Luciano Berio
Coro (1974-1976) #58’
pour quarante voix et orchestre
pour quarante voix et orchestre
The iconic piece by Luciano Berio for 40 singers and 40 instrumentalists is among the composer's most important works. Accessible to as many people as possible, it presents a unique layout: the singers and the instrumentalists are linked two by two, forming a vocal and instrumental choir with a unique spatial arrangement of sound. «Coro attacks the problem that is perhaps the most deeply anchored within me: coming together, giving an order to things that are apparently heterogeneous. It is a problem that our culture is obsessed with and which justifies my interest in linguistics, where we look for 'internal' links between different elements», declares
the composer. The celebration of life, work and love contrasts with the drama of alienation and repression: an elementary and powerful opposition between the forces of life and death. The solo parts use shared texts, taken from an assorted repertoire: Indian chants (from different ethnic groups), Peruvian, Polynesian, Gabonese, Persian, Croatian, Venetian, Piedmontese, Chilean, with the addition of an extract from Song of Songs; all the parts use verses by Pablo Neruda taken from the collection Residencia en la Tierra. The idea of a choir acquires an ethical and political meaning: a gathering of human beings going beyond their ethnic and linguistic differences.