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Musical Decay: Luciano Berio's "Rendering" and John Cage's "Europera 5"

Author(s): David Metzer


Source: Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 125, No. 1 (2000), pp. 93-114
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association
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Journalof theRoyalMusicalAssociation,125 (2000)

@ RoyalMusicalAssociation

Musical Decay: Luciano Berio's Rendering

and John Cage's Europera5


DAVID METZER

A well-known painting, perhaps a work by Ingres. The canvas, though,


is slit and scarred. No reason for alarm. The gashes are fake. So is the
painting. This faux mutilation typifies a series of works by the Russianborn artist Igor Kopystianskyironically entitled RestoredPaintings. His
restoration involves copying a famous painting, usually pre-twentieth
century, in oil on canvas, defacing the canvas (tears and markings), and
finally attempting to mend the damage by painting over the gaps or by
other means.1 In these works Kopystianskynot only compacts destruction and restoration into a single creative act but also enlists two of the
primary means by which the twentieth century has approached the
past: reproduction and restoration (see Figure 1).
Reproduction has offered more than a way of holding on to the past.
As cultural critics have long told us, we live in a world of reproductions:
the secondary realities of television and computers as well as the
cloning first of cells, then of sheep, and possibly even of humans.2 This
fascination with copies, albeit in a less portentous and menacing form,
has also taken hold in the art world, particularly during the 1980s with
the appropriation by Kopystiansky and other painters of past works.
Instead of the by now conventional approach of lifting an image from
a pre-existent work, these artists have faithfully copied the entire original, while incorporating key differences.3 This copying has served to
critique notions of originality and creativity, concepts that hardened
into creed during the modernist period. That practice, though, has
proven to have more than one critical life, lending itself to commentary on a variety of political and social issues, including commodification, gender and race.4 Other artists have taken a more historical than
For their advice and encouragement I would like to thank Richard Kurth, Vera Micznik, Robert
Morgan andJohn O'Brian.
1 For a discussion of Kopystiansky,see Helena Kontova, 'Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky',Flash
Art, 26/clxxii (1993), 109-12. Recent exhibition catalogues that contain reproductions and
SovietArt
discussions of his work include Adaptationand Negationof SocialistRealism:Contemporary
(Ridgefield, CT, 1990); ThePurloinedImage,ed. Christopher R. Young (Flint, MI, 1993); and Igor
Kopystiansky, TheMuseum (Dfisseldorf, 1994).
2 Jean Baudrillard, Simulations,trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman (NewYork,
Facsimiles(New York,
1983); Hillel Schwartz, The Cultureof the Copy:StrikingLikeness,Unreasonable
1996).
3 Important precedents of this type of copying include works by Marcel DuChamp, John Clem
Clarke, Andy Warhol and Larry Rivers. For a discussion of other artists working in this vein, see
ThePurloinedImage, ed. Young, and Art aboutArt, ed. Jean Lipman and Richard Marshall (New
York, 1978).
4 Thomas McEvilley, TheExile'sReturn:Towarda Redefinitionof Paintingfor thePost-ModernEra
(Cambridge, 1993), 167-70.

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Figure 1. Igor Kopystiansky,RestoredPainting, 1992. Oil on canvas, 783/4"X 59". Collection of the artist. Reproduced by permission of the artist.

political perspective and focused on the place of artworksin the stream


of time. As will be discussed, Kopystianskyalong with Mike and Doug
Starn have etched into their copies rich patterns of decay that reveal
the ever-increasing fragility of past works in the present.
This fascination with decay and the past has appeared in another art

