Allelujah II (author's note)

Allelujah II
for five orchestral groups (1957-1958)

In 1955, when I composed Allelujah for six orchestral groups (dedicated to Karlheinz Stockhausen and first performed in that same year in Cologne with Michael Gielen conducting), I was interested in an extremely elaborate and concentrated development of a simple initial statement. But the distribution of six orchestral groups on a conventional concert stage was not acoustically suitable. This is why, in 1957-1958, I wrote Allelujah II for five orchestral groups, where I further developed that same initial statement, in search of a deeper homogeneity and coherence between the acoustic and spatial dimension on one side and the musical dimension on the other.
The five orchestral groups of Allelujah II are no longer crowded together on the stage: they are distributed in the hall so as to surround the audience. The purpose, given the complexity of the score, is to help the audience approach the work from different acoustic standpoints and to become more involved with the musical development, in a continuous “alleluiatic” expansion. The different acoustic and architectural characteristics of each concert hall demand that every time a different solution be found. However, the number of different arrangements of the five groups is limited by the different degrees of timbral relationship among them: the closer their similarity, the greater their distance.
Everything in Allelujah II is constantly transformed. The range of transformations is so wide and open that the flute (or piccolo) B flat - signalling the return of the opening statement - is perceived as the only stable element - the pivot - of the “alleluiatic” development.
Allelujah II was first performed in Rome in May 1958 with Bruno Maderna and myself conducting.

Luciano Berio

Note d'autore: informazioni generali | Author's note: general info