The Intimate And The Epic

Music from Luciano Berio, a large vocal work titled Coro performed by the Kolner Rundfunkchor and Kolner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester directed by the composer. The piece calls for 40 voices but they rarely sing as a unit. Each singer sits alongside one of the instrumentalists of the orchestra. The music evolves through various combinations; solo voice and instrument, chamber grouping of voices and instruments and the choir and massive orchestral chords. The texts set govern the forces used. Berio uses some folk poetry from several nations and languages and these are sung by the smaller forces. The full blown epic segments feature the poetry of Chilean writer Pablo Neruda. There is a recurring refrain, "Come and see the blood in the streets" which is finally revealed as the answer to the question "You will ask why this poem says nothing of dreaming, or of leaves or of the native land's great volcanoes". A major work which takes ome getting into but works on various levels.