1

Martin Feuillerac
University of Toulouse II- Le Mirail

Multiple layers of meaning(s) in Luciano Berios A-Ronne

It is not possible to write about Luciano Berios A-Ronne without mentioning two prior
elements.
The first is that, even though there are three different versions of this work, those versions are
so similar that we need not be concerned by their differences in this article. The first version
was created in 1974 for Hilversum Radio and partially written1 for five actors, the second
one was taken from the studios notes and recomposed for the stage in 1975 and the third
version is an arrangement of the second for eight singers instead of five, produced in 1977.
And secondly, in order to perceive this work in its entirety it is important to know that it was
the third cooperation between Luciano Berio and Edoardo Sanguineti, and that they
understood each others world perfectly well by this time. They had collaborated on
Passaggio (1961-1962), worked significantly on Laborintus II (1965) and collaborated again
for this work.
As A-Ronne is a quite complex work, I will first look for meanings and sense inside
Sanguinetis text, then in the theatrical components of Berios work, and lastly, in the
phonological work of deconstruction and re-composition realised by Berio with the textual
material. For each step, I will try to show how this production of meanings and sense can be
received and decrypted by the audience, and how the composer can attempt to control it for
his part.

Working with a text

In this attempt to find a path to all the possible meanings of this common work, I will first
refer to Sanguinetis text

Ivanka Stonanova , Luciano Berio : chemins en musique, La Revue musicale, 1985, vol. 375-377, p. 210.

1) Quotations
The text is built nearly exclusively of intertwined quotations, in seven languages, from
different sources of old and recent books2: Samuel Becketts Endgame, an extract from Saint
Johns Gospel in four languages, an extract from Goethes Faust, a few words from the
second of the Four quartets by T.S. Eliot, the first words of Dantes Divine Comedy, a few
words of George Bataille, quoted by Roland Barthes, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
the first words of the Communist Party Manifesto, run - a word from James Joyce, and a
sentence from some private correspondence between Berio and Sanguineti.
2) Ambiguity
The text was requested from Sanguineti by Berio, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the
Manifesto of surrealism.
In it we find no trace of official surrealist techniques such as cadavre exquis or hypnotic
writing. The only thing it could be linked to would be a kind of medieval centonisation3. But
we can find a real link with the surrealists state of mind in its use of ambiguity.
If we listen to the first sounds of the work, we immediately wonder about the very first word,
presented by Luciano Berio as a phonetic a and the symbol + which represents a mouth
closed. This gives the sound am.

Example 1: A-Ronne, page 1, Bass 2

We could begin our interrogation here at the very beginning and ask ourselves: what does this
am mean? Listening a little further helps us to understand. From what follows next, we can
understand it as am anfang, a German preposition. At the same time quotation and written
text gives us another meaning: Hamm, a character in Becketts Endgame.
As a Frenchman, I hear a word used later on: me (soul, which is a concept), and as a
musician or a linguist, I also hear a+m a vowel plus a consonant. An Italian will hear more

See the text and the quotations according to Luciano Berio himself (published in Enzo Restagno, ed., Berio

Turin: EDT Turin, 1995, p. 100-101) at the end of this article.

3

The concept of centonisation was borrowed from literary theory and used in music as the composition of a

melody, or piece, based on pre-existing melodic figures and formulas.

clearly a succession of words such as la mia or della mia where this sound also appears.
And an Englishman will probably think of ham even if it doesnt appear in the text, and his
mind will probably also recognise am, the conjugated verb.
The same analysis could be carried out on many other words or sounds (such as the
latin/italian caro and the French carreau or the german ach, compared to the English
are and the French art)
3) Multilingualism
A-Ronne also deals with multilingualism, because the use of seven languages has many
consequences for meaning and sense.
First, we must admit that translation has one particular effect: it keeps the general sense, but,
at the same time, it loses the link established by Ferdinand de Saussure between signifier and
signified.4 A very complex process is at work in this operation, in addition to all the previous
conceptions.

