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FULL FOLK SONGS (Berio) Washington DC 2023 J’Nai Bridges
STREAM IT from medicitv
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Folk Songs
- Composer: Berio Luciano
- Libretto:
- Venue & Opera Company: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.
- Recorded: April 23, 2023
- Type: Concert Live
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
PROGRAM:
Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1
“Morning Mood;” “The Death of Åse;” “Anitra’s Dance;” “In the Hall of the Mountain King”
Luciano Berio: Folk Songs
Carlos Simon: Songs of Separation** (WORLD PREMIERE, NSO COMMISSION)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet – Fantasy Overture
Quote from Wikipedia:
Folk Songs is a song cycle by the Italian composer Luciano Berio composed in 1964. It consists of arrangements of folk music from various countries and other songs, forming “a tribute to the extraordinary artistry” of the American singer Cathy Berberian, a specialist in Berio’s music. It is scored for voice, flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet, harp, viola, cello, and percussion (two players). The composer arranged it for a large orchestra in 1973.
Two of the songs in the cycle, “La donna ideale” and “Ballo”, were composed in 1947 by Berio during his second year at the Milan Conservatory for voice and piano as part of his Tre canzoni popolari (Three folk songs). It is often claimed that these three songs were written for Cathy Berberian while she was studying in Italy, but this cannot be the case because she did not arrive there until 1949.
The Folk Songs cycle was commissioned by Mills College in California and first performed there by a chamber orchestra directed by Berio in 1964 with Berberian as the soprano soloist. By the time of its first performance, the Berberian–Berio marriage was nearing its end, but their artistic partnership continued; they subsequently collaborated on works such as Sequenza III, Visage, and Recital I (for Cathy). Berio had an emotional attachment to folk song: he once declared that “When I work with that music I am always caught by the thrill of discovery.” Other later compositions by Berio that incorporated folk songs were Cries of London, Coro and Voci: Folk Songs II.