Berio: Sequenza III for woman's voice

The soprano Claudia Böttcher and the pianist Jovita Zähl have worked as a duo since 2008. Their concert programmes focus on music from the 20th and 21st centuries. The present CD 'zeit(t)räume' is dedicated to works by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio.

Stockhausen's cycle 'Tierkreis' [Zodiac], originally composed for music boxes, is here presented in a version for soprano and piano. Twelve individually created melodies on texts compiled by Stockhausen himself emphasise the primary qualities of the star signs and connect them with their appropriate seasons, times of day, genders, elements, planets, and stages of growth.

Between 1958 and 2002 Berio wrote 14 sequences for various solo instruments. 'Sequenza III', on a text by the Swiss writer Markus Kutter, is the only true vocal composition of the cycle of works in which a wealth of emotional states, which can be expressed by the voice as the natural instrument of [wo]man, is articulated through sounds, syllables and words. The spectrum includes all possible forms of expression from singing and speaking, whispering and shouting, to laughing and crying.

Between 1952 and 1961 Stockhausen composed eleven 'Klavierstücke' [Piano Pieces]. His 'Klavierstück IX" shows, as an example, the characteristic principle of his serial thinking – to arbitrate gradually as well as organically between pairs of opposites: The composition "conveys forms of musical time: periodicity and an entire series of gradations in the aperiodicity. Static, ‘monotonous’ events are transformed into flexible, ‘polytonal’ ones; they are either placed abruptly next to each other or are mixed in constantly new combinations." (Stockhausen)

Berio’s vocal arrangements in 'Quattro canzoni populari' accentuate an important aspect of his musical thinking: the connection to tradition, without neglecting his impulse toward innovation. The special charm which characterises this vocal work grows out of Berio’s careful new interpretation of this traditional, historical folk song material.

These recordings were made in 1969 when Luciano Berio (1925–2003) was in the fourth year of a six-year appointment at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. During these years he taught composition and analysis, and also created the group heard on this CD, the Juilliard Ensemble.

In the late 1960s Berio’s reputation had grown to make him one of the leading figures in contemporary music, conducting the New York Philharmonic and the Swingle Singers in a performance of part of his Sinfonia. It was the large-scale and theatrical works that dominated his output later in his career, but early on he had produced some remarkable music for chamber groups. When planning this recording Berio wished to show how his music had evolved from the early Due pezzi for violin and piano of 1957, to the newly completed Sequenza VII for solo oboe, composed for Heinz Holliger.

Chamber Music for female voice, harp, cello and clarinet sets words by James Joyce, and was written for Berio’s first wife, the American soprano Cathy Berberian. Berio’s flexible and contrapuntally lucid use of the 12-tone method (a tribute to Webern and Dallapiccola) is apparent in the Sequenza III – another work composed for his wife.

Combining the rich palette of colours of mezzo-soprano voice and clarinets. New commissions from Andrew Keeling, Geoffrey Poole and Colin Riley.

If you have never heard half a clarinet played before, now is your opportunity! In fact Ian Mitchell plays both halves of the clarinet, detached from each other, simultaneously. The work in question is William O Smith’s Five Fragments for Double Clarinet and put beside that the amazing Sequenza III per voce feminale of Berio, if you needed a reason for purchasing this CD, this is it!

In addition you have two virtuosi combining to create a personal world of shifting colours and moods exploring timbres and textures rarely experienced elsewhere. Many of the works recorded here were commissioned by the performers and the range of styles provides something for everyone.

Luciano Berio was one of the greatest and most innovative composers for the voice of the post-war generation - moving it into previously unknown territories, yet with an innately literate sense of song.

Luciano Berio greatly enriched the repertoire for solo instruments and voice with his series of sixteen Sequenzas and works such as Psy, Gesti, Rounds and Fa-Si. Written between 1958 and 2002 and spanning almost five decades of Berio's creative career, these solo compositions reflect some of his most crucial aesthetic ideas and compositional techniques

The first COMPLETE recording of the Sequenazs: This set includes the world premiere recording of Sequenza XIV for solo cello, written for ex-Arditti Quartet cellist Rohan de Saram, who performs the Sequenza here.

The first COMPLETE recording of the alternate Sequenazs: At the request of many soloists, Berio arranged several of the Sequenzas for alternate instrumentation. This set compiles all of Berio's alternate Sequenzas for the first time, also with some first recordings.

Plus all of Berio's works for solo instruments: Also collected together for the first time, Berio's solo works and personal arrangements (with the exception of those for solo piano, which would be a full CD in itself) are included.

All Sequenzas are preceeded by verses of Edoardo Sanguineti performed by Enzo Salomone.