So, to conclude this part regarding the text let us say firstly that using quotations means that
the quoted texts lose their first sense with the loss of their context, and at the same time find
another sense in another context. Moreover, this idea (theorized by Grard Genette5) of a
hypertext linked to a quotation is still there. Even if I cant work out the first sense, I can,
through recognition of a quotation, understand it as being different from a new text.
Secondly, using ambiguity will bring new local meanings, and generally a new sense to my
perception.
And thirdly, using translation will at the same time keep a general sense and lose local
meanings (which is the opposite of the previous operation).
Overall, these games with textual meaning and sense cant be predicted because they depend
directly on what is on the listeners mind

Luciano Berio himself, in his interviews with Rossana Dalmonte, testifies that he has read the Cours de

linguistique gnrale of Ferdinand de Saussure.

5

Grard Genette, Palimpsestes : la littrature au second degr, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1982, 467 p.

Working with theatrical situations

Working with meaning in A-Ronne, cant be done without considering how the work is
presented. This theatre for the ears6 as Berio as described it, is developed in two different
ways.
1) Stage directions
The first way is through the stage directions (which, in fact, describe how the text is spoken as
in Becketts theatre, rather than movements on stage).
In A-Ronne, Luciano Berio has selected 96 different expressions7 in order to guide the
interpreters on how to pronounce the different parts of the text. That is two times more than in
Sequenza III which was already a very theatrical work. These expressions which I call
affects (linking them to the madrigal), interact with the text, modeling it in many different
ways, changing or amplifying its meaning locally and, over a greater period, its sense.
As the music involves five to eight singers (or actors), several affects can be superimposed on
each other simultaneously. So there can be up to eight different affects on the same text, or up
to eight different texts with the same affect which can completely change our perception of its
sense. The next example shows a part with seven different texts with only one affect (violent
and quick):

teatro per gli orecchi, probably in reference to Orazio Vecchis Amfiparnaso, see Norbert Dressen, Sprache

und Musik bei Luciano Berio; Untersuchungen zu seinen Vokalkompositionen, Regensburg: Gustav Basse
Verlag, 1982, p. 157-203.
7

For the complete list, see Norbert Dressen, op. cit. p. 163-167.

Example 2: A-Ronne, page 4, Tutti

It is easy to imagine that none of the pronounced words are comprehensible for their own
meaning and that the global result will have a new meaning.
This way of proceeding leads us to two possibilities: first, the text loses its sense and
meaning, because the composer is only working on its pronunciation. And second, at the same
time the superimposition of identical and/or opposite affects brings new meanings, a new way
to hear and understand the text.

This result happens because Luciano Berio appreciates perfectly the difference between
language and music: in order to be understood perfectly, the language must have only one
voice speaking at any time. Music, through polyphony, monody or heterophony can signify
different things.
2) Theatrical situations
Another way of using of theatre to produce sense, is by use of theatrical situations: the whole
work (which last 30 minutes) is in fact divided into twelve different large scenes (such as a
sergeant in barracks, a dictators speech, an erotic scene, two monks at prayer and so
on). Those situations can be derived from the text: there is of course a link between the
Gospel of John and the two monks scene, or between the French words phallus and anus
and the erotic scene, but they are not described explicitly by particular words or sentences.
And sometimes, the staging and the musical choices are in conflict with the text. Here we can
find one of those conflicts:

Example 3: A-Ronne, page 9, Soprano 1&2, Alto 1&2

The score shows a kind of Lutheran chorale with the affect liturgically which gives the
impression of sacred music. But the words used Ein gespenst geht um are in fact the first
words of the Communist Party Manifesto which could be read as humour, or as blasphemy.
Once again, as for the staging, this theatrical parameter leads us in two opposite directions:
first, the repetition of the text itself (nearly twenty times during thirty minutes) exhausts the
texts sense, giving more importance to large theatrical situations. But, at the same time,
creating links through text and theatrical scenes is a way to suggest homogeneity between
microstructural and macrostructural work. The gap between one and the other also brings
more sense

