"Parrrole": Berio's Words on Music Technology

Author(s): Andrea Cremaschi and Francesco Giomi

Source: Computer Music Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), pp. 26-36
Published by: MIT Press
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AndreaCremaschi*
Giomit
andFrancesco

Parrrole:

Berio's

* Via Michelangelo 2
27058 Voghera (PV), Italy
andreacremaschi@tiscali.it
tCentro Tempo Reale
Villa Strozzi-Via Pisana 77
50143 Florence, Italy
fg@centrotemporeale.it

on

Technology

Numbers in music, from Aristotle to the

late Middle Ages, were inhabited by
heaven and earth, by the entire universe.
Nowadays, numbers are uninhabited, or
rather, inhabited at will; sometimes
they are metaphors, or alibis, or something else.
-Luciano Berio
(Rizzard and De Benedictis 2000, p. 164)

Music

Words

Computer Music Journal,28:1, pp. 26-36, Spring2004

? 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Giomi et al. (2003). Further historical and biographical information can be found online at the Universal Edition Web site (www.uemusic.at) and in some
comprehensive studies about the composer, including Stoianova (1985), Osmond-Smith (1991), and
Restagno (1995).
It is perhaps still too early to take stock of Berio's musical and theoretical contributions to the
field of electroacoustic music. Given the variety of
solutions, techniques, and aesthetics Berio used, a
comprehensive examination of his work is likely to
be somewhat disorienting. Nonetheless, it is possible to trace certain hypotheses and lines of research
that characterized Berio's language from the very
beginning.
One of these is surely the centrality of the act of
creation and its absolute preeminence in his technological inquiries-the centrality of the music itself in comparison to its productive mechanisms.
In this, obviously, he never intended to devalue the
technological component (without which of course
his electroacoustic music would not exist), but
rather to reaffirm the role of the composer as creator, particularly when faced with the vast possibilities of electronic means.
Another characteristic is his criticism of those
who consider the electroacoustic resources available as a simple "sampler" programmed with new
sounds. The revolution in new technologies has
brought us far beyond this, as is clearly evident in
the generation of new musical processes, in the simultaneous control of micro- and macrostructures, and thus in the elimination, as we will
see, of a dualistic conception of the material. For
Berio, not to understand how we arrived at this revolution is one of the most serious dangers that can
befall a composer.
As will become evident, central to Berio's thinking was his desire to create a continuity between
electroacoustic music and instrumental music. He
imagined no clear separation between genres nor

26

Computer Music Journal

For fifty years, Luciano Berio (1925-2003) (see Figure 1) worked with music technology, beginning
with the now distant concert on October 28, 1952,
where he heard his first piece of tape music, and
extending to the recent works Ofanim, Outis,
Cronaca del Luogo, and Altra voce. It was not always a steady relationship; moments of extraordinary creativity were mixed with moments of
apparent disinterest in technology resulting from
problems posed by the electronic manipulation of
sound. Nevertheless, it was an enduring relationship-surviving even to recent years-thanks to
Berio's personal interest in live electronics, which
led to the creation of new masterworks.
This very relationship and the theoretical apparatus that developed is the focus of this article. This
is not meant to be a musicological study, but
rather a tribute, a brief retrospective. It is mostly
composed of quotations taken from essays or interviews in order to cover the entire are of Berio's production, and it is organized as a sort of
multi-voiced dialogue. Therefore, there is no systematic purpose, nor is there a desire to present an
analysis of Berio's music. We refer the reader willing to investigate the matter deeper to a number of
contributions on specific subjects, including Berio
(1956), Delalande (1974), Berio (1975), Vidolin
(1992), Menezes (1993), Scaldaferri (1994), and

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Figure 1. Luciano Berio.

? Universal Edition/
Eric Marinitsch.

