Epifanie (Berio)

Epifanie is a musical composition for female voice who address themselves not only to glockenspiel, celesta,
and large orchestra in twelve movements by the Italian vibraphone and marimba but also to spring coils, tamtam,
composer Luciano Berio.
tom-tom, temple blocks, wood blocks, bongos, timpani,
In Italian an epifania (plural: epifanie, with both forms cowbells, tubular bells, claves, guiro, censerros, cymbals,
snare drum, tambourine, etc.
accented on the second i) indicates a sudden spiritual
manifestation (See: Epiphany). Berio composed his Epi- The BBC Proms premiere was given in the Royal Alfanie between 1960 and 1963, and published a revised bert Hall, London on 8 August 1986, by Elizabeth Lauversion in 1965. It consists of seven short orchestral rence and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by
pieces, and ve vocal pieces. Berio stipulates the possibil- Edward Downes.[1]
ity of performing these in ten dierent sequences. When
the American premiere of Epifanie took place in Chicago
on July 23, 1967, he said:
1 References
Epifanie is, in essence, a cycle of orchestral
pieces into which a cycle of vocals pieces has
been interpolated. The two 'cycles can be
combined together in various ways; they can
also be performed separately. The texts of
the vocal pieces have been taken from Proust
( l'ombre des jeunes lles en eurs), Antonio
Machado (Nuevas Canciones), Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses),
Edoardo Sanguineti (Triperuno), Claude Simon (La route des Flandres), and Brecht (An
die Nachgeborenen).

[1] Prom 24, 19:30 Friday 8 Aug 1986. BBC. Retrieved 28

February 2016.

Backsleeve of RCA 1967 record LSC-3189

The signicant connection between the vocals

pieces can thus appear in dierent lights according to their position in the instrumental
development. The chosen order will emphasize the apparent heterogeneity of the texts or
their dialectic unity. The texts are arranged
in such a way as to suggest a gradual passage
from a lyric transguration of reality (Proust,
Machado, Joyce) to a disenchanted acknowledgment of things (Simon; for this text the
voice speaks and becomes gradually nullied
by the orchestra). Lastly, the words of Bertolt
Brecht, which have nothing to do with the
epiphany of words and visions. They are the
cry of regret and anguish with which Brecht
warns us that often it is necessary to renounce
the seduction of words when they sound like
an invitation to forget our links to a world constructed by our own acts.
The score calls for an unusually large orchestra: 16
woodwinds; 6 horns, 4 trumpets and 4 trombones plus
tuba, full strings, including three violin sections, and a
percussion section calling for a number of performers
1

2 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

2.1

Text

Epifanie (Berio) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epifanie_(Berio)?oldid=721012414 Contributors: D6, David Sneek, SteinbDJ,

BD2412, Mikeblas, FaZ72, AdamMorton, Blathnaid, STBot, Slysplace, Jacques l'Aumne, Romney yw, Lightbot, Cote d'Azur, Jg2904,
Narky Blert and Anonymous: 3

2.2

Images

File:CD_icon.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/CD_icon.svg License: LGPL Contributors: All Crystal

icons were posted by the author as LGPL on kde-look Original artist: Everaldo Coelho (YellowIcon);
File:Portal-puzzle.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/Portal-puzzle.svg License: Public domain Contributors: ?
Original artist: ?

2.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0