Luciano Berio
1925–2003. Italian composer. in the Post-War Avant-Garde tradition.
Major Italian modernist; known for his Sequenza series and innovative vocal works. Folk Songs arrangement is widely performed. Closely associated with European avant-garde movements including serialism and electronic music.
Signature works: Sinfonia for Eight Voices and Orchestra, Sequenza series, Folk Songs for Mezzo-Soprano and Chamber Ensemble, Coro for Voices and Instruments, Rendering.
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#50 - Berio: Coro; Zuraj: Automatones
$19.99CDBR Klassik
Nov 07, 2025BRK900650 -
Within the Waves - Sanna Vaarni
$16.99CDStradivarius
Mar 20, 2026STR37331 -
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Berio: Rendering, Echoing Curves, Etc / Lucchesini, Berio
Fanfare (7-8/98, p.100) - "...The performances all seem good, as does the sound quality. There are other CDs that are more vital Berio, although this one certainly makes you think, which can't be bad these days."
Berio: Sinfonia, Concerto for Two Pianos / Swingle Singers, New York Philharmonic
"[Sinfonia] is a wild, four-movement work and shows the new direction music is taking. Gone are the strict constructions and parameters of serialism. Instead there is a concentration on pure sound... With the Swingle Singers grouped around microphones, breaking the language (French and English, mostly) into bits of sound components, and with the orchestra often blasting away with fortissimo chords that contained all 12 notes of the scale, there was not a dull moment anywhere... It is one of the musics of the future." -- Harold C. Schonberg, The New York Times
"...the Swingle Singers perform this music as if their lives depended on it. Sinfonia becomes a piece of musical theater on that recording..." -- Raymond Tuttle, www.classical.net
Berio: Complete Piano Works / Matteo Bevilacqua
The piano was a constant throughout Luciano Berio’s life. Not only is there a considerable quantity of early chamber music which makes use of it, but it assumes a truly important role in any number of his works. The earliest work on this recording is the Petite Suite, written when Berio was 22 years of age. In spite of its very traditional name, the Piano Sonata is one of his last works, completed in 2001 to a commission from the Zurich Festival, but arising from an earlier, brief work called Interlinea, written in 2000 for Pierre Boulez’s 75th birthday.
Stellar Italian pianist Matteo Bevilacqua makes his Grand Piano debut with this album of Berio’s complete piano works. He is joined by Luca Trabucco in the works for piano four hands Canzonetta and Torch. 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of Berio’s death.
REVIEW:
In 2007, Andrea Lucchesini recorded most of Berio’s piano music. He had the immediate advantage of having worked on this music with Berio. What differences are there then, in how these two fine virtuosi perform Berio?
Take Sequenza IV. Lucchesini plays in a more exciting, brilliant way, and total playing time for the piece is slightly faster in his hands than Bevilacqua's. The latter’s reading, not surprisingly, is more relaxed, less flashy and more reflective. Bevilacqua also uses the third pedal, producing a sort of random hidden melody. I also prefer the recording.
The Six Encores are stylistically quite contrasted, but meld together successfully. Again, Bevilacqua takes his time. Entirely appropriately, he brings out a feeling of dreamy impressionism in three encores, for example Erdenklavier.
The Petite suite gets its first recording here. It is not really a neo-classical work. but can be thought of as Bach re-imagined through the a Prokofiev lens. The piece is often witty, vibrant, and most enjoyable. This recording may help it find a secure way into the general repertoire.
Cinque variazioni is dedicated to another Luigi Dallapiccola. Such music seems quite out of fashion nowadays, but nonetheless, this is a captivating performance. This also applies to Rounds, perhaps the most pointillistic work of the set, a sort of half-way house between Webern and Stockhausen’s Klaverierstücke.
Andrea Lucchesini premiered the Piano Sonata in 2001. Bevilacqua gives a thrilling and sparkling interpretation, but suspect he has learned a little something from Lucchesini: he enables the more dreamy qualities to come to the fore where necessary. There is a gripping drama here which holds the attention.
Two four-hand duets, Canzonetta and Touch, cap the program. They are small in duration but large in scope. Luca Trabucco is Bevilacqua’s very able partner.
Ivan Moody’s booklet notes feature a very perceptive essay and descriptions of the music.