??:.?e:.1::~.
.;~?~s.;x-rn~
*:?'?'? ??-*?
-ii?.r~.

i:::.:

;*

...~

:,???
jF1
id81Bii?i!::
:I;

???::;;:::~:::
i??i?~ii

between means of production, but rather creative

acts that are fundamentally defined by the imaginations of composers and by their capacities to integrate various materials and memories they bring to
music.
Many other dilemmas that Berio addressedwill
be easily traceable in the citations that follow. We
therefore leave it to the composer himself to introduce the topic of this article. This first essay, from
1976, serves as a sort of "balance sheet" for the
first twenty-five years of the history of electroacoustic music. At the time he wrote this essay,
Berio was midway through his career, both creatively and theoretically.
Parrrole
For some time now, electronic music has not
been news. We discuss it less than ever and it
is rare to meet musicians who still speak of it
with that optimistic, futuristic vocabulary of
the 1950s, who embrace it as the banner of the
avant-garde,as the symbol of liberation from
the slavery of instrumental academia. Not only
is it difficult to find someone still willing to
defend and describe the infinite possibilities of
electronic music and the lusty cheek-to-cheek
relationship of the musician to sonic material,
it has become quite difficult to use and to define the term itself, electronic music. We can
no longer define it solely by its methods, in

constant and rapid evolution, nor can we define it according to its general principles, by
now shared by almost every form of musical
thought.
Electronic music, in a certain sense, no
longer exists because it is everywhere and is a
part of everyday musical thought. We can describe the specific techniques but we can no
longer hold electronic music up as the antithesis of other modes and conceptions of musical
creation. Electronic music has in fact contributed to developing a unitary vision of musical
process, to concretely overcoming the harmonic-timbral dichotomy and to discovering a
true, musical homogeneity and continuity
among extremely diverse acoustic characters,
whether they be produced by voices, instruments, electronic generators, or other means.
As a result, a musician of today who does
not explore the world of electronic music is
necessarily incomplete. In the same way, a
musician who ignores voices and instruments
to concentrate only on sounds produced and
transformedelectronically is not a total musician. Not surprisingly, the most important
"electronic" works of the last twenty-five
years are those that have sought a mediation
between the acoustic dimension and another
realm-those that expanded the continuity between "electronic" sounds and "natural"
sounds, enabling interaction between the different levels through reciprocal transformation.
So, electronic music is not news today because
it is an integral part of that factory of meaning,
of relationships, and of expression that we continue to call music.
The first works of electronic music in the
1950s were as if wrapped in silence, not only
because the concert halls that occasionally
hosted them were often empty, but also because they did not make reference to the musical work of humans. They lacked the
well-known behaviors associated with musical
legacy. Often, these electronic works were like
bottles tossed in the sea; only some contained
a message that was then picked up and transformed. (Berio 1976a, pp. vii-viii)
Cremaschi and Giomi

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27

In MyBeginning
We now return to the story of Berio's personal, almost fortuitous introduction to electronic music in
1952. In the succeeding years, his efforts expanded
on this first experience, culminating in the creation
of the Studio di Fonologia (1955) at the Radio Audizioni Italiane (RAI) in Milan, the history of which
is already well known.
My first contact with the possibility of new
means of productions happened, quite
strangely, in 1952 at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York, during a concert dedicated
for the most part to [Edgard]Varbse and directed by Leopold Stokowski. I say "strangely,"
because I was completely in the dark about
what [Werner] Meyer-Eppler and [Herbert] Eimert were preparing in Germany, and I knew
of what Pierre Schaeffer was doing in Paris
only by word of mouth. In that concert in New
York, for the first time, a piece of tape music
was presented, based on the elementary manipulation of piano sounds recorded on tape. It
was called Sonic Contours, and [Otto] Luening
and [Vladimir] Ussachevsky were the composers. It was an experience without any musical
content, perfectly innocuous, but I remained
profoundly struck by the new sound and by the
possibilities of magnetic recording-by the pos-

sibility of cutting sound with scissors. When I

returned to Italy, it was only a few weeks before I began to experiment with the tape recorders at RAI, in Corso Sempione. Every type
of functional music became a pretext for electroacoustic experimentation. The support of
Dr. [Alfredo] Lietti of RAI and my encounters
with [Henri] Pousseur, [Bruno] Maderna, and
[Karlheinz] Stockhausen did the rest. (Dalmonte 1981, pp. 133-134)
Back in Italy, I heard of works by MeyerEppler, Eimert, Stockhausen, and I was deeply
impressed. I did not propose any particular
technical or musical strategy yet, but I found
myself-rather like La Forza del Destinomoving between these two poles: a subtractive
pole, concentrating on existing elements of
28

sound, from which different musical functions

can be derived through an analysis; and an additive pole, essentially based, in those years, on
the addition and combination of sine waves. I
would say that these two conceptions, these
two different operative setups, influenced for a
few years the work of various studios in the

world, as if it were an ideological alternative.

