Serenata I (author's note)

Serenata
for flute and fourteen instruments (1957)

The crucial years of the “roaring fifties” were a difficult and intense period, when the composers were deeply involved with the search for structural references and a new serial order; the face of music was always severe and often grouchy. Bruno Maderna’s Serenata and mine were the first to come out after the war. They seem to me the first examples in which serial music becomes more relaxed and shows a less severe aspect.
Serenata for flute and fourteen instruments is, in a way, a forerunner of Tempi concertati (1958-1959) and of the Chemins series, namely works in which I am concerned with the problem of integrating a soloist into an instrumental group or an orchestra. In Serenata the fourteen instruments, rather than accompanying the flute or opposing it, extend, involve and generate it through a continuous interchange of elements and characters - as a form carries its colours and shadows... and is constantly changed by them.
Serenata, written in 1957 for Severino Gazzelloni, is dedicated to Pierre Boulez who conducted its first performance in Paris in March of the same year.

Luciano Berio

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