Stories CD Reviews
19.07.11, Limelightmagazine.com.au
Stories: Harmonia Mundi HMU 807527:
Prima le parole: riveting and playful text experiments from the Theatre of Voices.
In the post-war years of severe, avant-garde experimentation, it was music made with the human voice that was unafraid to embrace humour and joie de vivre. English choral adventurer Paul Hillier describes the spoken-word, sung, screamed and belched works (composed between 1940 and 1980) on this eclectic disc as “pieces [that] tell a story… but avoid getting to the point”. Or to take a leaf out of John Cage’s philosophy book: “I have nothing to say and I am saying it”.
Literature buffs will get a kick out of Cage’s rhythmic, irritatingly catchy Story, a setting of Gertrude Stein’s Dr Seuss-esque children’s verse, “Once upon a time the world was round/and you could go on it around and around,” which pings around in fragmented repetitions as five vocalists revel in the collapse of language. The full effect is closely miked and rendered powerfully in SACD sound.
Looming large on the Lichtenstein-style front cover is Cathy Berberian, Berio’s first wife and a singer-actor, who championed unusual techniques and presides over the spirit of the album as fairy godmother. Her Stripsody is the most versatile and virtuosic piece here, a “Pop Art aria” exploring the onomatopoeic world of comic strips – “Vrrop”, “Yowee”, “Swarsh”etc.
Readers would be forgiven for expecting an orgy of meaningless sound, but the pitch-perfect discipline of the aptly-named Theatre of Voices is astounding, particularly in Berio’s epic a cappella pastiche A Ronne, where multilingual nonsense poetry blooms into lush madrigals and the hysteria of operatic warm-ups. I dare you to sing along.
Melissa Lesnie
19.06.11, www.classical-cd-reviews.com
Stories: Harmonia Mundi HMU 807527:
The standout work on this disc is Berio's A Ronne, an experimental yet consummate vocal ensemble piece, taking in a wide range of vocal techniques, while also exploring issues of language and meaning.
Like his earlier Laborintus 2, A Ronne was a collaboration with the poet Edoardo Sanguineti, who again provides a complex and multi-layered libretto, combining several languages and including brief quotes from a bizarre array of sources, stretching from the Gospel of John to the Communist Manifesto. One consequence of this high-brow postmodernism is that only the most culturally astute and language proficient listeners are going to get the majority of the references. There are references in the music too, but for the most part, Berio focusses his interest in the semi-verbal vocal sounds in which he frames the texts.
The programme ends with the undisputed classic of unaccompanied vocal Modernism, Cathy Berberian's Stripsody. The score for this piece takes the form of a comic strip, although the performance directions are more specific than this might suggest. For the most part, words are written on a stave, with the fonts suggesting the style of performance. If all this suggests a fight scene in Batman, that is part of the idea, and the resulting work makes explicit references to the comic strip connection. At one point the singers exclaim "Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Superman!", and there is some good Tarzan warbling at the beginning too.
Berio has maintained an impressive reputation as an independent thinker in the world of post-war avant-garde music, which is all the more impressive given the sheer number of independent thinkers of that school and the extent to which it celebrated individuality. So it is a surprise to find how much A Ronne shows the influence of Stripsody, although both works were written after their composers divorced. The Berio is a more complex piece, and perhaps a more musically successful one, but it is destined always to be overshadowed by Berberian's iconic score.
It seems unfair to say this of anything by John Cage, but the other pieces on the disc seem little more than fillers in comparison to these two great works. Cage's Story, based on a libretto, or rather two short lines, by Gertrude Stein, combines extended vocal performing techniques with the aesthetics of minimalism-by-repetition. The results lack substance in terms of interest or musical material, but in a sense that is whole idea. The work does fit into the programme, but only just, and would be better served in an all-Cage programme.
Not A Soul But Ourselves by Roger Marsh is an ambitious effort to set lines from Finnegan's Wake. The voices are amplified, enabling very quiet vocal articulations to be used in a variety of fascinating combinations. The result suggests Stockhausen's Stimmung, although that is at least in part a result of the fact that these singers have recorded both scores in recent years, both to an equally high standard. Young Turtle Asymmetries by Jackson Mac Low and As I was Saying by Sheldon Frank are more text performance works than musical compositions. As such, they also fit snugly into the programme, but without adding very much in terms of musical interest. Even so, the Sheldon Frank piece gives an excellent opportunity to hear Paul Hillier's rarely employed cockney accent.
The performances here are all first class. The Berio poses the greatest technical challenges, but all are executed with fluency and (apparent) ease. The balance and ensemble between the singers is always ideal, and the sound quality is great. Harmonia Mundi's decision to release the disc on SACD is an excellent one, and the high quality audio really shows off the detail of these works, all those tongue clicks, growls, and transient pianissimo clusters in the close harmonies.
None of the works, with the possible exception of Stripsody has any discography to speak of, making this collection especially valuable. It is probably worth mentioning that the Berio is sung in the original five voice version and not in the later eight voice arrangement. Also, Stripsody is sung by three female voices rather than the specified single voice. But then, the whole reason that this recording works is that the performers have taken a lively and playful approach to these lively and playful works. A little reinvention is always a good thing, and old as some of these scores are, everything on the recording feels bang up to date.
Gavin Dixon
27.05.11, www.cherwell.org
Stories: Harmonia Mundi HMU 807527:
Paul Hillier leads Theatre of Voices in an enthusiastic and dramatic performance of John Cage and Luciano Berio.
The conductor Paul Hillier’s latest recording with his vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices covers an eclectic programme of twentieth-century composers, the coherence of which he justifies through the centrality of John Cage’s influence. The pieces demand that the performers are not only vocalists but actors too, and it is in this respect which the Theatre of Voices excel. All of the performers fully engage with the dramatic personas of the texts, the colloquial accent in Sheldon Frank’s ‘As I was saying’ particularly effective in its humour. The performance of ‘A-Ronne’ by the Italian composer Luciano Berio is a strong start to the album, with the atmosphere created through the hushed mutterings particularly effective. The intimate feel of Cage’s ‘Story’ makes it a particular highlight, with its rhythmic precision and colourful word-painting really bringing it to life. Unfortunately, the rest of the disc slipped just below this high standard. The meditatory feel was not captured in Jackson Mac Low’s ‘Young Turtle Asymmetries’, and the musicality sometimes came secondary to the elevation of the dramatic personas.
However, the recording itself is less than ideal. The balance of the voices sometimes needs adjustment and the degree of resonance sometimes exceeds the amount required in order to emphasise the theatrical nature of the pieces. Yet the interaction of the performers within the sonic space cannot be faulted. There is a real sense of dialogue, and each individual captures a sense of wonderment in the exploration of the percussive capacities of vowel sounds and how they combine to form words.
Although it is far from easy listening, Hillier and the Theatre of Voices attack the pieces with infectious energy. Their animated approach will appeal to many and will certainly lighten any day.
Katy Wright
08.05.11, The Independent
Stories: Harmonia Mundi HMU 807527:
Burps, sighs and coughs. Hisses, purrs and groans. Giggles, barks, polyglot whispers and the chaste-sexy shreds of madrigals and motets cast a spell in Theatre of Voices's performance of "A-ronne".
Luciano Berio's virtuosic 1974 quintet opens a disc that explores extended vocal techniques and narrative, and closes with Cathy Berberian's rapacious "Stripsody" (1966). John Cage's "Story" (1940), meanwhile, anticipates the Sugarhill Gang in its playful rhythms.
Anna Picard