Twin titans of the 20th-century avant garde, Luciano Berio and Pierre Boulez were born seven months apart in 1925. This well-crafted concert by Ensemble Intercontemporain, the orchestra Boulez founded in 1976, avoided the obvious hits while demonstrating just how different their music could be.
Berio’s Sequenza V for solo trombone is one of 14 pieces he wrote to test the boundaries of particular instruments or vocal types. It was inspired by Grock, a Swiss-born clown and one-time neighbour of the composer, whose personality had fascinated him as a boy. Lucas Ounissi, ambling on in full circus slap and a lime-green wig, put his instrument through its paces. Juggling a handheld plunger mute, he rasped and farted away, frequently singing and playing at the same time. A virtuoso performance showed off the breadth of the composer’s imagination as well as his singular sense of humour.
The more sober-minded Boulez was represented by his Dialogue de l’ombre double (Dialogue of the Double Shadow). Written to celebrate Berio’s 60th birthday, it pits an on-stage clarinettist against his pre-recorded doppelganger, the latter electronically manipulated in real time and piped into the auditorium through speakers. The versatile Jérôme Comte hot-desked from one music stand to another, taking melismatic licks and frenetic outbursts in his stride. Rock-solid technique and calm deliberation brought clarity and purpose to Boulez’s intricate demands. The pre-record, meanwhile, bounced off the walls and ceiling of the Royal Albert Hall in a mesmerising wash of surround sound.
The grand finale was Berio’s Recital I (For Cathy), a piece the composer wrote in 1972 for his former wife Cathy Berberian. The conceit is theatrical: an operatic diva shows up for a recital only to find her accompanist isn’t there. An ensemble of 17 takes up the cause, with the singer descending into madness as she tosses off scatter-gun quotes from vocal works of the past. Berberian’s visceral account, captured on record, was a tour de force. Sarah Aristidou certainly acted a good fight, with conductor Pierre Bleuse gamely adding his dramatic six penn’orth, but the spoken text was barely audible, rendering the work more gnomic than usual.