(Rizzardi and De Benedictis 2000, p. 162)
Our work at the Studio di Fonologia, at least
when I was there, was not a synthesis between

two existing entities. I prefer to describe it as a

dialogue between different dimensions, rather
than as the synthesis of two specific entities.
(Rizzardi and De Benedictis 2000, p. 164)
It seemed to me that I was flying in those
years. I was aware of embracing and beginning
to master new dimensions, both musical and
acoustic, that appeared to me through my early
studies and my early electroacoustic experiences. In that period, between 1953 and 1954, I
truly regained the time I had lost from living
in the city-particularly during the war-and
in Milan, in the immediate postwar period, I
worked in every possible musical occupation
to survive. My musical ear was further refined,
and, for example, an orchestra ceased to be the
orchestra, an historic organization of acoustic
families. I was able to reexamine the relations
and the degree of fusion or separation every
time. (Dalmonte 1981, p. 68)
The work at the Studio di Fonologia (which
is why I am grateful to what was then the RAI)
allowed me to deepen the dialogue between
musical thought and the acoustic or morphological dimension, creating an inner unanimity, not superimposing language, contributing
to the overcoming of sterile and archaic separate parameters for which we all wish. (Rizzardi and De Benedictis 2000, p. 172)

A VeilAwaveUponthe Waves
With the end of the fecund period in Milan (1961)
that saw the production of some of the most sigComputer Music Journal

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nificant works of electroacoustic music in his catalogue, Berio's interests seem to have moved in
other directions, leaving technological experimentation in the background and concentrating more
on the development of his own personal, orchestral
technique. This detachment was owing more to
extra-musical exigencies-the
growing obsolescence of the equipment at the Studio di Fonologia
and Berio's move to the United States-than anything. Still, this period witnessed a turning point;
in the following years, Berio avoided retracing his
steps, except for brief moments or for very particular or limited projects. All this invites us to reflect
on the maturing relationship Berio had with electronic music. This sometimes problematic rapport,
marked by a search for new outlets and for new
ways to use electronic music, saw a composer grappling with new domain that held enormous potential, but that was still, in certain aspects, quite
immature.
We notice first a clear rejection on Berio's part of
electronic music as a contrasting dimension to instrumental music. This stance did not reflect so
much the technical differences between the two,
but was based on much more profound conceptual
problems that Berio saw in the argument. He perceived a risk in the splitting up of music and
thought-of music and meaning, in its broadest
sense. He began to reflect with more detachment
on the conceptual, aesthetic, and even social repercussions of the introduction of these new methods
into musical life. They permitted an incredible expansion of the acoustic vocabulary, but-as was obvious to Berio from the beginning-had not
equivalently brought a store of new musical
thoughts that would render this new vocabulary
necessary.
If the experience of electronic music is important, as I believe it is, its importance does not
reside so much in the discovery of new sounds.
It lies in the possibility that these experiences
will allow the composer to extend the field of
sonic phenomena and to integrate them into
his musical thoughts and thus to overcome the
dualistic conception of musical material. (Berio
1996a, p. 138)

Even today, especially when dealing with

new technologies, the input is still more important than the output. This is to say that it

is better to use a digital system for its ability

to transform already acquired sound information than to use it to produce "new sounds." It

is easy to produce new sounds, but it is difficult, for now, for these sounds to emanate
from a new musical thought, as they often did
in the 1950s. New musical thought, especially
when espoused via new technological means,
has to be conscious of musical experience that
is not new. It is perfectly useless to contrast a
computer that controls a digital system to a
conductor who controls an orchestra. Most important, new technologies have to find ways to
approach the musical work of the performer
and to insert themselves into this work-to extend it and not to oppose it. (Dalmonte 1981,
pp. 140-141)
We often think that new technologies must
serve primarily to produce new sounds, because music needs new sounds. I think instead
that new sounds are not so important. Sounds
do not get old like ideas get old. In literature, it
is not as important to invent new stories as it
is to create conceptual organisms eventually
capable of generating stories. In the studios
that use advanced technology, we should look
less toward inventing fresh sonorities and more
toward defining and developing new conceptual organisms capable of generating new musical processes that will eventually be
recognized precisely for their use of new
sounds. Thus, it is incorrect to contrast new
technologies with traditional vocal and instrumental techniques. From a practical point of
view, there can be enormous differences, but
on a conceptual level, the two are complementary as long as their evolution is always guided
by musical considerations. (Berio 1996b, p. 140)