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movement that gained steam during the 1980s: restoration. Since


roughly that decade, restoration has become big business, as seen in
such publicized projects as the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel. These
endeavours and the above borrowing practices are not so far apart as
they may initially appear. Both look toward the past, although with
different perspectives. Despite awareness that the past can never fully
reappear in the present, restoration still seeks to bridge the divide
between the two by offering partial and brief glimpses of original
colours and shapes. Borrowing, on the other hand, reaches back over
that divide and artificially transplants earlier works into the present,
restaging them with new colours and shapes.5
Restoration and reproduction may at first glance appear out of place
in a discussion of music, but it would not take long to see how the two
have figured just as prominently in the world of concert music during
recent years. Art restoration obviously finds a parallel in the 'authentic' performance movement, which seeks to recapture original sounds
and styles. Reproduction can be seen as encompassing both the appropriation of earlier paintings and various musical borrowing practices,
including quotation, collage and sampling. As Robert Morgan has
argued, quotation, specifically in works from the 1960s to the present,
and historical performance culturally dovetail, both emerging from the
same preoccupation with the past that fuels restoration and reproduction in the visual arts.6
So strong has the fascination been that many musical works have
focused on these two approaches, taking them as their subject, as it were.
Recent compositions in this vein include Luciano Berio's Rendering
(1989) andJohn Cage's Europera5 (1991), both of which, like the artworks mentioned above, draw extensively, if not entirely, upon past
materials. In the former Berio has 'restored' (his word) the drafts for a
Tenth Symphony that Schubert began during the last months of his life.
Rather than completing the incipient work, he preserves, even
enhances, the incompleteness of the sketch and adds his own stylistically
contrasting material to fill in or to connect passages. Cage's work sorts
through memories of opera, presenting operatic fragments in both live
performance and reproduction. Regarding the latter, the composer
brings together various media, ranging from the Victrola to television,
to expose the perilous fate of opera in a world of reproduction.
Through restoration and reproduction, Renderingand Europera5
open windows onto the past. The repertories they find there may differ,
but the chronological landscapes they survey are almost identical. The
two works offer similar representations of the past and present. The
former appears as a state of fragmentation and decay, always crumbling
away and on the verge of disappearing forever. The present has almost
disappeared itself, resembling at best a shadow.
5 A discussion of the proximity of the two approaches can be found in Andrew Solomon,
'Something Borrowed, Something Bloom', Artforum,26/ix (May 1988), 122-6.
6 Robert P. Morgan, 'Tradition, Anxiety, and the Current Musical Scene', AuthenticityandEarly
Music, ed. Nicholas Kenyon (Oxford and New York, 1988), 57-82.

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RENDERING

The symphonic sketches that Schubert began around October 1828


have fascinated scholars with the promise of revealing what directions
the young composer was scouting before his death, especially how he
would follow up the seemingly unsurpassable 'Great' C major Symphony. The drafts are ample enough to give more than a hint of this
new symphonic vision. They consist of three movements written in
piano score with some indications of orchestration. The movements
are not complete, presenting only individual sections of larger formal
designs, the outlines and dimensions of which remain unclear. In addition, preliminary and exploratory versions of these sections fill many
pages. As may be seen in the reconstructions that have been attempted,
this jumble of materials and vague formal tracings has not deterred
efforts to complete the symphony.7
That these sketches attracted Berio is not surprising. His involvement
with them extends areas of interest that have appeared throughout his
oeuvre.One of these is the arrangement and orchestration of other
composers' works, including a recent version of Brahms's Sonata for
Viola/Clarinet and Piano, op. 120 no. 1, scored for viola or clarinet
soloist and orchestra (1986). Berio's arrangements overlap with his use
of 'commentary techniques', which involve infusing pre-existent works,
his own and those by other composers, with new materials that elaborate upon the original.8 His Chemins,for instance, orchestrally expand
solo instrumental Sequenzaworks, whereas the third movement of Sinfonia (1968) probes the Scherzo of Mahler's Second Symphony. The
latter offered Berio an opportunity 'to explore from the inside a piece
of music from the past'.9 The collage mixture of Mahler, dense quotations and new styles also reveals the composer's fascination with
blending past and present.
These three interests - orchestration, commentary and chronological synthesis - converge in Rendering,a work that is not so much a completion of Schubert's Tenth Symphony as a discourse on the musical
potential of the sketches and their place in both the early nineteenth
century and the present.10 For his part, Berio dismisses any suggestion
of a reconstruction, that is, of him working behind the scenes to
present the symphony that Schubert had imagined.11 He instead places
7 These include realizations by Brian Newbould (London, 1995) and Peter Giilke (Leipzig,
1982). In 1982 the Swiss composer Roland Moser completed a 'fragmentarisches Klangbild' of
the second movement.
8 David Osmond-Smith, 'Berio and the Art of Commentary', Musical Times,116 (1975), 871-2,
and idem,Berio (Oxford and New York, 1991), 42-55.
9 Luciano Berio, TwoInterviews,trans. David Osmond-Smith (New Yorkand London, 1985), 107.
10 Another recent work focusing on Schubert's death and unfinished works is John Harbison's
November
19, 1828. This work incorporates a Rondo fragment from 1816 and concludes with a fugue
based on a subject derived from the composer's name, part of an assignment given by Simon
Sechter to Schubert shortly before his death.
11 In a recent interview, Berio asserted: 'I have an especial dislike for musicologists who decide
to complete an unfinished work. It has been done with Schubert piano sonatas for instance, where
people tried to squeeze an artificial form out of the sketches, basing them on the sonata form. But
things didn't work that way for Schubert.' Theo Muller, "'Musicis not a solitary act":Conversation
with Luciano Berio', Tempo,199 (January 1997), 19.

