Berio Sequenza VIII: The violin’s journey through the music

Sara Molina Castellote

The path that a musician traverses when starting and playing a new piece it’s a long process of discoveries and learning. In this case, this process is settled on a deep understanding and analysis of the Sequenza (that is based on Berio experts’ knowledge) and which supports the technical and musical decisions made for my approach to this piece. The steps are made by intervention cycles: the piece is divided in four big sections and each of them is addressed in one intervention cycle. The analysis of two important recordings of the piece was basic for this Research: Jean-Marie Conquer’s and Carlo Chiarappa’s (the latter one was the player that premiered the piece), and also the meetings that I had with some experts on this field: Joseph Puglia and Simone Fontanelli. I didn’t take the decision of starting to play this piece carelessly: it is a piece which requires a great deal of knowledge about violin technique and about contemporary music notation. The kind of work that I carried out was very helpful for me as a musician and as a violinist: I learnt about how to approach technically many problems that I can find, and how useful different sources can be which in other contexts I wouldn’t have considered as a learning source. This Research could be very useful for other musicians that are interested in Berio’s music, and of course for violin players who wonder how they can solve some of the problems that can be found on this or similar pieces.

First Intervention Cycle

This is the first recording of the piece that I did (the reference recording). It lasts 1 minute and 10 seconds. Date of recording: 16th of November, 2018. The violin Sequenza is an important piece in violin repertoire, which is not really well-known. It is a piece that I really like and it’s a perfect example of music of XX century repertoire that I would like to know better and go deep. It has also some technical challenges which I would like to approach and to find out my own solutions for them.

This second recording is the first intervention cycle one. It is about the first section of the piece (3 pages) and it lasts 3 minutes and a half. Date of recording: 17th of April, 2019. I am not really happy with it, in my opinion I can play it much better, but I will do it in the future in other intervention cycles.

Second Intervention Cycle

Sequenza VIII for solo violin, Luciano Berio (from stave number 23 to number 33, duration: 1’40’’). Date of recording: 17th of October, 2019. It is the beginning of the second section of the piece, which is mostly a melodic part (the polyphony comes a bit later in this second section). I made the reference recording about this because they were the first staves on which I worked at the beginning of this intervention cycle.

This is the final recording of the second intervention cycle. It is the complete second section of the piece.

Third Intervention Cycle

Sequenza VIII for solo violin, Luciano Berio (from stave number 74 to number 81, duration: 2’ 22’’). Date of recording: 16th of January 2020. It is the middle part of the fourth section. It was the first time that I played this part in public (I played it for a lesson), and it is not complete, but it is almost the whole fourth section. I make some pauses because it is a lesson and the teacher is making some small comments sometimes.

New recording after finishing the third intervention cycle

Fourth Intervention Cycle

Sequenza VIII for solo violin, Luciano Berio (stave 49 and 50: the stave number 50 is an ostinato which lasts 1 minute, duration: 51’’). Date of recording: 17th of March 2020. It is the beginning of the third part of the piece. I decided to play this in my reference recording because it is a very long ostinato: in total it lasts in the piece almost two minutes (at some moment there are chords in fortissimo which break this ostinato), so it is important being used to play it.

These three recordings are the new recordings after finishing the fourth intervention cycle.

Final Result

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