Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-08-17 20:48
David Blumberg wrote:
>> I Produced the recording of the Premiere ...written for Michele. >>
Well, although that may have been how it panned out – and although 'for whom' Berio wrote his pieces is sometimes in doubt (because he was often looking for somebody to generate some cash for the first performance) – it did happen that after I made a visit to play with and conduct the Orchestra Regionale Toscana in the 80s (Berio was the Artistic Director), Berio told me about his idea for this piece, and subsequently invited me to come and play the first performance of it with the orchestra and another conductor.
"Don't worry about the clarinet part," he said. "It will be exactly the same!"
But a couple of days before I went there, I got a call telling me that the piece wasn't ready, and could I play the Mozart instead.
When I got there, Berio showed me the MS of the arrangement. His idea had been to get a student to do a preliminary draft that he would subsequently correct. But clearly a lot of work would have been required on what this particular student had done.
Actually, I think even the final version is really very tricky anyway to bring off in concert performance – as opposed to in a recording – because of balance problems with the overthick scoring. The conductor needs to exert a lot of control.
I did once play it in Berlin with the Radio Symphony Orchestra and a Hungarian conductor whose name I've forgotten – he was standing in for an indisposed Riccardo Chailly.
It happened that the teacher of this conductor was the great musician, pianist and composer Gyorgy Kurtag, and Kurtag happened to be at the final rehearsal. So he came backstage afterwards, saying that he thought it was a pretty poor arrangement and backing that up by playing various bits from memory at the piano.
"How do you know this piece so well?" I asked.
"But of course! It is REPERTOIRE!" he replied. (He seems to know all music.)
"But, I advise you to forget most of the subtlety and mostly just play LOUD in here," he said.
It would have been an even more difficult task with Berio, whose control of things like balance with a big orchestra were quite limited. (Apparently Aldo Bennici was asked to play 'the viola version':-) with Luciano, and 'became ill' after the first rehearsal;-)
Of course, I admire Michele immensely both as a player and as a person.
Did SHE have Berio conducting when she gave the first performance, do you recall?
Tony
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The Clarinet BBoard
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