FULL CORO (Luciano Berio) Munich 2023 Simon Rattle

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Coro   
• Composer: Berio Luciano  
• Libretto:
• Venue & Opera Company: Im Gasteig, München, Germany  
• Recorded: October 13, 2023
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers:
• Conductor: Simon Rattle  
• Orchestra: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra  
• Chorus: Bavarian Radio Choir  
• Chorus Master: Peter Dijkstra, Max Hanft  
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: BR  
• Date Published: 2023  
• Format: Broadcast
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  
• Video Recording from: ARD Mediathek     FULL VIDEO
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

PROGRAMM
Vito Žuraj “Automatones” für grosses Orchester
(Kompositionsauftrag der musica viva des Bayerischen Rundfunks, UA)

Luciano Berio “Coro” für 40 Stimmen und Instrumente

Simon Rattle’s conducting career represents departure and renewal – and modern music also plays a major role in this. So it’s no surprise that Rattle also devotes himself to a  musica viva concert when he takes office as chief conductor of the BR choir and symphony orchestra  . On the program: the premiere of “Automatones”, written by Vito Žuraj on behalf of   Bavarian Radio’s musica viva . Something extraordinary can be expected, after all, the Rihm student, who was born in Maribor, Slovenia in 1979, always causes a sensation: “Contemporary music can be so much fun.” ( Offenbach-Post ) After the break, Rattle conducts “Coro” for choir and orchestra by Luciano Berio: a confessional work in a “tragic mood” (Berio) that has lost none of its relevance today.

Coro (Italian: Chorus) is a large scale composition for forty voices and forty instruments by Italian composer Luciano Berio.

Coro was written at a time when, according to Berio, “the blood in the streets of Italy came out”, partly due to the Years of Lead. Berio, a composer committed to social issues, often expressed his views and described the composition’s central theme to be “the acute awareness of things at a tragic moment. On this line, he referred to Coro as being a tribute to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. In his opinion, Neruda was “practically murdered (not physically, but spiritually); they broke his heart. […] It is an invitation to be aware of the violence of the times, Fascist violence”.

Berio composed Coro between 1974 and 1976 under a commission by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln. It was dedicated to his wife, Talia Berio. Its premiere took place at the Donaueschingen Festival on 24 October 1976 by the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln and the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln. However, Berio only premiered an initial version of Coro, which contained 29 movements. The final 31-movement piece was premiere later in Graz, on 16 November 1977, by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Leif Segerstam.

As customary in Berio’s musical output, Coro has its place in a sequence of works whose titles refer to archetypal modes of musical expression. He started this sequence with his Sinfonia (1968–1969), followed by his outlook on the whole genre of music theatre in Opera (1960–1970), on the life and work of a solo singer in Recital I (for Cathy) (1972) and on the relationship between soloists and ensembles in his Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1972–1973). With Coro, Berio also further explored the kind of folk music he had already used in his Folk Songs (1964) and Questo vuol dire che (1969).

Quoted from Wikipedia