Hisssss
For Berio, then, electronic music is not and cannot
be simply the utopian and vaguely solipsistic
Cremaschi and Giomi

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29

search for fresh sonorities, disconnected from all

other aspects of one's musical life. Everything must
depend on a thought, as groundbreaking as it is
grounded in history. And history is made not only
of musical forms and structures, but also of ways of
doing, ways of listening, and social mechanisms
that cannot be ignored. Contact with the performer
and recognition of the history contained in the
sound of the instruments are some of the elements
that Berio felt were now essential components of
music. He recognized the need to heed these indicators as stronger than ever.
When composers in the 1950s acquired oscillators, filters, and tape recorders-all instruments
borrowed from other fields-they did so because
they were motivated by necessity and saw in these
instruments a natural outlet for their efforts. With
the advent of synthesizers and the exponential
growth of the possibilities offered by digital sound
editors, we entered into a frantic chase in which
composers end up constrained by the new technology. They must constantly upgrade without ever
having assimilated the preceding conquests. Studios have begun to exist not to produce music, but
for the sake of their technology. Composers seem
to have correspondently fallen into a difficult situation, because they lack the premise, the conditions
that would justify the adoption of new means.
Technology and musical language no longer peacefully coexist.
Machines specifically produced for electronic
music have been around for a long time. The
prospective relationship between these machines and musical thought is certainly exciting, but it is neither easy nor peaceful. It seems
to me that for some time now, that relationship has been resolved only anecdotally. Every
so often, certain works illuminate the relationship with an original light, but they fail to define a line of conduct. They cannot frame the
relationship in a poetic perspective, and therefore, they cannot define a universal element.
Composers who work with new means in
electronic music (computers included) tend to
place their pasts in parentheses. They do this
simply to do something different-something
30

exceptional. However, they risk losing momentarily the continuity of their musical decisions
and of their own presence .... Sometimes, one
has the impression that they let themselves be
chosen by the new technologies without being
able to establish, dialectically, a real rapport
and a true need for them. We can in fact pass
indifferently from one system to another, from
one computer to another-they are ever faster,
more sophisticated, more powerful, and ever
smaller-without
really using musically that
which was there. Technological development
(in part owing to industrial applications) tends,
by nature, to be indifferent to musical considerations and instead follows the law of technology and the law of the market: to always
improve and to do so at all costs. Musicians,
for their part, begin to believe that they are improving only when they posses ever more sophisticated technology. The fact is that the
initial push for improved means must derive
from a musical conception. It is only when beginning with this idea that we can make
profitable exchanges between music and technology.
In music, and I will never tire of saying this,
things do not get better or worse. They evolve
and they are transformed. We are often incapable of grasping the connection in these transformations and sometimes, we do not know
where to look. We do not know how to focus
our attention on the best part of ourselves-on
that which we have inside. (Dalmonte 1981,
pp. 147-149)
In the 1950s and 1960s, analog electronic
music studios (where the musician manually
controlled continuous electrical waves that
were analogous to the forms of sound waves)
existed for the purpose of producing musical
works. During the 1970s and even before, electronic music studios switched technology and
began to exist only for their own perfection. In
short, twenty or thirty years ago, musicians
bent nonmusical technologies (oscillators, filters, tape recorders, etc.) to fit their ideas and
their vision. In the last ten or fifteen years, the
Computer Music Journal

