not just musi- as well as sung and spoken voice)—will soon cally, but of the individual. (Berio 1976b, be overcome. The possibility of intervening in pp. 133–134) the internal structure of sound with ever greater subtlety (which means an improved I believe that if some day we arrive at a bet- control in ‘‘microtempo’’ where this structure ter understanding between the different genres is articulated) will allow us to perfectly inte- of music, between the different strongholds of grate synthetic sounds into the complexity and music consumption, we will owe this in part the relative discontinuity of natural phenom- to our experiences with electronic music. We ena. This integration will happen according to will also owe a debt to those experiences that an evolutionary process that is simultaneously tend to assimilate and to deal with the world broad and refined. The sinusoidal sound will be of sounds using substantially neutral opera- only the beginning, more or less symbolic, of tions indifferent to the intrinsic cultural con- one musical dimension whose complexity and notations of the musical material they would relational multiplicity will continuously incor- like to transform. Often, it is those investiga- porate all the sonic phenomena of our audible tions, momentarily ignoring the ‘‘contents,’’ world. The action—just the presence of the in- that eventually get to the depths of the experi- terpreter who sings or plays—will be com- ence and can access the true meaning. That pletely assimilated in this enlargement of the which has happened and is happening, espe- musical experience. Listeners will less than cially today, in electronic music, is somewhat ever before be put in the position of having to similar to that which happened in linguistics, close their eyes to abandon themselves to mu- where the search for a ‘‘universal’’ grammar

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 necessarily relegated the semantic and expres- gence of a computer remains only abstract sive aspects of language to secondary impor- even if it can simulate human behavior— tance. But that is another discussion . . . abstract because artificial intelligence is based (Dalmonte 1981, p. 135) only on reason, or better, on logic. In other words, computers tend to process data and in- formation without much regard for the circum- Imperthnthn Thnthnthn stances or the context from which they are derived. Our intelligence is capable of invent- ‘‘Another discussion’’—perhaps, because it was ex- ing, discovering, and creating precisely because actly this problem of abstraction of contents that, it is guided by a human idea—an idea with a in the early 1980s (the period in which the above concrete awareness of context. I would say, interview occurred), faced the musical community. paradoxically, that computers will be further These problems were already ‘‘in the air’’ for some integrated into the creative process, and not time, and the composer had already had the oppor- only in music, when they are able to make tunity to express his opinions on them. mistakes; they must err and correct themselves The following passage comes from C’e` musica e as all humans, including those who construct musica, a cycle of television programs created and computers and those who make music, do. directed by Berio for RAI. These took place in 1973, (Berio 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 Listen! digital technology, brought about a radical change in compositional conceptions and in the way elec- We now return to Berio’s career, which we left just troacoustic studios operated. The computer took after his experiences in Milan. In 1974, Pierre Bou- the place of the cumbersome machines previously lez called on Berio to direct the department of elec- in use, and, with its extreme versatility, quickly troacoustic music at the Institut de Recherche et became the privileged instrument in the composi- Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), a po- tional world. All this opened new avenues for the sition he held until 1980. These years were devoted manipulation of sound, but it also posed new prob- to research and intense experimentation that, even lems, of which this passage is testimony. Some of if they left almost no mark in his official catalog as the opinions may seem a bit dated, especially as composer, coincided with a broadening and deepen- they relate to the conceptions of that time (particu- ing of his theoretical writing. A number of the cita- larly the strong dichotomy between people and tions included here derive from reflections in those computers), but they are nonetheless indicative of years, marked by a systematic rethinking of the as- the direction of Berio’s thoughts. In particular, his sumptions of the 1950s and 1960s. Yet, it was in vision of technology as not only a ‘‘tool,’’ but also these years that Berio concentrated his interests on as an instrument of thought—and therefore as a live electronics. (This is also thanks to the famous subject capable of error—is prescient. He envi- 4X Synthesizer by Giuseppe Di Giugno.) Live elec- sioned