Berio: Formazioni for orchestra, for orchestra

The commission provided Luciano
Berio with an opportunity to consider yet again a new kind of deployment of the
orchestral apparatus. He decided to divide the instruments into the following
groups:

group A1:        1st flute; 2nd flute; oboe; cor anglais; tenor saxophone in
Bb; bassoon;

group A2:        1st flute; 2nd flute; oboe; alto saxophone in Eb; bassoon;

group B1:        1st horn in F; 2nd horn in F; 3rd horn in F; 1st trumpet in
C; 2nd trumpet in C; 1st
trombone; 2nd trombone; bass tuba;

group B2:        1st horn in F; 2nd horn in F; 3rd horn in F; 1st trumpet in
C; 2nd trumpet in C; 1st
trombone; 2nd trombone; bass tuba;

group C:          clarinet in Eb; 1st clarinet in Bb; 2nd clarinet in Bb; 3rd
clarinet in Bb; bass clarinet
in Bb; contrabassoon;

group D:          violin I(12); violin II(12); viola(12); violoncello(10);
contrabass(8);

group E:          1st percussion; 2nd percussion; 3rd percussion; 1st harp;
2nd harp; celesta

But – Berio wondered – do a viola
and a double-bass, under specific conditions, have less in common than a viola
and a flute? Is there really less of an acoustic kinship between a horn and a
trumpet than between a stopped trumpet and an oboe or a cor anglais?

That is (among other things) what Formazioni is about: relationships
within the traditional families of instruments and the roles they are given to
play are defined and allotted in a new manner. Hence the unusual arrangement of
the orchestra. To the left in front and to the right in the back there sit two
groups of woodwind instruments, with two groups of brass placed to the right
and to the left in the middle. An important group of five clarinets and
contrabassoons

is put in the middle of the front,
surrounded by violins and violas. Berio has referred to string instruments as
“the often hidden cement”; in Formazioni,
the violins relinquish their prominence to the double-basses (to the right in
front). All in all, the lower instruments tend to sit closer to the front
whereas the higher ones take their places farther in the back.

As a result of this orchestral
“geography”, there emerges an important new acoustic perspective. Already in Coro
(1974-1976) where each of the forty singers is placed next to a specific
instrument, Berio taught us something new about the significance of different
instrumental relationships in space. In Voci
(1984-1985), too, new musical and acoustic balances are developed among the
solo viola and the two groups of instruments.

Spatial arrangement is also a
primary concern in Formazioni with
its ceaseless interaction between massive sound blocks and chamber music-like
passages. The composer himself talks of “composing for orchestra which is made
up of different ‘chamber musics’ heightened to the extreme”. That is what
renders a performance of Formazioni such
a challenge both for the individual players as well as for the orchestra as a
collective.

Why Formazioni? These ‘formations of forms’
could be described as a strategic interaction of ‘military’ formations but
equally also as a ‘geological’ superposition of musical layers, each of them
homogeneous.”