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technology has taken the upper hand. Now,

composers are struck dumb by new technologies created especially for them. In other
words, if in the past-even the distant past-music was often the testing ground and the
stimulus for scientific research, now it seems
that science has attracted and taken possession
of music .... With or without the new technologies, electronic music as a means for musical thought had arrived at an impasse. The
new medium has taken from us music as a
global and total idea. We lost music in not
only its technical, historical, and expressive aspects, but also its immediacy and its social aspects. We realized, for example, that an
audience assembled to listen to loudspeakers is
not particularly exciting. The experience of listening to music in public is made up of many
has
things-many different conventions-and
roots in many different aspects of society and
culture. We realized that a concert is not only
the piece, not only a musical object to listen
to, even if said piece proposes "new sounds."
By nature, a piece of music, by itself, is ineffective at transforming listening conventions and
socio-musical rapports. Electronic music
seemed no longer to regard a definite audience
as necessary .... For their part, musicians felt
that a magnetic tape or patches on a synthesizer (in their fragility, impermanence, and
ephemerality, and in their complete detachment from the usual gestures of a musical
work) were not the ideal "containers" for a
type of thought that had always been elaborated in terms of duration. (Dalmonte 1981,
pp. 137-140)

turers of musical life. He sought continuity with

the past, intended not as a model, but as a context
of which the composer is asked to take notice.
Without recognizing the importance of this context, we risk losing the meaning of music, both in
its linguistic dimension and in general in its social
dimension as well. The duty of composers and
technicians, therefore, is to anchor the new means
to the musical reality, in all its complexity.

Perspectives

It certainly is not easy. Similarly, it is not easy

to creatively use and develop one of the most
important aspects of the new digital technologies generally-the ability to simultaneously
control the various temporal dimensions.
Composers must control, with equal subtlety,
the microscopic dimension (that which we do
not perceive as such and is measured in milliseconds), the global, macroscopic dimension
(that which brings together the different strata
of our memories), and the intermediate dimension, made of the articulation of perceivable
durations, rhythmic articulations, and, on occasion, melodies. To create-to program a musically coherent and meaningful rapport
between these three dimensions-would
mean,
for me, to take a step forward in the conquest
of a broader musical space. In these last few
years, we have all experimented with the musical limits of the technicians, and now, it
seems to me, we are on the point of experimenting with the technical limits of the musicians. And this is wonderful. It is exactly in
the slow and laborious research of a convergence, and the identification (always a bit utopian) between science and music that new
things are found. We can only hope to continue to coordinate creatively the acoustic dimension and the musical dimension.
(Dalmonte 1981, pp. 150-151)

That which Berio sought in electronic means was

not the unheard sound, nor was it the grand possibilities of sound manipulation taken by themselves; he sought new continuity within the realm
of thought, at a much higher level than the specific
technology. He sought continuity with the work of
performers, who even today are the principal nur-

By now it is clear that only compositional

criteria based on a concrete reference united
with the sonic material allow the musician to
contemporaneously coordinate within the vast
field of possibilities in electronic music. Only
compositional criteria that clearly manifest
their rejection of immutable musical mateCremaschi and Giomi

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31

rial-in which there is an implicit possibility

of modification from one work to the next, in
function of its incommutable structural necessities-permit the composer to use the immense sonic richness that electronics have
made available in all their continuity. And it is
precisely the observation of this continuity
that has made possible the conception of musical forms linked to the qualitative evolution of
the material.
We see this as the most important aspect of
electronic music, as the functions of this qualitative evolution can be organically set outside
of the specific field of electric generation of
sound. In the last few years, in fact, for the
first time, we have heard compositions that
combine instrumental and electronic means.
Composers have attempted to create an organic meeting of natural sounds (including the
human voice) and synthetic sounds; Gesang
der Jiinglinge by Stockhausen, Rimes by Pousseur, and Musica su due dimensioni by Maderna all come to mind. I am certain that even
the antinomy of the due dimensioni-the
contrast between recorded music (electronic music) and music actually performed (instruments
as well as sung and spoken voice)-will soon
be overcome. The possibility of intervening in
the internal structure of sound with ever
greater subtlety (which means an improved
control in "microtempo" where this structure
is articulated) will allow us to perfectly integrate synthetic sounds into the complexity and
the relative discontinuity of natural phenomena. This integration will happen according to
an evolutionary process that is simultaneously
broad and refined. The sinusoidal sound will be
only the beginning, more or less symbolic, of
one musical dimension whose complexity and
relational multiplicity will continuously incorporate all the sonic phenomena of our audible
world. The action-just the presence of the interpreter who sings or plays-will be completely assimilated in this enlargement of the
musical experience. Listeners will less than
ever before be put in the position of having to
close their eyes to abandon themselves to mu32