the computer not simply as a machine for tronics seemed the response that best fit Berio’s the elaboration of data, but as an instrument acting needs, and he wasted no time in realizing this and directly in creation, intending this term in its high- beginning to explore the consequences. est and most multifaceted sense. By 1987, Berio’s numerous attempts to found a All this is fascinating, but is the intelligence of new center of electroacoustic production in Flor- a computer sufficient for composing music? I ence had finally come to fruition. Tempo Reale was do not intend to reproduce here for the nth born, and Berio expected internationally important time the conflict between people and ma- works to emerge from this new endeavor. He saw chines; I only want to suggest that the intelli- Tempo Reale as the successor to the Studio di Fo-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 nologia from thirty years earlier. This testifies once musical process, in proportion to the complex- again to his undying interest in confronting the ity of the perceived connections the work is field of musical research. At the same time, as is able to provoke. Music conceived for tradi- evident from the name of the center, its establish- tional instrumental and vocal performance ment indicates the new tendencies that Berio was tends to implicate more or less standardized then beginning to contemplate. collective listening situations (concert hall, Chief among these was the use of space, not only theater, auditorium, etc.). The new music tech- as a simple parameter according to (by now) dated nologies instead do not usually impose an ideal ideas, but as the physical place in which the perfor- listening location tied to permanent criteria of mance occurs. Berio visualized a space with its collective aggregation. Tempo Reale is particu- own properties, that the performer then is free to larly engaged in the definition and the realiza- accept, transform, or reinvent. tion of flexible acoustic spaces, new and—one When confronting these new technologies, it might say—virtual. But it also proposes to oc- seems to me improper, today, to think in terms cupy musically—to conquer in the name of of ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad’’ acoustics and of venues music—real spaces not originally conceived of ‘‘more’’ and ‘‘less’’ adapted to musical perfor- for musical performances: town squares, mance. Assuming the absence of unforeseen streets, buildings, cloisters, valleys, etc. The problems, and assuming the availability of a spatialization of sounds constitutes perhaps highly sophisticated system for sound process- the newest and most stimulating aspect of our ing and reproduction, I think that today we efforts. (Berio 1996b, pp. 140–141) could even create music in real time (and lis- Berio’s final work seemed to be ever more di- ten to it) in the middle of the Sahara Desert. rected toward the phenomenal aspects of music, to Today, a musical thought capable of identify- the detriment of the research centered on inherent ing with these new technologies can creatively structures in music. Yet this was on the same adapt itself to any real space, musically ‘‘legiti- wavelength as his most recent artistic endeavors mate’’ or not. It can also explore virtual spaces and his interests in other areas of expression. In created from those others that remain acousti- this sense, Tempo Reale set out, in Berio’s mind, to cally illusory. The idea of music as sonic archi- become one of the principal international think tecture is losing its metaphoric status; it is tanks for music technology, particularly in relation quickly becoming the reality, quantifiable in to live electronics. Here, as at the Studio di Fonolo- all its aspects, whether it be a cathedral, a gia and at IRCAM, the composer worked closely bridge, an apartment building, or their respec- with technicians to produce instruments as respon- tive, virtual reproductions. Yet, we are always sive as possible to his musical exigencies. He dealing with an elastic architecture, capable of sought instruments that would permit the creation re-adaptation to different environments. (Berio of the imaginary spaces needed for his most recent 1988, pp. 3–4) works. And, as always, it was the musical ideas Closely related to the problem of acoustic space that were fundamental, as Berio never tired of re- is the problem of listening processes and the recep- peating. tion of music. In this case, the new technologies Composers cannot be ignorant of the tech- can play a beneficial role in the overhaul of certain niques they want to use. A vision and a musi- ingrained habits and hence can extend creativity cal project must develop and move in a into this realm as well. technological realm organically homogeneous For example, there is a terrain—almost a no- to both that vision and that project. The rea- man’s land—that deserves exploration: listen- sons that lead a composer in one direction in- ing. We know that, concretely, a listening stead of another must always be musical strategy can be an internal dimension of the reasons. The field of research is immense, even

