''Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)'' is an electroacoustic composition by

Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental music, experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia (Berio), Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Seque ...

, for voice and tape. Composed in 1958 and 1959, it is based on the interpretative reading of the poem "Sirens" from chapter 11 of the novel ''

Ulysses Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus, a legendary Greek hero recognized for his intelligence and cunning. He is famous for his long, adventurous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, as narrated in Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses may also refer ...

'' by

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

Cathy Berberian Catherine Anahid Berberian (July 4, 1925 – March 6, 1983) was an American mezzo-soprano and composer based in Italy. She worked closely with many contemporary avant-garde music composers, including Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Hen ...

and on the elaboration of her recorded voice by technological means.

History and context of the composition

According to the definitive piece published in 1995 (CD BMG 09026-68302-2), the text and the interpretation of it by Berberian can be heard in the first part (1 minute and 56 seconds), while the electroacoustic elaboration of it can be heard in the second part (6 minutes and 13 seconds); the complete length of the definitive composition is 8 minutes and 9 seconds. The piece was originally composed to be part of a never broadcast radio program by

and

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian Medieval studies, medievalist, philosopher, Semiotics, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular ...

titled ''Omaggio a Joyce. Documenti sulla qualità onomatopeica del linguaggio poetico.'' Subsequently, the piece, conceived for four channels, was recorded in stereo in two versions, the first titled ''Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)'' (LP Turnabout TV 34177), 1958; the second titled ''Omaggio a Joyce'' (LP Limelight LS 86047), 1959. In 1995 it was digitally restored in stereo (CD BMG 09026-68302-2) and this is the version Berio declared as definitive (8 minutes and 9 seconds).

Musical form

The work resumes the linguistic studies the composer had been carrying on for some years in collaboration with Eco during the first stages of the Studio di fonologia in Milan; these studies were focused, on the one hand, on the sonorous relationships between many different European languages; on the other hand, on pure vocalism from several points of view:

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, wh ...

, and musical. In particular, the construction of a new musical form based on the oscillation between music, literature and

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

languages can be seen as the result of the interdisciplinary studies carried on at the Studio di Fonologia.

aimed to the synthesis of different fields to break down the borders of the artistic and scientific specializations between music, poetry and technology. So first of all, the main feature of the composition is the oscillation between oblivion and construction which reminds directly to the poetic writing form. The work is based on the idea of the electroacoustic

montage Montage may refer to: Arts and entertainment Filmmaking and films * Montage (filmmaking), a technique in film editing * ''Montage'' (2013 film), a South Korean film Music * Montage (music), or sound collage * ''Montage'' (EP), a 2017 EP by ...

of sounds as well. This is the first time in history of music a recorded intelligible text was literally "broke into pieces". In particular, the composer had classified the recorded words included in "Sirens" according to their resonance colors, in relation to the resonance point of the vocal apparatus. The tonal colours were chosen in consideration of the

sounds and their sonorous nature was then elaborated upon and mixed using the analogue technology of the Studio di Fonologia. This facility housed a number of

oscillators Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum ...

. The long editing process was performed manually. According to Daniele (2010), the compositional category of the

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

musical art, using

words A word is a basic element of language that carries meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its ...

and vocals as a primary source, playing with the tension between

semantic Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

and musical characteristics, through the technology, has been constituted from this moment on. The intrinsic musicality of the

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

and the research of infinite possibilities of combining

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s are very important in this work as well. The tension/relationship between construction of the words and a new elaboration of them and meaning of sounds, which is a peculiar element of the Joyce's writings, is transposed from the silent written form to a new musical, electroacoustic form. In this way, Berio fragments the Joyce's text read by Berberian to recompose it in a new technologically elaborated form. The electroacoustic elaborations and the

are realized in the words and texts as on the sounds and noises produced by the voice. In particular, as Berio said, the sound object transformation must take into account the near-musical attributes that are contained in the sound object itself. To the degrees of the sound object transformation then corresponds a different degree of significance in relation to the original rough state of the object itself. The composition features a very peculiar structure away from every known musical theory, to create a poetical-musical opera done not through themes but with the forms of language itself. In this oscillation and in the deconstruction of the meaning of the words, in the research of pure timbre and resonances, "the sound becomes meaning" and the voice becomes the symbol of the human body itself and its expressive sign, as the "symbol of language" or the principle of the "languages of things", according to the well-known theory of

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

References

External links

Luciano Berio's ''Thema''
- A page devoted to ''Thema'' from a James Joyce web site. {{Authority control Compositions by Luciano Berio 1959 compositions Serial compositions

History and context of the composition

Musical form

See also

References

External links