sical dreams; they will be invited by the situation itself to consciously participate in the
action. For the sense to become intelligible,
they will have to follow the transformations
and the unpredictable proliferation of vocal
and instrumental sounds through various
modes of practical expression. All the while,
they will have to take into consideration the
more or less effective presence of a visible action on the part of the performer. This dense
fabric of relations will unceasingly stimulate
conscious reactions in composers and perform-

ers alike. And as it energizes an ever more participating public, it will definitively purge our
musical customs of any residual duality....
Therefore, I base any prospect of a musical
renewal of contemporary music on the enlargement of musical media in its broadest sense. I
say this without in any way impeding the notion that the personal styles of composers will
always act as the bridge between a form and
the newly altered material. To this renovation
of material and of form of interest to acoustic
research ever further afield-we can connect
even our spiritual problems. This will be a sign
of a renewal of the conscience, not just musically, but of the individual. (Berio 1976b,
pp. 133-134)
I believe that if some day we arrive at a better understanding between the different genres
of music, between the different strongholds of
music consumption, we will owe this in part
to our experiences with electronic music. We
will also owe a debt to those experiences that
tend to assimilate and to deal with the world
of sounds using substantially neutral operations indifferent to the intrinsic cultural connotations of the musical material they would
like to transform. Often, it is those investigations, momentarily ignoring the "contents,"
that eventually get to the depths of the experience and can access the true meaning. That
which has happened and is happening, especially today, in electronic music, is somewhat
similar to that which happened in linguistics,
where the search for a "universal" grammar
Computer Music Journal

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necessarily relegated the semantic and expressive aspects of language to secondary importance. But that is another discussion...
(Dalmonte 1981, p. 135)

Thnthnthn
Imperthnthn
"Another discussion"-perhaps,
because it was exthis
of
abstraction
of contents that,
actly
problem
in the early 1980s (the period in which the above
interview occurred), faced the musical community.
These problems were already "in the air" for some
time, and the composer had already had the opportunity to express his opinions on them.
The following passage comes from C'? musica e
musica, a cycle of television programs created and
directed by Berio for RAI. These took place in 1973,
a time that, as far as music technology is concerned, was a moment of transition. The advent of
synthesizers at first, and then the appearance of
digital technology, brought about a radical change
in compositional conceptions and in the way electroacoustic studios operated. The computer took
the place of the cumbersome machines previously
in use, and, with its extreme versatility, quickly
became the privileged instrument in the compositional world. All this opened new avenues for the
manipulation of sound, but it also posed new problems, of which this passage is testimony. Some of
the opinions may seem a bit dated, especially as
they relate to the conceptions of that time (particularly the strong dichotomy between people and
computers), but they are nonetheless indicative of
the direction of Berio's thoughts. In particular, his
vision of technology as not only a "tool," but also
as an instrument of thought-and therefore as a
subject capable of error-is prescient. He envisioned the computer not simply as a machine for
the elaboration of data, but as an instrument acting
directly in creation, intending this term in its highest and most multifaceted sense.
All this is fascinating, but is the intelligence of
a computer sufficient for composing music? I
do not intend to reproduce here for the nth
time the conflict between people and machines; I only want to suggest that the intelli-

gence of a computer remains only abstract

even if it can simulate human behaviorabstract because artificial intelligence is based
only on reason, or better, on logic. In other
words, computers tend to process data and information without much regard for the circumstances or the context from which they are
derived. Our intelligence is capable of inventing, discovering, and creating precisely because

it is guided by a human idea-an idea with a

concrete awareness of context. I would say,
paradoxically, that computers will be further
integrated into the creative process, and not
only in music, when they are able to make
mistakes; they must err and correct themselves
as all humans, including those who construct
computers and those who make music, do.
(Berio 1973)