Globally, all those games with theatrical meaning and sense cant be predicted because they
depend on what is on the listeners mind and, of course, on how it will be performed by the
interpreters

Working with phonology

Finally, it is also necessary to work on A-Ronne in a phonologic way, which is one of Luciano
Berios favorite tools.
The first part of this work will be on how to deconstruct the material, as he always did after
1955.
1) Deconstruction
The text is also used for its internal components, which means sentences and parts of
sentences, but also words, syllables and, not least, vowels and consonants.
As usual in a vocal work, vowels are used for pitches, but multiplying different vowels at the
same time opens the door to different timbres in the work. This kind of work is the essential
part of Berios process in the last pages of A-Ronne. From page 42 to the last page (48), the
text will progressively disappears and be replaced by its vowels, bringing the sound in a deep
work on timbre. Changing vowels cause the formants to change in the mouth of the singers
and, as for the affects, these formants are used sometimes in consonance, and sometimes in
dissonance to bring a new step in the musical work.
And as usual in a vocal work, consonants are related to noise and rhythm which, in the case of
A-Ronne, can lead to some very watery moments (the affect Chewing quickly - mike against
the mouth, amplifying internal noises of the mouth (tongue and saliva) and lips has to be
heard to understand the very large range of Berios thought in terms of noise). Moreover,
once more the apparition of those consonants (separated from their usual accompanying
vowels) is linked to the theatrical work: they first appear on page 6 of the work, due to the
affect stuttering, coughing, suffocated by words and saliva which decomposes the words of
the text:

Example 4: A-Ronne, page 13, Bass 2

This process, which extracts musical items from the text, can be read as a deconstruction of
the sense, or the construction of a musical meaning (taking advantage on the text to access to
its own identity). But, Berio also applies this process to syllables with, this time, another goal.
The deconstruction of words into syllables is another way to create new sentences, with
multiple fragments of the texts intertwined and meanings overlapping, as we can see in this
extract of the second bass in the middle of the work:

Example 5: A-Ronne, page 13, Bass 2

Our minds are free to recreate words from those fragments, or to remember the missing parts
of each word cut for the occasion.
And then there is another tiny part of deconstruction, carefully hidden, which links the
directions to the text, using the separation of the vowels of the text. As you can see in
example 6, the affect with occasional sighs and hms will lead the interpreter to use noises
close to an h for the sighs and, of course, close to the m for the hms.

Example 6: A-Ronne, page 3, Bass 1

First, this affect is added to the word Hamm, which is already composed of h and m,
but it also concerns vowels extracted from the text and composes new words by the direction
itself: with a, i, and o, I can produce ham but also him and hom(e) (or the French
homme already in the text through the Italian uomo). This new composition brings new
sense through the destruction or modification of words.
2) Rebuilding words and sentences
But, less common in Berios work, A-Ronne also contains the opposite way of thinking with
the rebuilding of a deconstructed text. In O King, Berio recomposes progressively the name of

Martin Luther King, as a surprise for the audience. Here, through the medieval hocket
technique, separated syllables are gathered to rebuild the original sentence:

.
Example 7: A-Ronne, page 19, Bass 1, Tenor 1
And the same process is applied to vowels and consonants to recompose the original sentence:

Example 8: A-Ronne, page 21, Bass 1, Tenor 1

Of course this particular process is probably the thing that remains most deeply in your mind
after hearing A-Ronne, which means that those sentences, after a destruction which should
have removed their meaning, are re-enlightened from their internal constituents.
And in this case, all these games with reconstruction are predictable because they only depend
on the composers will and on the parts of the text he wants to sublimate.

Conclusion
In conclusion, I will say just three things:
First, this masterpiece is a perfect example of how to intertwine musical and textual
requirements but, as Berio said in his interviews, it was only possible for him thanks to
linguistics and multilingualism.

