Luciano Berio's Sequenza VII (1969) is now published as "Sequenza VIIa (1969/2000)" Universal Edition . The new edition includes the original as well as the Supplementary Edition by American oboist, Jacqueline Leclair.
The purpose of this website is to provide information about Sequenza VIIa to assist oboists in understanding and interpreting this masterpiece.
Coming soon is the "Fingering Suggestions" page which will include alternate fingering suggestions for Sequenza VIIa's extended techniques. This page will begin with some suggestions from Ms. Leclair. Oboists will be able to contribute their own suggestions, and these will be added to the page. Eventually, the "Fingering Suggestions" page will include information for a wide variety of oboe makes and reed styles.
I originally wrote this edition as my method of learning Sequenza VII After years of not being able to get a handle on Sequenza VII, I took the time in the summer of 1993 to study it quite closely. The conclusion I came to was that Sequenza VII's rhythmic system did not work for me. That is, I was not able to understand the rhythms in a performable sense...feel them, if you will, certainly not with accuracy. As I studied the manuscript, it seemed to me that the temporal proportions were clearly very important (note the times of the measures placed above, in the middle and at the bottom of the score.) It also seemed to me that Berio was very specific about his rhythmic/time ideas, but used a time/notation system that was overly elusive. The measures of 1.8 and 1.3 seconds, for example, were impossible for me to measure accurately. This seemed in conflict with the specificity of the score, and this conflict seemed serious.
To me, when learning a piece, the time world (rhythm) of any piece is always the first and most important element to understand. Everything else about the piece is subordinate to the rhythm, both macrocosmically and microcosmically. Therefore, in order to learn Sequenza VII accurately, I wrote it out in normal traditional meter. I did so in such a way that the "timings" in the original are retained 100%. In other words, to play exactly what is in my edition is to play exactly what is in the original.
A good deal of the original Sequenza VII is notated in spatial notation, the entire first line, for example. That is, there are only note heads, no beams or flags, and no meters. Horizontal space represents clock-time. Another important fact about the original Sequenza VII, you will notice, is that 64 of the 169 "measures" are mostly or completely in traditional rhythmic notation. (43 of the 169 "measures" are 100% standard notation...lacking only the meter indications [2/4, 3/4, 3/8, etc…]; and another 21 "measures" are mostly or partially in standard notation.) That is, these 64 measure are not spatially notated (m. 1 of the Line 12, or m. 1 of the Line 3). Berio does not explicitly refer to a meter in these measures, but clearly these two examples could be written in 3/4 meter, and they would make perfect sense. So we see that, of the 169 measures (13 lines of 13 measures) 64 measures contain a high proportion of traditional, "strict" rhythmic writing. And 104 measures are entirely spatial notation. What is very interesting about this is the following: The piece ideally will be HEARD as containing two different time worlds coexisting within the piece and evolving simultaneously throughout a performance. The "strict" notation of Berio should sound STRICT, and the spatially notated music, e.g. the entire first line, or m. 3 and 4 or the 4th line, should sound somewhat IMPROVISATORY. This contrast is an extremely important aspect of this piece.
One should note that the above characteristic of the two coexisting time worlds is eliminated in my edition since the entire Supplementary Edition is written in normal rhythmic notation. What my edition offers the oboist is the opportunity to learn the timings/rhythms of the Sequenza with great accuracy, so the oboist KNOWS the timeframes of the piece within which the oboist has to play. When these timings are absorbed so that they are intuitively memorized, the oboist can (and I think should) return to the original and learn to express the two different time "feels" in the performance of the piece. This could also be done by, for example, color coding my edition...one color for strict rhythms and another color for the spatially notated music. In any case, the distinction between the "strict" music and the "spatial" music should be perceived by both performer and listener.
Hopefully, my edition provides for others what it provided for me, the chance to learn Sequenza VII's time framework, if you will, so that the music can be made expressively and very convincingly WITHIN the framwork. I suppose one could argue that all music must work this way, whether J. S. Bach, Mozart, Strauss or Berio. I certainly feel that the Sequenza benefits from elucidated rhythmic structure.
When approaching Sequenza VII's many extended techniques, it is helpful to note Sequenza VII's historical context. Berio wrote this right after SINFONIA, in the year 1969. At that time, the perceived "tyranny" of extremely specific notation was being rejected by movements such as the graphic notation pieces of Earle Brown and Christian Wolff. In the late 1950s through the 1960s and 70s many composers were experimenting extensively with notation. Berio's composition of Sequenza VII was part of that process.
Berio wrote the Sequenza, like all his Sequenzas, for the "virtuoso". He loved the idea of the technical and intellectual virtuoso. The Sequenzas of Berio should be approached with the understanding that the virtuoso, the interpreter, has a great deal of latitude. Holliger's suggestions about performance technique choices should be taken with at least a grain of salt. It is critical to realize that Berio didn't really know particularly how each multiphonic, double harmonic and "B" fingering would sound. Many of the techniques, like the double harmonics, can supplanted with various multiphonics, as long as the pitch content is correct. The "B"'s, for example, can be fingered any number of ways.
The oboist should be mainly focused on establishing his own very expressive and convincing version of Sequenza VII. The rhythmic framework of my Supplementary Edition helps me to do this because I always "know where I am", and thus, I can bring out the phrasing and dynamics and gestures confidently since I am always rhythmically oriented. A performance of Sequenza VII should express the form and rhythm of the piece, the "strict"/"spatial" materials, and then the unique personality of the oboist.
Peter Veale's book, THE TECHNIQUES OF PLAYING THE OBOE (Baerenreiter) is very helpful for quickly and efficiently looking up alternate possibilities for the various techniques of Sequenza VII.
-Jacqueline Leclair
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