With
two brand-new complete recordings of Luciano Berio’s Sequenzas
currently staring at you from the shop shelves, we felt it
would be a good idea to do a direct comparison. This is of
course an uneven match, since the 3 CD Naxos release only
covers the ‘b’ versions of
VIIb for soprano saxophone,
and
IXb for alto saxophone. Mode has all of the alternatives
and the complete canon of other solo works by Berio on 4
CDs, so as already noted by other reviewers, completists
will most likely go for this 4 CD set. True completists will
in fact want both, but that’s another story. The Naxos box
is in a conventional jewel-case with notes in English and
German, players biographies in English only. The Mode set
has each CD in its own paper sleeve, a nice chunky book with
plenty of information in English, German and French with
glossy black and white pictures of the performers in action,
and a cardboard box to hold it all together.
One
other aspect of the Modus set is the texts which precede
each Sequenza. Edoardo Sanguinetti began writing verses for
the Sequenzas in 1994, but had already collaborated with
Berio on a number of projects from as early as around 1960.
Enzo Salomane’s deep, resonant voice is a wonderful vehicle
for these texts, but the desirability of their inclusion
in this way is debatable, even with English translations
in the booklet notes (not translated into German or French
by the way). I have nothing against texts written on music,
and the composer’s artistic synergy with Sanguinetti is a
matter of record. Having them read at the top of a recording
has however the tendency to lend programmatic weight to a
work which may not even have been intended by the composer – it
may be there
is programmatic weight, just not necessarily
expressed by
that particular text or manner of delivery.
If a composer really wanted such things then he would write
or select them himself, and probably include them in the
score with instructions on options for performance. They
are nice enough texts, and have an alliterative resonance
and rhythm in the original Italian which is undeniably poetic.
Presented with (giving allowances for the translation, and
chosen more or less at random); “my capricious frenzy was
once your livid calm/my song will be the slowness of your
silence”, would
you be able to guess to which of the
Sequenzas this refers? Paste it in front of
any of
them and we find our suggestible selves nodding in sage agreement
with the writer’s sentiments. Each text is thankfully given
its own track marking, so it is possible to programme them
out of an airing of these recordings if desired.
Much
of Berio’s music, the Sequenzas included, inhabits a world
of inner drama which interacts with the outside world in
a surreal fashion. It’s the kind of drama which confronts
and subverts within the mind, entering and rummaging around
in the subconscious and then rearing up in front of you like
a giant balloon clown when you least expect it. The relationships
of perspective between the player and his/her instrument,
and between the player and the audience, are in state of
constant distortion and flux. This is summed up in a way
by that single word ‘why’ in
Sequenza V for trombone.
The ‘wha’ of the mute being moved over the bell of the instrument
is given an added declamatory significance after that moment,
and a musical conversation or monologue – real or imagined,
ensues. Each of the Sequenzas benefits from being seen performed
live for this reason as well. The theatrical actions of the
musicians as they negotiate Berio’s music is another important
element which is missed by any recording, although the physical
movement involved in
Sequenza II for harp does come
across to a certain extent in the Naxos recording. In other
words, an imaginatively produced but unpretentious DVD version
next, please.
So,
dear reader, you are still standing in the record shop, busting
for a pee or dying for a pint and
still wondering
which version in which to invest. One is priced at about £13
for three CDs, the other over £40 for four – help! This
is very
much an uneven playing field, so if budget is a prime consideration
I can say now that you will not be disappointed with the
Naxos set. In many instances the recordings have a larger
stereo soundstage and more depth in the recorded sound, and
are certainly placed in a more resonant acoustic, which does
reduce the hothouse effect of having the musician a few metres
from your chair rather than being in the prime spot in a
concert hall.
I
do not propose doing detailed comparisons of every piece,
so I shall restrict myself to the aspects of certain recordings
or performances which, to my mind, stand out as significant.
The element of swings and roundabouts has occasionally left
me unable to choose, one way or another.
Sequenza
I for flute. Honours about equal for this audition-torture
work known to flautists all over the world, but where Naxos
present
Nora Shulman in resonant splendour, Mode’s Paula Robison
has to make do with what sounds like a large bathroom.
The same goes for
Sequenza II for harp, and I much
prefer Erica Goodman’s (Naxos) tuning, articulation, variety
in colour and low ‘dong’s.