Listen!
We now return to Berio's career, which we left just
after his experiences in Milan. In 1974, Pierre Boulez called on Berio to direct the department of electroacoustic music at the Institut de Recherche et
Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), a position he held until 1980. These years were devoted
to research and intense experimentation that, even
if they left almost no mark in his official catalog as
composer, coincided with a broadening and deepening of his theoretical writing. A number of the citations included here derive from reflections in those
years, marked by a systematic rethinking of the assumptions of the 1950s and 1960s. Yet, it was in
these years that Berio concentrated his interests on
live electronics. (This is also thanks to the famous
4X Synthesizer by Giuseppe Di Giugno.) Live electronics seemed the response that best fit Berio's
needs, and he wasted no time in realizing this and
beginning to explore the consequences.
By 1987, Berio's numerous attempts to found a
new center of electroacoustic production in Florence had finally come to fruition. Tempo Reale was
born, and Berio expected internationally important
works to emerge from this new endeavor. He saw
Tempo Reale as the successor to the Studio di FoCremaschi and Giomi

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33

nologia from thirty years earlier. This testifies once

again to his undying interest in confronting the
field of musical research. At the same time, as is
evident from the name of the center, its establishment indicates the new tendencies that Berio was
then beginning to contemplate.
Chief among these was the use of space, not only
as a simple parameter according to (by now) dated
ideas, but as the physical place in which the performance occurs. Berio visualized a space with its
own properties, that the performer then is free to
accept, transform, or reinvent.
When confronting these new technologies, it
seems to me improper, today, to think in terms
of "good" and "bad" acoustics and of venues
"more" and "less" adapted to musical performance. Assuming the absence of unforeseen
problems, and assuming the availability of a
highly sophisticated system for sound processing and reproduction, I think that today we
could even create music in real time (and listen to it) in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
Today, a musical thought capable of identifying with these new technologies can creatively
adapt itself to any real space, musically "legitimate" or not. It can also explore virtual spaces
created from those others that remain acoustically illusory. The idea of music as sonic architecture is losing its metaphoric status; it is
quickly becoming the reality, quantifiable in
all its aspects, whether it be a cathedral, a
bridge, an apartment building, or their respective, virtual reproductions. Yet, we are always
dealing with an elastic architecture, capable of
re-adaptation to different environments. (Berio
1988, pp. 3-4)
Closely related to the problem of acoustic space
is the problem of listening processes and the reception of music. In this case, the new technologies
can play a beneficial role in the overhaul of certain
ingrained habits and hence can extend creativity
into this realm as well.
For example, there is a terrain-almost a noman's land-that deserves exploration: listening. We know that, concretely, a listening
strategy can be an internal dimension of the
34

musical process, in proportion to the complexity of the perceived connections the work is
able to provoke. Music conceived for traditional instrumental and vocal performance
tends to implicate more or less standardized
collective listening situations (concert hall,
theater, auditorium, etc.). The new music technologies instead do not usually impose an ideal
listening location tied to permanent criteria of
collective aggregation.Tempo Reale is particularly engaged in the definition and the realization of flexible acoustic spaces, new and-one
might say-virtual. But it also proposes to occupy musically-to conquer in the name of
music-real spaces not originally conceived of
for musical performances:town squares,
streets, buildings, cloisters, valleys, etc. The
spatialization of sounds constitutes perhaps
the newest and most stimulating aspect of our
efforts. (Berio 1996b, pp. 140-141)
Berio's final work seemed to be ever more directed toward the phenomenal aspects of music, to
the detriment of the research centered on inherent
structures in music. Yet this was on the same
wavelength as his most recent artistic endeavors
and his interests in other areas of expression. In
this sense, Tempo Reale set out, in Berio's mind, to
become one of the principal international think
tanks for music technology, particularly in relation
to live electronics. Here, as at the Studio di Fonologia and at IRCAM, the composer worked closely
with technicians to produce instruments as responsive as possible to his musical exigencies. He
sought instruments that would permit the creation
of the imaginary spaces needed for his most recent
works. And, as always, it was the musical ideas
that were fundamental, as Berio never tired of repeating.
Composers cannot be ignorant of the techniques they want to use. A vision and a musical project must develop and move in a
technological realm organically homogeneous
to both that vision and that project. The reasons that lead a composer in one direction instead of another must always be musical
reasons. The field of research is immense, even
Computer Music Journal

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when it is limited to the study of a particular

