Luciano Berio: Sinfonia; Eindrücke

Luciano Berio (Composer), Pierre Boulez (Conductor), Ward Swingle (Conductor), Swingle Singers (Performer), Orchestre National de France (Orchestra), Regis Pasquier (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Swingle Singers, Regis Pasquier
• Orchestra: Orchestre National de France
• Conductor: Pierre Boulez, Ward Swingle
• Composer: Luciano Berio
• Audio CD (April 28, 1992)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Erato
• ASIN: B000005E60
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #215,199 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Track Listings

1. Sinfonia, for 8 amplified voices & orchestra: I

2. Sinfonia, for 8 amplified voices & orchestra: II. O King

3. Sinfonia, for 8 amplified voices & orchestra: III. In ruhig fliessender Bewegung

4. Sinfonia, for 8 amplified voices & orchestra: IV

5. Sinfonia, for 8 amplified voices & orchestra: V

6. Eindrücke, for orchestra: Eindrücke

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Berio's most celebrated opus is what a friend describes as a "kitchen-sink work:" the Italian composer, in a display of exuberance and virtuosity, seems to have synthesized all of his disparate preoccupations and fascinations--Samuel Beckett, Martin Luther King, Mahler, the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss--into an intensely personal orchestral fantasia. The result, which the composer describes as "perhaps my most experimental work," is ultimately joyous. Pierre Boulez conducts. --Joshua Cody

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, April 4, 2004

By	Prescott Cunningham Moore - See all my reviews

Luciano Berio was commissioned to write a work for the New York Philharmonic's 150th anniversary. What resulted was the Sinfonia, a masterpiece of the twentieth century musical movement. This work combines many of the Italian composers fascinations - from Mahler to Martin Luther King - and sympathizes them. The result is fascinating, stimulating, and thoroughly enjoyable. Boulez's interpretation is really top-notch. He leads the orchestra with great power, gusto, and energy. This vision is evident, especially in the third moment of the piece. Berio here takes the Scherzo from Mahler's second symphony and "pastes" in other famous musical phrases from Debussy, Ravel, Beethoven, Schoenberg and others as well as adding voices, which sustain a dialog throughout the entire movement. Boulez's intellectual approach to music is appreciated here - the result is a crisp, definitive reading of this powerful twentieth century masterpiece.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Boulez NOT against bernstein, April 27, 2006

By	Peter Gillette (Appleton, WI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Boulez's recording of "Sinfonia" is fascinating in that it creates a revisionist view of Berio as a far "cooler" composer than he was. Granted, the complicated score works on that level, and the reserve with which Boulez interprets lends an organicism to the work's slow movements, and a direction to the first.

Just a word of correction to other reviewers: the original LP, which is quite outstanding, has Berio conducting, not Bernstein, and it lacks the fifth movement, which gives it an almost elegiac quality. What's more, while--through Boulez's championing and elsewhere--Berio has been viewed as a rather "formal" or cerebral composer, his original recording is, if anything, remarkably romantic. It's interesting to see how the London recording (rather cool, crystalline--even more reserved than Boulez) and the Boulez contrast with the Berio and, to a lesser extent, the fine Chailly recording in their attitudes towards the third movement's "Mahlerian" text. A conductor's attitude towards Mahler (ironic, detached, involved, "romantic") goes a long way towards showing what kind of message their Sinfonia will give.

The Sinfonia was constructed with more than a little doubleness in mind, and, to that extent, the Boulez is a valuable, ostensibly dispassionate essay on all Berio's worldview circa '68. Two interesting counterpoints: Boulez took over for Bernstein at the NYPhil in '69. Also, while writing the Sinfonia, Berio wrote a widely circulated (christian science monitor) critique of the twelve-tone establishment, although he quotes Boulez during Sinfonia. Boulez's championing of Berio suggests that ideological lines are not nearly as solid as we might at first presume.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Boulez vs. Bernstein Redux, December 5, 2004

By	W. Heyser "easier_rhino" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While I do agree that the Bernstein recording of Berio's masterwork is the better performance of the two, Boulez brings a nouance to his conducting that I think can only come from the fact that the piece had aged somewhat by the time he was conducting it. The piece might be viewed as less topical by that time, but Boulez manages to make it speak to a new audience with the same force that it had the first time it was performed. I personally feel that it is just as meaningful now as ever, regardless of who performs it, but Boulez definitely makes it feel avant garde, even after so much time has passed.
Leaving all the qualitative discussion aside, this recording is available while Bernstein's is not (unless you happen to be lucky enough to know someone with the LP), and this recording includes the additional fifth movement while Bernstein's does not. I agree that Bernstein's should be made available no matter what one might think about its quality, but this recording is at least equally deserving of a listen. I do not agree with the previous reviewer that the sound quality is lacking, so even if one loves the other recording, one should be able to buy this one as well without worrying about getting a badly-produced recording.