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his name up front, citing dual authorship, and compares his role to that
of an art restorer:
with its dual authorship is intended as a restorationof these
Rendering
sketches, it is not a completion nor a reconstruction.This restorationis
made along the lines of the modern restorationof frescoes that aims at
revivingthe old colourswithouthowevertryingto disguisethe damagethat
time has caused,often leavinginevitableemptypatchesin the composition
(for instance as in the case of Giotto in Assisi).12
In the case of Schubert in Vienna, restoration comes across as a
curious approach to take. After all, the symphony, unlike the frescoes,
has never existed, or been complete, meaning that there is nothing to
restore. However, Berio's analogy leans toward the evocative and
ironic. Restoration, for instance, calls to mind collapsed buildings and
chipped sculptures, images that reinforce the fragmentary state of the
sketches. It is this element of disintegration that appeals to the composer. His remarks dwell not on the promise of recovery but on
'damage' and 'empty patches', features he finds to be 'very expressive'
and intrinsic to the frescoes, rather than elements that need to be
erased.13

It is not surprising that Berio has focused on an incomplete and scattered piece. What is surprising, however, is that he breaks apart that
work even more. This fragmentation, old and new, creates two different visions of Schubert's symphony. On one hand, the thematic splinters remind us that the work is only a sketch. On the other hand, the
fractures also suggest deterioration, a work from the past crumbling
into pieces. This latter impression especially comes across in the more
complete sections, which, cracked and dissolved by Berio, suggest the
disintegration and 'empty patches' of the aging frescoes. In Rendering,
Schubert's symphony exists simultaneously in states of incipience and
decay.
This doubleness is part of Berio's 'rendering', a teasing choice of title
that suggests, among other things, his interpretation of the drafts. That
interpretation can be better appreciated by discussing the materials
with which he works. Schubert's sketches provide a foundation, constituting nearly two thirds of the composition.14 Berio orchestrates the
drafts and has them proceed unaltered for extended stretches of time,
a continuity creating the momentary impression of experiencing a
12 Franz Schubert-Luciano
Berio, Rendering(Vienna, 1989), preface. In the interview with
Theo Muller cited above, Berio offered a more offhand description of the piece: 'Renderingisboth
orchestration and a restoration, like the reparation of a painting damaged by time. When you go
to Assisi, you will find beautiful Giotto paintings, some of which are damaged. Now instead of
having them repaired by some stupid painter who pretends to be Giotto and fills in what is missing,
they decided to leave the white, the concrete as it was, which is very expressive too. I did the same
thing with Schubert. I orchestrated, completed some parts, but where the sketches stop I created
a kind of musical concrete, a plaster made of many different things, with a totally different sound.
Then you go back to the next Schubert sketch.' Muller, "'Music is not a solitary act"', 19.
13 Ibid.
14 In the recording by Christoph Eschenbach and the Houston
Symphony (Koch 3-7382-2 H1),
Berio's interpolations make up around 11 minutes of the total 35' 7" performance time.