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Second, this way of proceeding is not concerned with superiority of either music or text. It
links itself to the common roots of both music and text: the oralisation of the text.
And third, as always in Berios thought, all levels of interaction are sought: the poietic one
making some choices for the audience; the aesthesic one (in Brechtian thought) leaving part
of the comprehension to the audience; and of course, in the middle (if we agree with JeanJacques Nattiezs conceptions8) the neutral level which is the work itself. Working with
Umberto Eco has brought Luciano Berio to the idea that every musical work is an opera
aperta (or work in progress), which explains in part the multiple versions of A-Ronne.

Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Fondements dune smiologie de la musique, Paris: Union gnrale dditions, 1975, 448

p.

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A-Ronne, text by Edoardo Sanguineti, quotations according to Luciano Berio.

I.
a: ah: ha: hamm1: anfang2:
in: in principio: nel mio
principio:
am anfang: in my beginning3:
ach: in principio erat
das wort: en arch en:
verbum: am anfang war: in principio
erat: der sinn: caro4: nel mio principio: o logos: la mia
carne:
am anfang war: in principio: die kraft:
die tat:
nel mio principio:
II.
nel mezzo5: in medio:
nel mio mezzo: o commence ? 6: nel mio corpo:
o commence le corps humain ?
nel mezzo: nel mezzo del cammino; nel mezzo
della mia carne:
car la bouche est le commencement:
nel mio principio
la mia bocca: parce quil y a opposition: paradigme:
la bouche:
lanus:
in my beginning: aleph7: is my end:
ein gespenst geht um8:
III.
luomo ha un centro: qui est le sexe:
en mso en9: le phallus:
nel mio centro il mio corpo:
nel mio principio la mia parola: nel mio
centro la mia bocca: nella mia fine: am ende:
in my end: run10: is my
beginning:
lme du mort sort par le pied:
par lanus: nella mia fine
war das wort:
in my end is my music11:
ette, conne, ronne:
1

Tribute to Samuel Beckett (Hamm, character of Fin de Partie / Endgame).

Anfang principio: Sanguineti explains that the Gospel of John begins with the words:

(en arch en o logos), in principio era il verbo , in principio erat verbum . In Luther's translation:

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Im Anfang war das Wort . In the scene studierzimmer of Goethes Faust, Faust tries successively various
translations by replacing das Wort (verbum) by der Sinn (the thought), die Kraft (the energy) and
die Tat (the action).
3

The second of the Four Quartets (entitled East Coker) of Thomas Stearns Eliot begins with the words "In my

beginning is my end" and finishes with the words "In my end is my beginning".
4

Allusion to John: et verbum caro factum est (and the Word became flesh). It can be the Latin caro (flesh)

or the Italian caro (thus: its my meat ).

5

Nel mezzo (in the middle): the beginning of Dantes Divine Comedy.

O commence... : Georges Bataille's extract, quoted by Roland Barthes, where is handled an

anthropological, very frequent subject to the "primitive", where are the beginning and the end of the body (thus,
where enters the body, in the birth, the soul, and by where it goes out to the death).
7

Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Ein Gespenst geht um : the first words of the Communist partys Manifesto of Marx and Engels.

En meso en (he is in the middle): traced on the Gospel of John.

10

Tribute to James Joyce (run of riverrun of Finnegans Wake).

11

Is my music Tribute to Luciano Berio (private letter).

Bibliographical references:
DRESSEN, Norbert, A-Ronne, Sprache und Musik bei Luciano Berio; Untersuchungen zu
seinen Vokalkompositionen, Regensburg: Gustav Basse Verlag, 1982, p. 157-203.
GENETTE, Grard, Palimpsestes : la littrature au second degr, Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1982, 467 p.
NATTIEZ, Jean-Jacques, Fondements dune smiologie de la musique, Paris: Union gnrale
dditions, 1975, 448 p.
RESTAGNO, Enzo, ed., Berio Turin: EDT Turin, 1995, 318 p.
SAUSSURE (De), Ferdinand, Cours de linguistique gnrale, Paris: Payot & Rivages, 2005,
520 p.
STONANOVA, Ivanka , Luciano Berio : chemins en musique, La Revue musicale, 1985,
vol. 375-377, 512 p.