Sequenza
III for voice is of course a core work in this
collection. Both performances are very good, and personal
taste plays a huge role in
such a piece. Isabelle Ganz (Mode) is a mezzo-soprano with
quite a silvery sound at times – the break in her voice
very occasionally making her sound like your mad grandmother.
Tony Arnold (Naxos) is a soprano, and has to my ears the
advantage of being able to reach down from easy highs,
rather than push upward from a lower basic range. Ganz
is a little more gritty in her ‘acting’, having a little
more depth in this aspect of her performance. Arnold more
smiling and flighty, showing some restriction in the lowest
notes, but with a schizophrenic inhalation ‘gasp’ which
would have you running for your life.
Sequenza
IV for piano is given a more sympathetic acoustic
from Mode this time, and Aki Takahashi is just that much
more convincing than
Boris Berman, who is very good, but whose antimetrics sound
merely uneven at times, rather than being engraved in glass.
Sequenza
V for trombone receives excellent performances
on both releases, but I find Stuart Dempster’s (Mode) ‘why’ over-eggs the pudding,
attempting to load the word with too much gaping wonder
for my taste. Alain Trudel is more subtle – his ‘why’ is
a strange, plaintive question, but raises more goose-bumps
as a result.
Sequenza
VI for viola is a bit of a scrub by any standards,
but Garth Knox (Mode) is intense almost beyond endurance,
certainly beyond comfort.
The Naxos recording gives the player a little more acoustic
breathing space. Steven Dann attacks the work with similar
verve, but the clarity of the moments between repeated
notes is a little less obvious.
Sequenza
VIIa for oboe is a kind of
fantasy around a single note, which is held ‘by any other
instrument’ offstage throughout the piece. Where the Naxos ‘note’ is
a single sine-wave like sound, the Mode recording has a
note with texture and the human element, three singers
holding the note and breathing ‘invisibly’. The spatial
effect adds a fascinating extra quality to this intense
and dramatic work.
For
Sequenza
VIII for violin the Mode set has the benefit of the
legendary Irvine Arditti, who was central in gathering
the musicians for these recordings. Repeated notes, and
the filigree gestures and dissonant double-stop intervals
which are Berio violinistic fingerprints create a kind
of melting-pot of modern technique and style with acknowledgements
of ageless tradition. Arditti frequently sounds like two
violinists, which means the contrapuntal effects are coming
across at their best. This is ground on which it is hard
for any other violinist to compete, and while Matej Šarc
plays brilliantly I don’t quite get the same Berio ‘feel’.
The notes are all there with Šarc, but Arditti knows how
to draw out the personality in the idiom; the Italian voices
muttering under the floorboards, as well as creating an
incomparable performance.
Sequenza
IXa for clarinet is mellifluous and elegant
through the playing of Joaquin Valdepeñas on Naxos, helped
once again by that rich church acoustic. Carol Robinson
has a slightly wider range, more
introverted in the soft, lyrical passages, and with a little
more bite and attack when things become more hairy.
Sequenza
X ‘for trumpet in C and piano resonance’; rather than pushing the technical
demands of the instrument, extends the acoustic effect
of resonance by having selected sympathetically vibrating
strings on a piano respond to notes from the trumpet. With
Naxos’ acoustic already being quite resonant, the effect
of the strings is present, but not nearly as dramatic as
on the Mode recording. You can hear William Foreman (Mode)
changing his direction of play, pointing his trumpet into
the piano on certain notes. You also sense vague movements
from the poor silent pianist, whose skill and touch with
the keys and pedal are doomed to anonymity in both releases.
Foreman’s ‘doodle’ tonguing is more convincing than Guy
Few’s on Naxos, but both have a wide palette of colour,
articulation and dynamic.
Sequenza
XI for guitar is stunning on both versions,
Pablo Sáinz Villegas (Naxos)
coming in a spectacular but no less expressive two minutes
shorter than Seth Josel (Mode), who spends more time on
the more introspective passages.
Sequenza
XII for bassoon is one of the longest of all
of the Sequenzas, having come about as the result of a
close collaboration with
bassoonist Pascal Gallois. Berio was clearly fascinated
by the ‘voice’ of the bassoon, expanding at length on its
variety of character, from jolly eccentric to grumpy old
man through soulful drunk or unfortunate beast, or indeed
whatever image is created in your mind’s eye. I like Ken
Mundy’s (Naxos) rounded and beefy tone, and his ability
to circular breathe as good as silently, but both performances
and recordings have valuable qualities. Noriko Shimada
has a microphone placement which picks up the multiple
fingerings on one note more clearly, and her playing produces
richer overtones, making for a more ‘bassoony’ sound.
