Talk:Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)

Comparison with Gesang der Junglinge

The article states that "This is the first time in history of music a recorded intelligible text was literally "broke into pieces". I'm curios how different this is from Stockhausen's "Gesang" and what exactly makes this piece is innovative technically (obviously it is innovative artistically). Unfortunately I don't know Italian or French to study the sources. It would be great to clarify the differences between these two masterpieces in the article. --Yury Bulka (talk) 14:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Given that Gesang was composed two years earlier, this is a very good question. The technique of breaking a recorded text into component syllables does appear to be equivalent in the two pieces. The cited source, by Michel Chion, might simply be mistaken when it claims Omaggio a Joyce was the first piece to do this, or it may be a bad translation from the French (certainly the English grammar in the quotation is faulty: it should read "broken", not "broke"). Unfortunately, the GoogleBooks preview does not include the cited passage, so this may take a little time to track down. Thank you, Yury, for calling attention to this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:57, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Jerome, for your reply. I've added the {{dubious}} note to the sentence. Hopefully we'll find more sources on this soon. --Yury Bulka (talk) 23:08, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

If my local university library or a library I can interloan from has the original book I might try to interloan it (assuming this can be done and it's not in Reference) so as to finesse Google on this point and just read the source (assuming too that it's a work in print in the first place!) Will put it on my queue of works to try to ILL... Schissel | Sound the Note! 13:05, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Also btw there is a 2003 dissertation according to Worldcat comparing the Omaggio with Stockhausen's Stimmung, see OCLC 56174411. Schissel | Sound the Note! 13:25, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Ah, yes. I remember hearing Emily Laugesen give a paper based on her preliminary dissertation research at the AMS/SMT meeting in Baton Rouge in 1996. Stimmung, of course, is quite a different kettle of fish from Gesang der Jünglinge. Still, it might be pertinent to mention in this article. I look forward to learning what you discover about that source.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:21, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Category Serial compositions

Come what now? Schissel | Sound the Note! 12:47, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

It could use a citation, I suppose. The obvious choice would be Umberto Eco, who (if I remember correctly) discusses it as a serial work in Opera aperta, together with Stockhausen's Klavierstück XI, Berio's Sequenza I, Boulez's Third Sonata, and Pousseur's Scambi. In any event, it was through his discussions with Berio while working with him on the production of Omaggio that Eco became familiar with the serial principles underlying these compositions.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:45, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Also, re Daniele's statement that

"This is the first time in history of music a recorded intelligible text was literally "broke[n] into pieces"-

Il canto sospeso by Luigi Nono- for example - is a yet earlier work; the actual texts of both are intelligible but the results are broken into pieces. So I find this claim dubious as well. Schissel | Sound the Note! 13:00, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, should have read the bit above about Gesang. I don't know if Canto is earlier than Gesang. I frankly suspect there are examples much earlier than both... beware, beware, the temptation of "this is the first time ever, ever, ever that this has happened!" :):) Schissel | Sound the Note! 13:02, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, Il canto sospeso and Gesang der Jünglinge are exactly contemporary, both composed in 1955–56. It is unlikely that either composer was aware of details of the other's work, though of course at that time they were good friends. Ironically, it was Stockhausen's comparison of the text setting in Gesang and Canto (in a Darmstadt lecture that also examined Boulez's Marteau sans maître) that infuriated Nono, precisely on the issue of the intelligibility of the texts, and provoked him to a public rebuke of Stockhausen that ended their friendship.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:32, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

One further point: Il canto sospeso does not use recordings, as both Gesang and Omaggio do. It is for vocal soloists, choir, and orchestra, whereas the claim is specifically about recorded sound.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:49, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

R. Daniele link

here is her abstract from it online. If not for this, I would be quite at a loss to tell you what it was, whether it was a book, a selection from a group of papers, an article, a ... . It seems to be (thanks to a small bit of Google searching; even I admit that Google is good for quite a bit) from program notes to her recording of Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) on the RDM label in 2010, not from a book from the publisher RDM that she wrote or that she contribute to or from a magazine that she contributed an article to or ... ... ... . Worldcat was not very helpful under the latter (false) assumptions :) Schissel | Sound the Note! 13:12, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit: Mistaken again. Worldcat doesn't list but opac.sbn.it - Italian Library Cat which is more comprehensive for Italian Libraries than Worldcat is (for Italian libraries) - does answer to a search for Romina Daniele Berio:

"Il dialogo con la materia disintegrata e ricomposta : un'analisi di Thema (omaggio a Joyce) di Luciano Berio : saggio / Romina Daniele
[S.l.] : RDM records & books edizioni letterarie, 2011 (Grisegniano : Athena)
In appendice: Trascrizione del testo Joyciano -- comment: so, part of a larger work called "Transcriptions "del testo Joyciano" (as in Ulysses...)""
[ISBN] 978-88-904905-1-4
IT\ICCU\MIL\0827422

Copies in libraries in Firenze and Milan. Schissel | Sound the Note! 13:20, 16 March 2017 (UTC)