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59-739: Alfano was born in Posillipo , Naples . He attended piano lessons given privately by Alessandro Longo , and harmony and composition respectively under Camillo de Nardis (1857–1951) and Paolo Serrao at the Conservatory San Pietro a Majella in Naples. Later, after graduating, in 1895 he pursued further composition studies with Hans Sitt and Salomon Jadassohn in Leipzig . While working there he met his idol, Edvard Grieg , and wrote numerous piano and orchestral pieces. From 1918 he

118-525: A conductor and continued to compose to the end of his life. He died in 2003 in a hospital in Rome. He was an atheist. He was noted for his sense of humour. He gave a two-hour seminar at a summer school in the United States analyzing Beethoven's 7th Symphony , demonstrating that it was a work of radical genius. The next day he gave another two-hour seminar, with a completely straight face, showing why it

177-633: A model of the villa. Access for visitors to the ruins of the imperial villa is currently through the Tunnel of Sejanus. The extraordinary 770 metre-long Grotta di Seiano or "cave of Sejanus" passes beneath the Posillipo hill and connected the imperial villa and other patrician villas nearby with the Phlegraean Fields and the towns and ports of Puteoli ( Pozzuoli ) and Cumae . It owes its name to Lucius Aelius Seianus ( Sejanus ), prefect of

236-455: A new ending of Turandot composed by Luciano Berio premiered in 2002 is preferred by some critics for making a more satisfactory resolution of Turandot's change of heart, and of being more in keeping with Puccini's evolving technique. See also List of operas by Franco Alfano . Operas Other compositions Notes Posillipo Posillipo ( Italian: [poˈzillipo] ; Neapolitan : Pusilleco [puˈsilləkə] )

295-510: A number of pieces that exploited her distinctive voice. In 1952, Berio went to the United States to study with Luigi Dallapiccola at Tanglewood , from whom he gained an interest in serialism . He later attended the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik at Darmstadt , where he met Pierre Boulez , Karlheinz Stockhausen , György Ligeti and Mauricio Kagel . He became interested in electronic music , co-founding

354-440: A series of virtuoso works for solo instruments under the name Sequenza . The first, Sequenza I came in 1958 and is for flute ; the last, Sequenza XIV (2002) is for cello . These works explore the full possibilities of each instrument, often calling for extended techniques . The various Sequenze are as follows: Berio is known for adapting and transforming the music of others, but he also adapted his own compositions:

413-577: A set of arrangements of folk songs ). He also wrote an ending for Giacomo Puccini 's opera Turandot (premiered in Las Palmas on 24 January 2002 and in the same year in Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Salzburg) and in Rendering (1989) took the few sketches Franz Schubert made for his Symphony No. 10 and completed them by adding music derived from other Schubert works. Transcription

472-911: A teaching post at Mills College in Oakland, California . From 1960 to 1962, Berio also taught at the Dartington International Summer School . In 1965, he began to teach at the Juilliard School , and there he founded the Juilliard Ensemble, a group dedicated to performances of contemporary music . In 1966, he married again, this time to the noted philosopher of science Susan Oyama . They divorced in 1972. His students included Louis Andriessen , Noah Creshevsky , Steven Gellman , Dina Koston , Steve Reich , Luca Francesconi , Giulio Castagnoli , Flavio Emilio Scogna , William Schimmel and Phil Lesh of

531-450: A thing exists, is probably with the voice, the piano, the flute, and the strings. He wrote many remarkable pieces for piano which vary from solo pieces to essentially concerto pieces (points on the curve to find, concerto for two pianos, and Coro , which has a strong backbone of harmonic and melodic material entirely based on the piano part). Lesser known works make use of a very distinguishable polyphony unique to Berio that develops in

590-502: A wordless emotional language by cutting up and rearranging a recording of Cathy Berberian's voice; therefore the composition is based on the symbolic and representative charge of gestures and voice inflections, "from inarticulate sounds to syllables, from laughter to tears and singing, from aphasia to inflection patterns from specific languages: English and Italian, Hebrew and the Neapolitan dialect". In 1968, Berio completed O King

649-474: A work which exists in two versions: one for voice, flute , clarinet , violin , cello and piano , the other for eight voices and orchestra . The piece is in memory of Martin Luther King Jr. , who had been assassinated shortly before its composition. In it, the voice(s) intones first the vowels, and then the consonants which make up his name, only stringing them together to give his name in full in

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708-424: Is a vital part of even Berio's original works. In "Two Interviews", Berio mused about what a college course in transcription would look like, looking not only at Franz Liszt , Ferruccio Busoni , Igor Stravinsky , Johann Sebastian Bach , himself, and others, but to what extent composition is always self-transcription. In this respect, Berio rejected and distanced himself from notions of collage , preferring instead