A
tag end of Enzo Salomane’s voice bleeds a little carelessly
into the track of
Sequenza XIII for accordion on the
Mode version. This minor productional blip takes nothing
from Stefan Hussong’s marvellous playing however, as micro-windows
open into the various worlds into which Berio gives us glimpses – tango,
jazz, even some moments which suggest a church harmonium.
The piece’s lyrical character has a slightly less ‘legato’ character
with Joseph Petric on Naxos, and while technically good,
is a less revelatory experience for the imagination.
Sequenza
XIV was written for Rohan de Saram, cellist
with the Arditti Quartet, and is one of the last pieces
Berio wrote before he died.
Rohan de Saram inevitably has the edge on anyone else recording
this piece, having worked closely with Berio on the work,
and performing the premieres of this and the subsequent
revisions made between 2002 and 2003. The percussive sounds
derive from De Saram’s Sri Lankan origins, and his performance
is filled with poetry and lyrical expressiveness, as well
as having all of the dynamic ‘kick’ the piece demands.
Turning to Darrett Adkins on Naxos, I at first wondered
if he was playing the same piece. All I can say is that
a player attempting this work is likely to need some kind
of masterclass on some of the techniques involved, as many
of the intended effects do not come across in at all the
same way in the Naxos recording. Adkins is good, but De
Saram is as good as definitive.
As
far as direct comparisons go, there only remain the two saxophone
works on the Naxos set.
Sequenza VIIb receives an
excellent performance by both Wallace Halladay (Naxos) and
Ulrich Krieger (Mode), but the sustained offstage note in
both is a characterless sine-wave, and in Krieger’s case
a note with which the player seems not to be in tune for
big patches of the piece.
Sequenza IXb is a toss up
between rich resonance and a mellow, rounded sound (Naxos),
or what sounds like artificial resonance imposed on a dry
studio taping (Mode) – there is a definite discrepancy between
the ‘booth’ acoustic and halo of resonance which is helping
the sound. Both players, Halladay again for Naxos and Kelland
Thomas for Mode are excellent, though I find Halladay more
dramatic and varied in his big space, Thomas’ version sounds
more like a skilled read-through.
So,
have you been keeping score? I make it Naxos 5, Mode 8 where
it comes to clear wins, with three score-draws. The weakest
parts of the Mode set are the recordings of some of the earlier
Sequenzas and the saxophone alternatives, Naxos falls down
where players are have a less distinctly ‘Berio’ character,
or are less authoritative. The Naxos set has the benefit
of a single, pleasantly resonant recorded location, which
can however have the effect of ‘smoothing out’ the extremes
of Berio’s message. Mode’s recordings are almost invariably
more detailed and confrontational, but inevitably a bit of
a mixed bag. The jewels in their crown are of course the
recordings by Rohan de Saram of all of Berio’s work for solo
cello, and to my mind the violin of Irvine Arditti and accordion
of Stefan Hussong to name just a few. Even where the recording
are less appealing the performances are always good, and
most are superb. I have to agree that, having now heard both
sets, and currently having my ears and mind stimulated by
wonderful work on the
Sequenza XIVb for double-bass
and a myriad of other less frequently aired solo works, I
would find it hard to rest easy with the Naxos set alone,
good though it is. It looks like you are going to have to
bite the bullet, stop jingling the loose change in your pocket
and get out your credit card …
Dominy Clements
see also reviews by Glyn
Pursglove (Naxos), Hubert
Culot (Naxos) & Anne
Ozorio (Mode)
Nora Shulman (flute); Erica Goodman
(harp); Tony Arnold (soprano); Boris Berman (piano); Alain Trudel (trombone);
Steven Dann (viola); Matej Šarc (oboe); Jasper
Wood (violin); Joaquin Valdepeñas (clarinet); Guy Few (trumpet); Pablo Sáinz
Villegas (guitar); Ken Munday (bassoon); Joseph Petric (accordion); Darrett Adkins
(cello); Wallace Halladay (saxophones) 
