The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Berio: Coro & Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices) (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Berio: Coro & Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:26 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

Luciano Berios Coro has been described as the work that exemplifies all the qualities that made him one of the leading composers of our time. The works full title is Coro for voices and instruments, and the 40 voices and 44 instrumentalists do indeed make up a single choir instrumentalists and singers sit together, with each singer paired with a particular player, and used both as soloists and combined in mass effects. Composed in 1976, Coro is also a strikingly global work: Berios use of texts (mainly translations of folk poetry) attributed to peoples Peruvian, Croatian, Sioux turns the work into a chorus of cultures. The texts are laid out in 31 separate sections of varying length, but the overall effect is cumulative, not episodic. Under its artistic director Grete Pedersen the Norwegian Soloists Choir has made acclaimed recordings of music ranging from Norwegian folk songs and Hildegard of Bingen to Bach, Brahms and Xenakis. Joined by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra it now takes on one of the major choral works of the past 50 years. The disc closes with Berios smaller scale Cries of London, performed by members of the choir.

A major work by Luciano Berio, Coro brilliantly fulfilled his encyclopedic ambition: a unique meeting of world folklore that gathers texts and melodies borrowed from Italian, Croatian, Jewish, Persian, Gabonese, Polynesian, Chilean, Peruvian, Navajo, and Sioux traditions, centered around the poem Residencia en la Tierra by Pablo Neruda. Written in 1976 for forty singers and forty-four instrumentalists seated together in pairs, at times functioning as soloists, at others as part of a whole, Coro is a manifesto that’s both political and musical.
Described by its author as “neobaromanticosymbodialectostructuralist”, Coro is a grandiose accumulation of texts and sounds that sets out to abolish borders by marshalling a gigantic musical catalogue and elements re-written by Berio in a great cultural exchange lasting over an hour. The work becomes a streetmap of an “imaginary city, which is realised on different levels and generates, assembles and unifies different things and persons, revealing their individual and collective characters, their distance, their relationships and conflicts within real and virtual borders” (Berio).

Conducted by its artistic director Grete Pedersen, the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir has made highly acclaimed recordings ranging from Norwegian folk songs to Xenakis, Hildegard von Bingen, Bach and Brahms. Joined by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, it gives a rendition here of one of the greatest choral works of the last half-century. This recording concludes with Cries of London for eight voices, which was composed at the same time as Coro , for the King’s Singers. – François Hudry

Tracklist:
01. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 1, Today Is Mine… Wake Up, Woman, Rise Up, Woman (05:06)
02. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 2, Venid a ver (02:03)
03. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 3, Your Eyes Are Red (00:27)
04. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 4, Venid a ver (00:05)
05. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 5, Your Eyes Are Red (01:08)
06. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 6, Venid a ver la sangre por las calles (00:27)
07. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 7, Wake Up, Woman, Rise Up, Woman (01:38)
08. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 8, Venid a ver la sangre por las calles (04:42)
09. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 9, I Have Made a Song (01:02)
10. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 10, Venid a ver la sangre por las calles (00:30)
11. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 11, I Have Made a Song (02:17)
12. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 12, Venid a ver la sangre (00:20)
13. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 13, Wake Up, Woman, Rise Up, Qoman (01:38)
14. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 14, Venid a ver la sangre (00:36)
15. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 15, Komm in meine Nähe (00:49)
16. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 16, Today Is Mine (01:39)
17. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 17, Pousse l’herbe et fleurit la fleur (01:01)
18. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 18, Go, My Strong Charm… Venid a ver (00:41)
19. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 19, It Is So Nice (01:25)
20. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 20, Your Eyes Are Red… El día pálido se asoma (01:53)
21. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 21, Mirad mi casa muerta (03:35)
22. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 22, Je m’en vais où ma pensée s’en va (01:46)
23. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 23, Pousse l’herbe et fleurit la fleur (01:04)
24. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 24, Oh issa… Ich sehe Tautropfen… Your Eyes Are Red (01:13)
25. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 25, Oh issa lo in alto… Komm in meine Nähe (00:33)
26. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 26, Come Ascend the Ladder (01:04)
27. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 27, When We Came to This World (02:03)
28. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 28, El día oscila rodeado (03:48)
29. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 29, Hinach yafà raayatí (02:16)
30. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 30, El día pálido se asoma (05:16)
31. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Coro: No. 31, Spin, Colours, Spin… El día pálido se asoma (06:19)
32. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices): No. 1, These Are the Cries of London Town (01:15)
33. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices): No. 2, Where Are Ye Fair Maids That Have Need of Our Trades (01:29)
34. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices): No. 3, Garlic, Good Garlic (02:09)
35. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices): No. 4, These Are the Cries of London Town (01:11)
36. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices): No. 5, These Are the Cries of London Town (01:16)
37. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices): No. 6, Money, Penny Come to Me (03:30)
38. The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Grete Pedersen – Cries of London (Version for 8 Voices): No. 7, Cry of Cries, Come Money to Me (03:53)