767-576: Is an affluent residential quarter of Naples , southern Italy, located along the northern coast of the Gulf of Naples . From the 1st century BC the Bay of Naples witnessed the rise of villas constructed by elite Romans along the most panoramic points of the coast, who had chosen the area as a favourite vacation spot. The remains of some of these, around the imperial pleasure villa of the Roman emperors , as well as

826-492: Is mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman sources. As part of Magna Graecia , the Ancient Greeks first named it Pausílypon , meaning "respite from worry". The French Homeric scholar Victor Bérard identified Posillipo as the land of Homer 's Cyclopes . From the 1st century BC the beautiful coastline of Campania attracted wealthy Romans as a place to build elaborate and grand villas as retreats. Of ancient Pausilypon

885-731: Is not his conclusion that is performed in productions of Turandot but only what the premiere conductor Arturo Toscanini included from it […] Puccini had worked for nine months on the following concluding duet and at his death had left behind a whole ream of sketches […] Alfano had to reconstruct […] according to his best assessment […] and with his imagination and magnifying glass" since Puccini's material "had not really been legible". "Alfano's reputation has also suffered [IC:along with Mascagni], understandably, because of his willingness to associate himself closely with Mussolini's Fascist government." Alex Ross, in The New Yorker , notes that

944-462: Is not only the composition of the collage that conveys meaning; it is the particular composition of the component "sound-image" that conveys meaning, even extra-musical meaning. The technique of the collage, that he is associated with, is, then, less a neutral process than a conscious, Joycean process of analysis-by-composition, a form of analytic transcription of which Sinfonia and the Chemins are

1003-478: Is similarly collaged, but with the focus more squarely on the voice. It was originally written as a radio program for five actors, and reworked in 1975 for eight vocalists and an optional keyboard part. The work is one of a number of collaborations with the poet Edoardo Sanguineti , who for this piece provided a text full of quotations from sources including the Bible , T. S. Eliot and Karl Marx . Another example of

1062-841: Is the Villa Rosebery , the Italian President 's residence during his stays in Naples. It also contains a Mausoleum to those who died for their country, the Mausoleo Schilizzi . Posillipo has given its name to Naples' waterpolo team, Circolo Nautico Posillipo . The neighbourhood was seat of the homonymous circuit which hosted the Grand Prix of Naples between 1933 and 1962. 40°48′20″N 14°12′12″E  /  40.80556°N 14.20333°E  / 40.80556; 14.20333 Luciano Berio Luciano Berio OMRI (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003)

1121-724: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994. The same year, he became Distinguished Composer in Residence at Harvard University , remaining there until 2000. In 1993–94, he gave the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard, later published as Remembering the Future . In 2000, he became Presidente and Sovrintendente at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Berio was active as

1180-663: The Grateful Dead . All this time, Berio had been steadily composing and building a reputation, winning the Prix Italia in 1966 for Laborintus II , a work for voices, instruments and tape with text by Edoardo Sanguineti that was commissioned by the French Television to celebrate the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri ’s birth. His reputation was strengthened when his Sinfonia was premiered in 1968. In 1972, Berio returned to Italy. From 1974 to 1980, he

1239-693: The Milan Conservatory under Giulio Cesare Paribeni and Giorgio Federico Ghedini . He was unable to continue studying the piano because of his injured hand, so instead concentrated on composition. In 1947, he had the first public performance of one of his works, a suite for piano. Berio made a living at this time by accompanying singing classes, and it was in doing this that he met the American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian , whom he married shortly after graduating (they divorced in 1964). They had one daughter, Cristina Berio (born in 1953). Berio wrote

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1298-516: The Studio di fonologia musicale , an electronic music studio in Milan, with Bruno Maderna in 1955. He invited a number of significant composers to work there, among them Henri Pousseur and John Cage . He also produced an electronic music periodical, Incontri Musicali . In 1960, Berio returned to Tanglewood, this time as Composer in Residence, and in 1962, on an invitation from Darius Milhaud , took

1357-568: The 'Temple of Fortune' which were in situ as late as 1913. However the Maza collection was dispersed and the loss to archaeological science was irreparable as a catalogue had never been prepared. Several objects of art from Posillipan sites found their way into the hands of Spanish collectors, and are still no doubt among the Roman antiquities in Spain. Many fine pieces were taken to Mergellina and lost among

