Folk Songs (Berio)

Folk Songs is a song cycle by the Italian composer Luciano Berio composed in 1964. It consists of arrangements of folk music from various countries and other songs, forming "a tribute to the extraordinary artistry" of the American singer Cathy Berberian, a specialist in Berio's music. It is scored for voice, flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet, harp, viola, cello, and percussion (two players). The composer arranged it for a large orchestra in 1973.

Two of the songs in the cycle, "La donna ideale" and "Ballo", were composed in 1947 by Berio during his second year at the Milan Conservatory for voice and piano as part of his Tre canzoni popolari (Three folk songs). It is often claimed that these three songs were written for Cathy Berberian while she was studying in Italy, but this cannot be the case because she did not arrive there until 1949.

The Folk Songs cycle was commissioned by Mills College in California and first performed there by a chamber orchestra directed by Berio in 1964 with Berberian as the soprano soloist. By the time of its first performance, the Berberian–Berio marriage was nearing its end, but their artistic partnership continued; they subsequently collaborated on works such as Sequenza III, Visage and Recital I (for Cathy). Berio had an emotional attachment to folk song: he once declared that "When I work with that music I am always caught by the thrill of discovery." Other later compositions by Berio that incorporated folk songs were Cries of London, Coro and Voci: Folk Songs II.

The first two of the Folk Songs are not actual folk songs. "Black Is the Colour (Of My True Love's Hair)" and "I Wonder as I Wander" were both written by the Kentucky folk singer and composer John Jacob Niles. There is a traditional tune for "Black is the Color ..." but, because his father thought it was "downright terrible", Niles recalled, "I wrote myself a new tune, ending it in a nice modal manner." Berio's suite opens with the viola instructed to play "like a wistful country dance fiddler", free of bar lines and rhythmically independent of the voice. "I Wonder as I Wander" was developed by Niles out of the mere three lines he was able to extract from a revivalist preacher’s daughter, "a tousled, unwashed blond, and very lovely".Harmonics from the viola, cello and harp contribute toward the "hurdy-gurdy sound" Berio wanted to accompany this second song. The extended bird-song postlude for flute and clarinet in Berio’s version seems to have been suggested by the passing reference to the "bird on the wing".

...
Wikipedia