Maderna

Most followers of electro-acoustic music recognize the contributions both Bruno Maderna and Luciano Berio have made to the field, mainly due to their collaborative work Ritratto di Citta, which established the Studio de Fonologia in 1955. Fewer, however, are familiar with their individual projects from the late '50s and early '60s that clearly set them apart from their counterparts in Cologne. Berio and Maderna were both obsessed by the human voice as a basis and endpoint in electro-acoustic music…

Unlike many of his radical new music colleagues, Bruno Maderna (1920-1973) had a great affection for older music, especially that of the Italian Renaissance and Early Baroque eras. But his transcriptions had little to do with the orthodoxy of so-called ‘historically informed’ interpretation. In the belief that works of art can be removed from their original contexts, he used contemporary instrumental resources to discover new meaning and a new validity in the works of old masters.

Unlike many of his radical new music colleagues, Bruno Maderna (1920-1973) had a great affection for older music, especially that of the Italian Renaissance and Early Baroque eras. But his transcriptions had little to do with the orthodoxy of so-called ‘historically informed’ interpretation. In the belief that works of art can be removed from their original contexts, he used contemporary instrumental resources to discover new meaning and a new validity in the works of old masters.

With this disc, German label Neos takes on an enterprising project, Bruno Maderna: Complete Works for Orchestra, Vol. 1. Outside of Italy, Maderna is recognized as a significant figure within Italian avant-garde associated with Nono and Berio, but his music is not is well known as theirs, apart from his fanciful and hip Serenata per un satellite (1969). Within Italy, Maderna is remembered as one of her greatest conductors, although he is worshipped to such extent in that role that his compositions have been overlooked. Such a series, hopefully, would serve to redress the balance; Maderna's experience as conductor helped inform his compositions, and by having access to his orchestral pieces one might be able to determine to what extent his composing impacted his work as a conductor.

In the 1950s and '60s composer-conductor-teacher Bruno Maderna (1920-1973) directed the chamber ensemble in Darmstadt, the leading international centre for contemporary music, and became one of the first Italians to produce electronic works. But it was not in technical progress that he saw music's future. Like his contemporaries, he also adopted 12-tone writing in the 1950s, yet Maderna remained an undogmatic and independent composer to the end of his life: "The worst thing in the world is consistency," he once said; "I hate to be consistent, because it's deadly."

from the CD booklet

The five orchestral works in this comprehensive anthology have a common nucleus pointing to the core interests which Bruno Maderna pursued from 1954 to 1966: experiments with a post-serial harmonic vocabulary, and a search for dramatic structures. This CD includes Composition in Three Tempi, Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Aria, Dimension III and Stele per Diotima.

The oboe was a special instrument for Bruno Maderna, and he filled these three concertos (composed in 1962-3, 1967 and 1973) with solo lines in which sharply fragmented and fluently rhapsodic materials constantly interact. Heinz Holliger, in turn, pours all his unrivalled dexterity and capacity for infinitely varied expressive nuance into the performances here. Yet the music remains problematic.

Unlike many modern composers of his day, Bruno Maderna did not renounce the memory nor the traditions of the past, seeing contemporary music as having the same expressive and linguistic goals as old music but organised in a different way. The works in this recording represent the important role melody had in Maderna’s aesthetic, the lyrical significance of Widmung and Aulodia per Lothar seeing their recurrence in later pieces. Serenata No. 2 recalls the spirit of Webern, Serenata per un satellite is like a musical game, and the multi-stylistic Venetian Journal is a merciless social, human and musical satire.