1416-525: The Polish writer Adam Mickiewicz 's epic Pan Tadeusz published in 1834), it had fallen into disuse over the centuries. it was rediscovered during works for a new road in 1841 and immediately brought to light and made passable by Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies , becoming a tourist destination. Additional lining and arches were built to repair and reinforce the ancient walls. During World War II , it

1475-780: The Swiss conductor Paul Sacher 's 70th birthday by composing a solo cello piece using the letters of Sacher's name (eS, A, C, H, E, Re). This was published under the name 12 Hommages à Paul Sacher . Berio's piece is called Les mots sont allés (The Words Are Gone). Some of the resulting compositions were performed in Zurich on 2 May 1976 and the whole "Sacher" project was first performed completely by Czech cellist František Brikcius in Prague in 2011. Music Les mots sont allés has been performed since by cellists Siegfried Palm, Jean-Michelle Fonteneau, and Alexander Ezerman among others. Berio composed

1534-463: The Tunnel of Sejanus can be seen today in the Parco archeologico del Pausilypon , or Pausilypon Archaeological Park, and elsewhere. Posillipo is a rocky peninsula about 6 km long surrounded by cliffs with a few small coves with breakwaters at the western end of the Bay of Naples. These small harbours are the nuclei for separate, named communities such as Gaiola Island and Marechiaro . Posillipo

1593-521: The basic material for composition. Berio was born in Oneglia (now part of Imperia ), on the Ligurian coast of Italy. He was taught piano by his father and grandfather, who were both organists . During World War II , he was conscripted into the army, but on his first day, he injured his hand while learning how a gun worked and spent time in a military hospital. Following the war, Berio studied at

1652-418: The central part of what had been a broad continuous terrace along the south front of the property in Roman times. The buildings that stood on the hillside above the terrace, including the southern part of the baths, fell down the slope into the sea. The archaeological park is one of the most beautiful places in the city and along the coast of Posillipo. Among the most important sites are the "cave of Sejanus",

1711-461: The coast, roughly parallel to the shore. The artistic School of Posillipo was started by Antonie Sminck Pitloo , painting marine shore landscapes from the area. The submerged parts of the ruins of the imperial villa and the rich and diverse marine and coastal natural environment can be seen via boat excursions. The area has been heavily overbuilt since the end of World War II, but contains some notable historical buildings and landmarks. Among these

1770-485: The electronic music and technical part of such pieces was always performed by the musicians of Tempo Reale . Along with eleven other composers, ( Conrad Beck , Pierre Boulez , Benjamin Britten , Henri Dutilleux , Wolfgang Fortner , Alberto Ginastera , Cristóbal Halffter , Hans Werner Henze , Heinz Holliger , Klaus Huber and Witold Lutosławski ), Berio was asked by the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich to celebrate

1829-461: The emperor Tiberius , who according to tradition commissioned its enlargement in the first century AD; the first tunnel was built 50 years earlier by architect Cocceius Auctus at the behest of Agrippa . The eastern entrance is cut into the rock cliff within the archaeological park while the western entrance was a monumental arch with opus reticulatum lining the cliff sides, and both ends being of about 14 m height. The height, width and length of

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1888-433: The fall of 2013. In Fanfare ' s issue of September/October 1999, it was asserted that Alfano's reputation suffers because of several things. Firstly, that he should not be judged as a composer on the basis of the task he was given in completing Turandot (La Scala, 25 April 1926). Secondly, that we almost never hear everything he wrote for Turandot since the standard ending heavily edits Alfano's work. Thirdly, […] it

1947-421: The final bars. The orchestral version of O King was, shortly after its completion, integrated into what is perhaps Berio's most famous work, Sinfonia (1967–69), for orchestra and eight amplified voices. The voices are not used in a traditional classical way; they frequently do not sing at all, but speak, whisper and shout. The third movement is a collage of literary and musical quotations . A-Ronne (1974)

2006-466: The flesh to ingest blood". However, the emperor, Augustus , on visiting Pollio and witnessing the condemnation of a slave, took action against Pollio and saved the slave, an incident widely documented in writings of the era (see Vedius Pollio for more details). Vedius died in 15 BC and was probably forced to bequeath a large part of his estates, including the villa, to the emperor Augustus . Although Augustus had Vedius' mansion in Rome razed, Pausilypon

2065-404: The influence of Sanguineti is the large work Coro (premiered 1977), scored for orchestra, solo voices, and a large choir, whose members are paired with instruments of the orchestra. The work extends over roughly an hour, and explores a number of themes within a framework of folk music from a variety of regions: Chile, North America, Africa. Recurrent themes are the expression of love and passion;

