Лучано Берио: Халық әндері циклi

Song cycle by Luciano Berio

Folk Songs is a song cycle by the Italian composer Luciano Berio composed in 1964. It consists of arrangements of folk music from various countries and other songs, forming "a tribute to the extraordinary artistry" of the American singer Cathy Berberian, a specialist in Berio's music. It is scored for voice, flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet, harp, viola, cello, and percussion (two players). The composer arranged it for a large orchestra in 1973.

Two of the songs in the cycle, "La donna ideale" and "Ballo", were composed in 1947 by Berio during his second year at the Milan Conservatory for voice and piano as part of his Tre canzoni popolari (Three folk songs). It is often claimed that these three songs were written for Cathy Berberian while she was studying in Italy, but this cannot be the case because she did not arrive there until 1949. and apostrophizes the nightingale: "How you resemble me as I weep for my lover When they bury me, sing me this song." The next two songs are also found in Joseph Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne and are in the Occitan language. "Malurous qu'o uno fenno" poses the eternal marital paradox: he with no spouse seeks one, and he with one wishes he had none. A cello echoing the improvisation at the opening of the suite introduces "Lo Fïolairé", in which a girl at her spinning wheel sings of exchanging kisses with a shepherd. Berberian discovered the last song, known in the suite as "Azerbaijan Love Song", on a 78 RPM record from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, sung in the Azerbaijani language except for one verse in Russian, which a Russian speaking friend told her compared love to a stove. Berberian sang, purely by rote, the sounds she transcribed as best she could from that scratchy old record. She knew not one word of Azerbaijani. The music was transcribed for her by Louis Andriessen.