Episode 100
Crosscurrents in Early Electronic Music: Italy—Part 1
Playlist
Berio, Maderna, Nono, Zuccheri, RAI Studio di Fonologia Musicale (RAI), Milan
Luciano Berio, “Mutazioni” (1955) from Prospettive Nella Musica (1956 RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana). The first complete tape work by Berio at the newly founded RAI studio, which he was running with composer Bruno Maderna. Sound engineering by Marino Zuccheri. Berio and Maderna kept an open mind about the music that would be produced under its roof. They did not align themselves aesthetically with either the musique concrète approach taken in Paris or the serialist, rules-based composing style of Cologne. “Bruno and I immediately agreed,” explained Berio, “that our work should not be directed in a systematic way, either toward recording acoustic sounds or toward a systematic serialism based on discrete pitches.”[1] As a consequence, Alfredo Lietti Marino Zuccheri, engineers for the studio, filled it with equipment that appealed to a wide spectrum of compositional needs. In 1956, studio no. 3 at RAI had a custom-built cabinet with six vertical racks consisting of audio generators (9 sine wave oscillators, 1 white noise generator, 1 pulse generator), sound modifiers (plate reverb, octave filter, high pass filter, low-pass filter, variable band-pass filter, third-octave filter, ring and amplitude modulators), and a mixing panel. Several tape recorders were available mix and match sounds. You can almost sense the excitement of the creation of these foundational works as each composer brought their own individualism to the sound a translated that into electronic music. 3:36
Berio & Maderna, “Ritatto di Città (poema radiofonico)” (1955) (1955 RAI). File from the RAI Archives. This is an excerpt from a radiophonic production that was 26’ long. 6:05
Bruno Maderna, “Notturno” (1956) from Prospettive Nella Musica (1956 RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana). Maderna’s first official solo tape work produced at the RAI studio. From an original disc released by the RAI in 1956. 3:24
Luciano Berio, “Perspectives” from Prospettive Nella Musica (1956 RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana). An eight-part work of experiments in transforming musical sounds and rhythms with electronic manipulation. 6:36
Bruno Maderna, “Música su Due Dimensioni” from História da Música Eletroacústica (1958). 7:10
Luciano Berio, “Momenti”(1960) from Images Fantastiques (Electronic Experimental Music) (1968 Limelight). This release was an American collection of European electronic music released on the Limelight label, a subsidiary of Philips. Although released a few years after “Momenti” was available elsewhere, this was an album that captivated my imagination at the time. You hear Berio’s innate sense for fashioning unique sounds and rhythms with this sound material, adding some reverb to give it depth, producing audio that is reminiscent of natural sounds, but transformed to give it an other-worldly quality. 7:02
Bruno Maderna, “Dimensioni II (Inventione su Una Voce)” from Musica Elettronica / Electronic Music (1994 Stradivarius). Anyone familiar with Italian new music will know the name of Cathy Berberian. She was an American operatic mezzo-soprano and for a time (1950-64) was married to Luciano Berio. She was a kind of muse for the modern composers at the Milan studio, lending her incredible vocal capabilities to tracks that could then be transformed into electronic music. One such famous piece, not included here because it is so familiar, is “Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)” by Berio. Instead, I wanted to feature another tape piece, this one by Maderna, because he not only transforms Berberian’s voice using electronic techniques but allows her to express herself as well in some unmodified sections. This marks a period where Maderna was longer magnetic tape pieces, ten minutes or more each. Unlike his shorter, more frenetic works, these longer pieces gave him time to develop themes, apply long silences, and structure his works around