2124-412: The joints between sections. It was not perfectly straight in plan but included small deviations near the centre where the tunnellers from each end met after remarkably small inaccuracies of alignment given the techniques of the time. It had three secondary side tunnels ending in openings overhanging the bay to provide light and ventilation. Although known about by scholars (for example it is referred to in

2183-462: The most prominent examples. Berio often offers his compositions as forms of academic or cultural discourse themselves rather than as "mere" fodder for them. Among Berio's other compositions are Circles (1960), Sequenza III (1966), and Recital I (for Cathy) (1972), all written for Berberian, and a number of stage works, with Un re in ascolto , a collaboration with Italo Calvino , the best known. Berio's "central instrumental focus", if such

2242-419: The most visible ruins are those of the notorious villa of Vedius Pollio , later to become an imperial villa. The villa was described by the poet Ovid as "like a city". Most notoriously, he kept a pool of lampreys into which slaves who incurred his displeasure would be thrown as food, a particularly unpleasant means of death, since the lamprey "clamps its mouth on the victim and bores a dentated tongue into

2301-529: The neighbouring submerged Gaiola Park. The villa was built in the first century BC by Publius Vedius Pollio. On his death in 15 BC, the villa was bequeathed to Augustus , and remained in imperial possession for his successors at least until Hadrian, as witnessed by a stamped water pipe . In various points the presence of water supply pipes (coated with hydraulic mortar) show the opulence of the facilities. The George Vallet Archaeological museum in Sorrento has

2360-510: The other ornaments of the villa of the Duke of Medina. In 1820 the southern portion of the property was purchased by a well-known Neapolitan archaeologist , cavaliere Guglielmo Bechi, and his name was associated with the Villa for more than half a century. He did much excavation, but again without publication of results. In 1841 more methodical excavations were begun on the adjoining property to

2419-421: The pain of being parted from loved ones; the death of a wife or husband. A line repeated often is "come and see the blood on the streets", a reference to a poem by Pablo Neruda , written in the context of the outbreak of the civil war in Spain. In the last period of his production Berio was also interested in the use of live electronics, applied in some compositions as Ofanìm (1988–1997) and Altra voce (1999):

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2478-629: The performance materials were thought destroyed in an air raid during the Second World War. Alfano reconstructed it in 1952 as Sakùntala , after Abhijñānaśākuntalam ( The Recognition of Sakuntala ), the Sanskrit play by Kālidāsa . Subsequently, the original version was recovered in 2005, with the two versions available for performance today. The second version of Sakùntala was performed in New York City by Teatro Grattacielo in

2537-853: The position of "transcriber", arguing that "collage" implies a certain arbitrary abandon that runs counter to the careful control of his highly intellectual play, especially within Sinfonia but throughout his "deconstructive" works. Rather, each quotation carefully evokes the context of its original work, creating an open web, but an open web with highly specific referents and a vigorously defined, if self-proliferating, signifier-signified relationship. "I'm not interested in collages , and they amuse me only when I'm doing them with my children: then they become an exercise in relativizing and 'decontextualizing' images, an elementary exercise whose healthy cynicism won't do anyone any harm", Berio told interviewer Rossana Dalmonte. Perhaps Berio's most notable contribution to

2596-472: The series of Sequenze gave rise to a series of works called Chemins each based on one of the Sequenze . Chemins II (1967), for instance, takes the original Sequenza VI (1967) for viola and adapts it for solo viola and nine other instruments. Chemins II was itself transformed into Chemins III (1968) by the addition of an orchestra, and there also exists Chemins IIb , a version of Chemins II without

2655-505: The solo viola but with a larger ensemble, and Chemins IIc , which is Chemins IIb with an added solo bass clarinet . The Sequenze were also shaped into new works under titles other than Chemins ; Corale (1981), for example, is based on Sequenza VIII . As well as original works, Berio made a number of arrangements of works by other composers, among them Claudio Monteverdi , Henry Purcell , Johannes Brahms , Gustav Mahler and Kurt Weill . For Berberian he wrote Folk Songs (1964;

2714-496: The tunnel made it a great engineering achievement and an extravagant one considering it served only a small population. An enormous volume of rock alone had to be removed though some served as building material for the villas. The tunnelling was complicated by the alternation of pozzolanic earth with tufa necessitating the elaborate lining of most of the tunnel with stonework of opus reticulatum and then with vaulting on top of these walls. Work progressed at 5–7 m per day as indicated by