-- MusicWeb International (Gary Higginson)
Crazy Girl Crazy / Hannigan, Ludwig Orchestra
Whether singing, conducting, dancing or acting, the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan is a source of fascination. Alpha Classics is proud to enter her world today and to present in 2017 her very first album as singer and conductor: with the Amsterdambased orchestra Ludwig, of which she is associate artist, Barbara Hannigan has devised a programme including Berg’s Lulu Suite and Gershwin’s Girl Crazy in a Suite newly arranged by the multiaward-winning American composer Bill Elliott. To complement these two pieces, she has recorded Berio’s spectacular Sequenza III for solo voice. An outstanding soprano, a distinguished interpreter of the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, an all-round artist who creates a sensation on concert platforms and in opera houses throughout the world, Barbara Hannigan has enriched her palette over the past few years by devoting a portion of her activities to conducting. This album in the form of a musical portrait of the artist, is completed by a film made by Mathieu Amalric during the rehearsals and recording sessions. It plunges into the heart of the orchestra with a very personal look at the exchanges between conductor and musicians. Over the next few years, Alpha will accompany Barbara Hannigan in a number of projects from very varied horizons . . .
Berio / Xenakis / Turnage: Trombone Concertos Dedicated To C
Berio: Sequenzas I - XIV
It might be helpful to describe some of the ways in which the DG and Naxos performances differ. In Sequenza XII for Bassoon, Pascal Gallois' rapid leaps and piercing multiphonics convey a sharper impact through DG's close microphone placement. By contrast, Naxos' more distantly miked Ken Munday sounds relatively less incisive yet fuller bodied in longer, sustained passages. DG's violist Christophe Desjardins plays Sequenza VI's cyclonic opening chordal section with lacerating intensity, whereas Naxos' Steven Dunn's slightly slower tempo allows the pitches and cross rhythms a little more room to breathe.
Naxos' Jaspar Wood does a fine job with Sequenza VIII, but DG's Jeanne-Marie Conquer's double stops boast more variety and tonal differentiation. Regarding Sequenza II, it's a toss-up between Frédérique Cambreling's pronounced dynamic contrasts (DG) and Erica Goodman's greater clarity in the scurrying, ethereal passages (Naxos). While Naxos' Tony Arnold's playful soprano makes the most of Sequenza III's madcap mood shifts, DG's Luisa Castellani's suppler voice employs wider register extremes (she was Berio's preferred singer in later years).
Had pianist Boris Berman's extraordinary marksmanship in Sequenza IV been captured in more colorful sonic splendor, his interpretation easily would hold its own next to Florent Boffard's elegant insouciance. In Sequenza X for C Trumpet Berio uses piano resonance to create continuity between phrases. On DG, Gabriele Cassone's fat, flügelhorn-like sonority and immaculate repeated-note technique have no peer, yet I like the jazziness with which Naxos' Guy Few leans into the beginnings of certain phrases. In all, this release stands as a viable alternative to the DG set, if not necessarily a replacement as we await Mode's forthcoming Sequenza cycle.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
Berio: Piano Music / Andrea Lucchesini
Includes work(s) for piano by Luciano Berio. Soloist: Andrea Lucchesini.
Sans Dire, Guitar Music
Berio: Coro & Cries of London / Pedersen, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Soloists Choir
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REVIEW:
Luciano Berio is quite rightly viewed as one of the most interesting and adventurous composers of his time. More so than many of his works from the 1960s, Coro struck me as being closer in style and spirit to some of the work of György Ligeti, particularly Ligeti at his best. It is the massed choral sound — and the astonishingly brash, almost metallic sound of the instrumental ensemble — that strikes one the most and stays in the mind. Needless to say, this is exactly the sort of work for which Bis’s SACD sonics are ideal.
– Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)
Berio: Intégrale des quatuors à cordes
Un - Canaja Brass Quintet
Berio, Gentilucci, Putignano & Siano: Labirinti
Berio & Rens: Folk Songs
#50 - Berio: Coro; Zuraj: Automatones
Within the Waves - Sanna Vaarni
Berio: The Great Works for Voice
Xenakis: Dox-Orkh / Mira Fornes: Desde Tan Tien
