Recital I (for Cathy)

Recital I 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 mezzo-soprano and 17 instruments. It was first performed on 27 April 1972 in Lisbon in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Grand Auditórium by Cathy Berberian with Orquesta Gulbenkian, conducted by the composer.

Synopsis

In the piece a singer—who is, in Berberian's description, not a singer who gives a recital but an actress-singer who plays the role of a singer who gives a recital —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 disio 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. She ends the piece with a prayer for liberation, 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 are identified as follows —the track numbers and time indications refer to the only recording that exists of the piece :

Claudio Monteverdi, "Lettera amorosa"
Claudio Monteverdi, "Lamento della ninfa"
Claudio Monteverdi, "Lettera amorosa"
Johann Sebastian Bach, "Ich nehme mein Leiden mit Freuden auf mich" from cantata Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75
Liturgia Armenia
Johann Sebastian Bach, "Ich nehme mein Leiden mit Freuden auf mich" from cantata BWV 75 Die elenden sollen essen
Maurice Ravel, "Chanson épique" from Don Quichotte à Dulcinée
Henry Purcell, "Ye gentle spirits of the air" from The Fairy-Queen
Friedrich Hollaender, "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt", as sung by Marlene Dietrich in the film Der blaue Engel
Manuel de Falla, "Polo" from Siete canciones populares españolas
Francis Poulenc, "Hôtel" from Banalités
Richard Wagner, "Träume" from the Wesendonck Lieder
Gustave Charpentier, "Quelle belle vie" from Louise
Hugo Wolf, "Das verlassene Mägdlein"
Darius Milhaud, "La séparation" from Chants populaires hébraïques
Henry Purcell, "When I am laid in earth" from Dido and Æneas
Igor Stravinsky, "At home" from the Cat's Cradle Songs
Jules Massenet, "Adieu, notre petite table" from Manon
Ernesto Berio, "Pioggerellina"
Luciano Berio, Epifanie
Luciano Berio, Avendo gran desio
Leonard Bernstein, Lamentation from Jeremiah
Arnold Schoenberg, "Mondestrunken" from Pierrot Lunaire
Ambroise Thomas, Polonaise from Mignon
Georges Bizet, Recitative from Carmen
Armenian traditional song "Ax lele, vax lele"
Alfredo Casella, "Er gatto e er cane"
Maurice Ravel, "Placet futile" from Trois poèmes de Mallarmé
Franz Schubert, "Der Tod und das Mädchen"
Modest Mussorgsky, "Song of the Flea"
Giovanni Paisiello, "Nel cor più non mi sento" from La Molinara
Giuseppe Verdi, "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata" from Rigoletto
Gustav Mahler "Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen" from the Kindertotenlieder
Reynaldo Hahn, "L'heure exquise"
Léo Delibes, "Bell song" from Lakmé
Gioachino Rossini, "Non più mesta" from La cenerentola
Gaetano Donizetti, "Al fin son tua" from Lucia di Lammermoor
Georges Bizet, card scene from Carmen
Giacomo Meyerbeer, "Ombre légère qui suis mes pas" from Dinorah
Gaetano Donizetti, "O gioia che si sente" from Lucia di Lammermoor
Franz Schubert, "Der Jüngling an der Quelle"
Sergei Prokofiev, "Fields of the dead" from Alexander Nevsky
Giacomo Meyerbeer, "Ombre légère qui suis mes pas" from Dinorah
Luciano Berio, ''Lied''