2773-603: The underwater park of Gaiola, the imperial villa of Pausilypon (including the odeon , theatre) and the Palace of the Spirits. The ruins of the Roman villa of Vedius Pollio , also known as the Imperial Villa, include a 2000-seat theatre on the rocky promontory at the end of the Bay of Naples. Some of the villa's rooms can be seen with traces of the wall decorations while its marine structures and fish ponds are now part of

2832-531: The west of the ancient lane that led down the valley from the "Tunnel of Sejanus" to the sea. The principal buildings of that part of the Villa were soon brought to light; the Theatre, an Odeon, and the remains of a Portico overlooking the sea. An oblong building called the temple was also found along with the remains of an aqueduct. In about 1870 the Marchese del Tufo opened a quarry for pozzolana clearing away

2891-452: The world of post-WWII non-serial experimental music, running throughout most of his works, is his engagement with the broader world of critical theory (epitomized by his lifelong friendship with linguist and critical theorist Umberto Eco ) through his compositions. Berio's works are often analytic acts: deliberately analysing myths, stories, the components of words themselves, his own compositions, or preexisting musical works. In other words, it

2950-708: Was Director of the Conservatory of Bologna , from 1923 Director of the Turin Conservatory , and from 1947 to 1950 Director of the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro . Alfano died in San Remo . Alfano completed his first opera, Miranda (unpublished), for which he also wrote the libretto based on a novel by Antonio Fogazzaro, in 1896. His work La Fonte di Enschir (libretto by Luigi Illica )

3009-400: Was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition Sinfonia and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled Sequenza ), and for his pioneering work in electronic music . His early work was influenced by Igor Stravinsky and experiments with serial and electronic techniques, while his later works explore indeterminacy and the use of spoken texts as

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3068-546: Was discovered in 1882 when the Grotta Nuova di Posillipo was made for a tramway through the hill. Ancient inscriptions found inside the tunnel verify that it fed the villa of Felix Pollio, among others, mainly intended for the nymphaeum and the baths. The area remained largely undeveloped until a road, via Posillipo, was built between 1812 and 1824. That road starts at sea level at the Mergellina harbour and moves up

3127-514: Was hopelessly flawed and a creative dead-end. Berio's electronic work dates for the most part from his time at Milan's Studio di Fonologia. One of the most influential works he produced there was Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958), based on Cathy Berberian reading from James Joyce 's Ulysses , which can be considered as the first electroacoustic composition in the history of western music made with voice and elaboration of it by technological means. A later work, Visage (1961) sees Berio creating

3186-420: Was rebuilt and extended to become a palace, which remained in imperial possession at least until the time of Hadrian . In the 17th century the property of the site of the imperial villa passed to the family Maza who, for several generations, showed an interest in archaeology and Francesco Maria Maza ( c.  1680 ) was the author of inscriptions which he affixed to the so-called 'Piscine of V.Pollio' and to

3245-628: Was recently revived by the Kiel Opera (Germany), the Montpellier Radio Festival (France) and the Metropolitan Opera , New York City , starring Plácido Domingo in the title role. In 1921, La Leggenda di Sakùntala appeared, described by some as his most important stage work, and while it was successful enough to have Arturo Toscanini recommend Alfano for the completion of Puccini 's posthumous Turandot ,

3304-771: Was refused by Ricordi but was presented in Wrocław (then Breslau) as Die Quelle von Enschir on 8 November 1898. It enjoyed some success. There followed the opera Risurrezione in 1904. It was based on Tolstoy , and was later sung by Magda Olivero . Cyrano de Bergerac followed. This based on the famous play by Edmond Rostand and composed to the French libretto by Henri Cain . It had its Italian premiere in Rome in January 1936 and its French premiere in Paris four months later. It

3363-566: Was the nymphaeum of the villa and also built in the first century BC. Further along the coast to the west is the perimeter of the "School of Virgil" where it was believed that the "prophet" practised magical arts. The grandeur and luxury of these villas are documented in the George Vallet Archaeological museum. The Roman aqueduct supplying the coastal villas was a branch of the Serino aqueduct or Aqua Augusta and

3422-638: Was the director of the electro-acoustic division of IRCAM in Paris. He married the musicologist Talia Pecker in 1977. In 1987, he opened Tempo Reale , a centre for musical research and production based in Florence . In 1988, he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music , London. The following year, he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize . He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of

3481-491: Was used as an air raid shelter for the inhabitants of Bagnoli ; the war and landslides during the 1950s took it back to a state of neglect since when it was restored. The remains of other Roman houses can be seen in Marechiaro along the beach, or at Calata Ponticello where there is an Ionic column base and a brick niche. On the cliff towards Gaiola are the remains of the "House of the Spirits" also called "Villarosa" which

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