Recital I (for Cathy)

"Recital I (for Cathy)" is a stage work by the Italian composer Luciano Berio. It was written for Cathy Berberian, with whom Berio was married from 1950 to 1964, and is scored for vocalist, two pianos, harpsichord and chamber orchestra. It was first performed in 1972 by Berberian with the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Berio.

ynopsis

In the piece a singer—who is, in Berberian's description, not a singer who gives a recital but an actrice-singer who plays the role of a singer who gives a recital Harv |Vila|2003|p=285—enters the stage to find that the pianist who is to accompany her hasn't arrived. Accompanied by an off-stage harpsichord she starts her recital with a performance of Claudio Monteverdi's "Lettera amorosa" and "Lamento della ninfa" but stops to look for the pianist. She then begins a long spoken monologue that is interrupted by over forty, often very brief musical fragments taken from Berberian's repertoire, including works Berio had written for her voice in earlier years, "Avendo gran desio" and "Epifanie". As the recital progresses the singer's descent into madness is emphasized by quotations from "Hamlet", "Pierrot Lunaire" and the mad scenes from Gaetano Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" and Giacomo Meyerbeer's "Dinorah" Harv |Metzer|2003|p=93 . She ends the piece with a prayer for liberation ("libera nos"), her vocal range reduced to a semitone.

Quotations

In "Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music" by David Metzer, the sources of the musical fragments quoted in "Recital I (for Cathy)" are identified as follows Harv |Metzer|2003|pp=219-220 —the track numbers and time indications refer to the only recording that exists of the piece (RCA 09026-62540-2, with Berberian and the London Sinfonietta conducted by Berio):

# Claudio Monteverdi, "Lettera amorosa" (track 1)
# Claudio Monteverdi, "Lamento della ninfa" (track 2)
# Claudio Monteverdi, "Lettere amoroso" (track 4, 1:02)
# Johann Sebastian Bach, "Ich nehme mein Leiden mit Freuden auf mich" from cantata BWV 75 "Die elenden sollen essen" (track 4, 1:25 and 1:37)
# Liturgia Armenia (track 4, 1:47)
# Johann Sebastian Bach, "Ich nehme mein Leiden mit Freuden auf mich" from cantata BWV 75 "Die elenden sollen essen" (track 4, 2:03)
# Maurice Ravel, "Chanson épique" from "Don Quichotte à Dulcinée" (track 4, 2:42)
# Henry Purcell, "Ye gentle spirits of the air" from "The Fairy-Queen" (track 4, 2:57)
# Friedrich Hollaender, "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt", as sung by Marlene Dietrich in the film "Der blaue Engel" (track 4, 3:44)
# Manuel de Falla, "Polo" from "Siete canciones populares españolas" (track 4, 4:22)
# Francis Poulenc, "Hôtel" from "Banalités" (track 4, 4:59)
# Richard Wagner, "Träume" from the "Wesendonck Lieder" (track 4, 5:34)
# Gustave Charpentier, "Quelle belle vie" from "Louise" (track 4, 5:49)
# Hugo Wolf, "Das verlassene Mägdlein" (track 4, 6:10)
# Darius Milhaud, "La séparation" from "Chants populaires hébraïques" (track 4, 6:45)
# Henry Purcell, "When I am laid in earth" from "Dido and Æneas" (track 4, 6:57)
# Igor Stravinsky, "At home" from the "Cat's Cradle Songs" (track 4, 7:22)
# Jules Massenet, "Adieu, notre petite table" from "Manon" (track 4, 7:49)
# Ernesto Berio, "Pioggerellina" (track 4, 8:28)
# Luciano Berio, "Epifanie" (track 4, 8:48)
# Luciano Berio, "Avendo gran desio" (track 5)
# Leonard Bernstein, Lamentation from "Jeremiah" (track 6, 0:20)
# Arnold Schoenberg, "Mondestrunken" from "Pierrot Lunaire" (track 6, 0:30)
# Ambroise Thomas, Polonaise ("Je suis Titania") from "Mignon" (track 6, 0:41)
# Georges Bizet, Recitative ("Je ne te parle pas") from "Carmen" (track 6, 0:46)
# Unidentified quotation (track 6, 1:07)
# Unidentified quotation (track 6, 1:24)
# Maurice Ravel, "Placet futile" from "Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé" (track 6, 1:28)
# Franz Schubert, "Der Tod und das Mädchen" (track 6, 1:48)
# Modest Mussorgsky, "Song of the Flee" (track 6, 2:01)
# Giovanni Paisiello, unidentified quotation (track 6, 2:21)
# Giuseppe Verdi, "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata" from "Rigoletto" (track 6, 2:57)
# Gustav Mahler "Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen" from the "Kindertotenlieder" (track 8, 0:21)
# Reynaldo Hahn, "L'heure exquise" (track 8, 0:47)
# Léo Delibes, "Bell song" from "Lakmé" (track 8, 1:21 and 1:29)
# Gioachino Rossini, "Non più mesta" from "La cenerentola" (track 8, 1:35 and 1:44)
# Gaetano Donizetti, "Alfin son tua" from "Lucia di Lammermoor" (track 8, 2:18)
# Georges Bizet, card scene from "Carmen" (track 8, 2:40)
# Giacomo Meyerbeer, "Ombre légère qui suis mes pas" from "Dinorah" (track 8, 2:55)
# Gaetano Donizetti, "O gioia che si sente" from "Lucia di Lammermoor" (track 8, 3:04)
# Franz Schubert, "Der Jüngling an der Quelle" (track 8, 3:31)
# Sergei Prokofiev, "Fields of the dead" from "Alexander Nevsky (track 8, 4:14)
# Giacomo Meyerbeer, "Ombre légère qui suis mes pas" from "Dinorah" (track 8, 5:03)
# Luciano Berio, "Lied" ("Libera nos") (track 9)

References

*Citation | last=Metzer | first=David | title=Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music | publisher=Cambridge University Press | place=Cambridge | year=2003 | isbn=0521825091
*Citation | last=Vila | first=Marie Christine | title=Cathy Berberian: cant'actrice | publisher=Fayard | place=Paris | year=2003 | isbn=2213617023