"instrument," and it is appropriatethat a composer work with highly specialized technicians
in applying technology to music. I would be
tempted to say that as an organist does not
necessarily have to know how to construct an
organ, a composer does not necessarily have to
explore all the technological implications that
are part of the digital elaboration of sound.
Technology is the means, not the end. It is important that the composer does not become its
slave. It is important that the composer's vision and project are musically strong and conceptually sensible. Composers, like all mortals,
never stop learning. We ask only that they
know that which they need to know. Similarly, we ask the technician to be capable of
identifying musically with the composer.
(Scazzola 1996, p. 67)

In MyEndIs MyMusic
We return in the end to the essay cited in the beginning of this article; in this we find a passage
that summarizes, perhaps in the clearest way, Berio's ideas regarding electroacoustic music. This
constitutes the ideal conclusion for our voyage
through the words of the composer along the are of
his creative life.
I am often asked what is the sense, the profound "why" of electronic music. Why are we
obliged to "compose the sounds" instead of
just composing with the sounds? Why must we
take into consideration all the characteristics
of the acoustic space in addition to the musical
elements? Why must we consider the most
minimal elements, the most elementary elements, as well as the most global ones? I am
convinced that the profound sense of electronic music is the same as that of any other
experience: it reminds us of the "human" in
"humanity." (Berio 1976a, pp. vii-ix)

I Shall LeaveYou Now,and TwoLoudspeakers

WillTakeMyPlace

References
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15:83.
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GRM 12:41-54.
Berio, L. 1976a. "Prefazione."In Pousseur, H., ed. La musica elettronica. Milan: Feltrinelli, pp. vii-ix.
Berio, L. 1976b. "Poesia e musica-un'esperienza." In
Pousseur, H., ed. La musica elettronica. Milan: Feltrinelli, pp. 124-135.
Berio, L. 1988. "Ofanim." Concert program.Prato:Museo d'arte contemporanea.
Berio, L. 1996a. "Thema (Omaggio a Joyce).Elaborazione
elettroacustica della voce di Cathy Berberiansu nastro
magnetico (1958). Testo di JamesJoyce."In Degrada,
F., ed. Festival Luciano Berio. Milan: Teatro alla Scala,
pp. 138-139.
Berio, L. 1996b. "Centro Tempo Reale." In Degrada,F.,
ed. Festival Luciano Berio. Milan: Teatro alla Scala,
pp. 140-141.
Dalmonte, R. 1981. Luciano Berio, Intervista sulla musica. Rome-Bari:Laterza.
Delalande, F. 1974. "L'Omaggioa Joyce de Luciano
Berio."Musique en jeu 15:45-54.
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Menezes, F. 1993. Un essai sur la composition verbale
6lectronique. Visage de Luciano Berio. Modena:
Mucchi.
Osmond-Smith, D. 1991. Berio. Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press.
Restagno, E., ed. 1995. Berio. Turin: EDT.
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De Benedictis, eds. Nuova Musica alla Radio. EspeCremaschi and Giomi

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rienze allo Studio di Fonologia della RAI di Milano

1954-1959. Rome: Cidim-ERI2000, pp. 160-174.
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Scazzola, A. 1996. "Latecnica 6 un mezzo, la musica una
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layers: Berio's words (arrangedlike concordant or

contrasting themes), our commentaries, and the titles (used as a third voice that articulates, introduces, or "disturbs"the logical flow characterizing
the other voices). The titles of the sections are
taken from the texts of Berio's electroacoustic and
vocal works. In particular, "Parrrole"comes from
Visage (1961); "In My Beginning" and "In My End
Is My Music" come from A-Ronne (1974-75); "A
Veil Awave Upon the Waves," "Hisssss," "Imperthnthn thnthnthn," and "Listen!" are taken
from Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958); and finally,

This article, as already mentioned in the introduction, is a tribute to Luciano Berio. Therefore, according to his usual practice (even in non-musical
expression), we decided to conceive it as a sort of
musical structure. It develops on three polyphonic

"Perspectives"is the title of a work for tape composed in 1957. The final sentence ("Ishall leave
you now.. .") was uttered by Leopold Stokowski
to introduce the tape music concert in New York
on October 28, 1952.
The authors want to thank Daniel Mintz for the
translation and Universal Edition for the permission to publish Berio's picture.

36

Computer Music Journal

Appendix

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