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 when it is limited to the study of a particular I Shall Leave You Now, and Two Loudspeakers ‘‘instrument,’’ and it is appropriate that a com- Will Take My Place 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- References sion and project are musically strong and con- Berio, L. 1956. ‘‘Studio di Fonologia Musicale.’’ The Score ceptually sensible. Composers, like all mortals, 15:83. never stop learning. We ask only that they Berio, L. 1973. ‘‘Nuovo mondo.’’ C’e` musica e musica IX. know that which they need to know. Simi- RAI–RadioTelevisione Italiana. larly, we ask the technician to be capable of Berio, L. 1975. ‘‘Chants paralle`les.’’ Program Bulletin identifying musically with the composer. GRM 12:41–54. (Scazzola 1996, p. 67) Berio, L. 1976a. ‘‘Prefazione.’’ In Pousseur, H., ed. La mu- sica elettronica. Milan: Feltrinelli, pp. vii–ix. Berio, L. 1976b. ‘‘Poesia e musica—un’esperienza.’’ In Pousseur, H., ed. La musica elettronica. Milan: Feltri- nelli, pp. 124–135. In My End Is My Music Berio, L. 1988. ‘‘Ofanı`m.’’ Concert program. Prato: Mu- seo d’arte contemporanea. Berio, L. 1996a. ‘‘Thema (Omaggio a Joyce). Elaborazione We return in the end to the essay cited in the be- elettroacustica della voce di Cathy Berberian su nastro ginning of this article; in this we find a passage magnetico (1958). Testo di James Joyce.’’ In Degrada, that summarizes, perhaps in the clearest way, Be- F., ed. Festival Luciano Berio. Milan: Teatro alla Scala, rio’s ideas regarding electroacoustic music. This pp. 138–139. constitutes the ideal conclusion for our voyage Berio, L. 1996b. ‘‘Centro Tempo Reale.’’ In Degrada, F., through the words of the composer along the arc of ed. Festival Luciano Berio. Milan: Teatro alla Scala, his creative life. pp. 140–141. Dalmonte, R. 1981. Luciano Berio, Intervista sulla mu- I am often asked what is the sense, the pro- sica. Rome-Bari: Laterza. found ‘‘why’’ of electronic music. Why are we Delalande, F. 1974. ‘‘L’Omaggio a Joyce de Luciano Berio.’’ Musique en jeu 15:45–54. obliged to ‘‘compose the sounds’’ instead of Giomi, F., D. Meacci, and K. Schwoon. 2003. ‘‘Live Elec- just composing with the sounds? Why must we tronics in Luciano Berio’s Music.’’ Computer Music take into consideration all the characteristics Journal 27(2):30–46. of the acoustic space in addition to the musical Menezes, F. 1993. Un essai sur la composition verbale elements? Why must we consider the most e´lectronique. Visage de Luciano Berio. Modena: minimal elements, the most elementary ele- Mucchi. ments, as well as the most global ones? I am Osmond-Smith, D. 1991. Berio. Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press. convinced that the profound sense of elec- Restagno, E., ed. 1995. Berio. Turin: EDT. tronic music is the same as that of any other Rizzardi, V., and A. I. De Benedictis. 2000. ‘‘A Conversa- experience: it reminds us of the ‘‘human’’ in tion with Luciano Berio.’’ In Rizzardi, V., and A. I. ‘‘humanity.’’ (Berio 1976a, pp. vii–ix) De Benedictis, eds. Nuova Musica alla Radio. Espe-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/014892604322970625 by guest on 23 September 2021 rienze allo Studio di Fonologia della RAI di Milano layers: Berio’s words (arranged like concordant or 1954–1959. Rome: Cidim-ERI 2000, pp. 160–174. contrasting themes), our commentaries, and the ti- Scaldaferri, N. 1994. Musica nel laboratorio elettroacu- tles (used as a third voice that articulates, intro- stico. Lo Studio di Fonologia di Milano e la ricerca duces, or ‘‘disturbs’’ the logical flow characterizing musicale negli anni Cinquanta. Lucca: LIM. the other voices). The titles of the sections are Scazzola, A. 1996. ‘‘La tecnica e` un mezzo, la musica una taken from the texts of Berio’s electroacoustic and ragione. Intervista con Luciano Berio.’’ Tele`ma 6:67. Stoianova, I. 1985. ‘‘Luciano Berio: Chemins en mu- vocal works. In particular, ‘‘Parrrole’’ comes from sique.’’ La Revue Musicale 375–377. Visage (1961); ‘‘In My Beginning’’ and ‘‘In My End Vidolin, A. 1992. ‘‘Avevamo nove oscillatori.’’ I Qua- Is My Music’’ come from A-Ronne (1974–75); ‘‘A derni della Civica Scuola di Musica 21/22:13–22. Veil Awave Upon the Waves,’’ ‘‘Hisssss,’’ ‘‘Im- perthnthn thnthnthn,’’ and ‘‘Listen!’’ are taken from Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958); and finally, ‘‘Perspectives’’ is the title of a work for tape com- Appendix posed in 1957. The final sentence (‘‘I shall leave you now . . .’’) was uttered by Leopold Stokowski This article, as already mentioned in the introduc- to introduce the tape music concert in New York tion, is a tribute to Luciano Berio. Therefore, ac- on October 28, 1952. cording to his usual practice (even in non-musical The authors want to thank Daniel Mintz for the expression), we decided to conceive it as a sort of translation and Universal Edition for the permis- musical structure. It develops on three polyphonic sion to publish Berio’s picture.

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