More Free Stuff!: Berio Recordings To DL

Berio, after a hard night on the pop.

Yes, that's right, not sure why I didn't include this link with my 'analysis' of Berio's piece Nones as that piece is included in this DL (it's an early, rare piece I think, now out of print so it seems).

Anyway, it's all on the excellent Avant Garde project site, number 27 (not sure why the AGP isn't in my side bar of links either, I shall include it now). It features out of print recordings so don't whine about copyright etc, worth having a hunt around on the site if you haven't come across it before.

Check the recordings archive (loads of stuff, Takemitsu, Wolpe, Foss, Xenakis, Maderna, Partch, Brown, Wolff, and much more).

You'll find more Berio for one thing, vocal works (AGP26) and Berio Conducts Berio (AGP83).

A Portly Chord Courtesy of Berio

This chord appears at the end of Berio's 1954 piece 'Nones.'

It's quite heavy and caught my ear. Below I have included the relevant score fragment and a quickly thrown together graphic PC set analysis (it might look like I drew it in pencil crayon, but actually they are watercolour crayons I'll have you know and I would use them like that by brushing on some water if I had some thicker paper and/or more time/will power).

I am a long way from being any sort of analyst but one thing is clear from a cursory look at the thing, all pitches are present except for G (or 7 if you prefer).

B (11) is the most prevalent pitch appearing five times at the bottom end of the texture, in the contrabassoon, the tuba, the timpani, the cello and the double bass.

The woodwind PC set and the brass PC set look quite similar at first glance, I think they are transposed inversions of each other, give or take a pitch or two. The string pitches look like a subset of the same PC set (three of four pitches fit that scheme)

I'll have to look more closely at it and will probably edit this a bit later if i'm wrong about any of this (so no one will know unless you happen to check my blog in the meantime, in which case, don't tell anyone I wasn't absolutely certain from the off, I don't want to be blackballed at the Music Theory and Analysis Society of Balsall Heath, the dinner and dance evenings are just too good to miss plus there is bingo on a Sunday).

EDIT: Alright, I looked at it more closely, yes, the two sets used in the woodwind and the brass are the same set, 6-Z11 and the strings appear to contain a subset of the same. This helps provide some structure and sense to the dense chromatic harmony.

Of course much remains unanalysed, such as the precise registers (pitches not pitch classes) and the intervals used (in vertical order), but then as I said, I am not an analyst (so sue me, oh and I claim fair use of the tiny score and music fragments, please don't sue me about that)

The score fragment doesn't have the instruments or clefs listed (I should have photoshopped them in when I prepared the image, never mind) here they are...

Instruments as written in the score (top to bottom)

Woodwinds:

Ott
Fl.
Ob.
Cl.
Sax.
Fag. (bass clef)
C.Fag (bass clef)
Cor
Cor

Brass:

Trb
Trb
Trbn (bass clef)
Trbn (bass clef)
Tuba (bass clef)

Percussion

Timp (bass clef)
G.C.
Tamb.
T.T.
Vibr.
Arpa (two staves, treble and bass)

Strings:

Vni A
Vni B
Vni C
Vle (alto/viola clef)
Vc (bass clef)
Cb. (bass clef)