Laborintus II
Text by Edoardo Sanguineti
Music by Luciano Berio
Edoardo Sanguineti (narrator) Members of the Swingle Singers and an Instrumental Ensemble
Conducted by The Composer
(first broadcast in this country)
Recording made available by courtesy of French Radio

A Dante Miscellany
Though officially domiciled in Milan, Luciano Berio is usually found somewhere else. Early in 1966 he came to London from the U.S.A. to introduce a new major work of his, talk about it and about other aspects of our day's music. His appearance was expected with tremendous interest: the Italian Institute was filled to capacity, and the audience included all measures of brow - Paul McCartney of the Beatles came too to talk to this extremely professional musician. It was on this occasion that London obtained a first taste of the work now to be broadcast, Homage to Dante, which was originally commissioned by the French Radio for their Dante Commemoration in 1965.
A monumental work, it lasts forty minutes and is entitled Laborintus II after the book of poems Laborintus (1956) by Edoardo Sanguineti, a noted Dante scholar and avant garde poet. He supplied the libretto which is made up from excerpts of this volume and passages from other sources including Ezra Pound, Eliot, and others. In this performance Sanguineti himself is heard as Narrator. This non-opera, which Berio prefers to call 'musico-dramatic happening' since it is for the theatre, mobilises a large assortment of performers - instrumentalists, vocalists, and mechanics (to do the electronic sound). From its variegated contents a number of passages stand out. passages of surprising beauty, which show a Mozartian sense for sweet euphony and delicate, swift statements.
(John S. Weissman)
(An earlier work by Berio, Allelujah II, was played in the Third Programme on Wednesday at 9.55 p.m.)