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Schubert symphony.15 The sketches, however, are obviously not complete, and the symphony falters where gaps emerge. Berio neither
erases those spaces nor plugs them in with stylisticallyappropriate filler,
as may be done in a completion, but instead leaves them intact and
adds his own material. Alluding once again to the frescoes, he has
referred to these interpolations as 'cement work'.16 'Cement' captures
the neutral quality of his contribution, which comes across as grey and
lifeless next to the revived Schubert, an effect achieved by this music,
often consisting of thin static sonorities, being played without expression, quasi senzasuono, lontanoand, in terms of dynamics, ranging from

p to ppp.17

Instead of filling in the manuscript gaps, these hollow-sounding passages call attention to the emptiness of those spaces. A few melodies,
though, emerge in that vacuum, as quotations of both late Schubert
works and just-heard symphonic themes murmur throughout the interpolations.18 These shadowy reminiscences, however, only add to the
sense of emptiness and decay, suggesting some sort of void full of
shards of the past. This suggestion is enhanced by the prominent use
of the celesta, an instrument with strong associations of the mysterious
and other-worldly. Perhaps this is the realm from which the sketches
have been recovered and, as heard in the distorted quotations, where
they, along with the other Schubert works, will eventually return. In
that space, the two - the completed and uncompleted, the heard and
never heard - have equally deteriorated into fragments, the crumbling
bits of larger works.
The evocation of a void is one way, and a rather fanciful way, in which
Berio's interpolations comment upon Schubert's drafts. That commentary elaborates on a sense of loss, that is, of unrealized musical
wealth.19Renderingpresents a symphony on the threshold of existence,
never able to take final form, continually breaking apart and always
remaining in fragments. Through that disintegration the work repeatedly draws the listener's attention to what has been lost with the incompleteness of the sketches and the passage of time.20
15 Berio's restoration involves not only orchestration but often filling in the drafts harmonically and contrapuntally.
16 Schubert-Berio,
Rendering,preface.
17 Ibid.

18 These quotations are most dense in the first movement and


gradually thin out in the

following two. Most of the quotations are drawn from the B6 Piano Sonata (D. 960), the B6 Piano
Trio (D. 898) and Winterreise(GuteNacht, GefrorneTrdnen,Wasserflut,Einsamkeit,Die Post and Der
Leiermann). For discussions of the quotations, see Wilfried Gruhn, 'Schubert spielen Berios
sinfonische Erginzungen zu Schuberts Sinfonie-Fragment D 936A', Musica,44 (1990), 290-6 (pp.
292-3), and Thomas Gartmann, '... dafi nichts an sich jemals vollendetist' Untersuchungenzum
von Luciano Berio(Berne, 1995), 133-5.
Instrumentalschaffen
19 Wilfried Gruhn also discusses the sense of loss in Rendering('Schubert spielen Berios sinfonische Ergfinzungen', 294). David Osmond-Smith has described how the work creates a sense of
distance between the present day and Schubert's time ('La mesure de la distance: Renderingde
Berio', Inharmoniques,7 (1991), 147-52).
20 A similar fascination with loss and incompleteness emerges in Alfred Schnittke's Concerto
GrossoNo. 4-SymphonyNo. 5, the second movement of which draws upon a piano quartet left unfinished by the young 16-year-old Mahler (as opposed to the dying 31-year-old Schubert). Schnittke
ends the movement with four musicians from the orchestra playing the original and leaving off
where Mahler did.

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TABLE1
RECONSTRUCTIONOF SCHUBERT,SYMPHONYNO. 10, THIRD MOVEMENT

refrain
episode
refrain
episode
refrain
coda

D major
B6major
D major
D minor
F major
A minor
D major
D major

chorale-liketheme
rondo theme with counterpointinverted
Hungariandance
fugato

A New Perspective(London,
Adapted from Brian Newbould, Schubertand theSymphony:

1992),270.

Those losses appear especially great in the drafts for the third movement, which are full of contrapuntal intricacies and possibilities largely
unbroached in previous works. So committed was Schubert to that new
path that he arranged to take lessons from the Viennese fugue master
Simon Sechter, completing only one, however, before his death. The
contrapuntal emphasis appears out of character with Schubert's designation of the movement as a Scherzo, being instead more appropriate
for a Finale. Indeed, confusion arises over whether the movement is a
Finale or a Scherzo, or possibly some new conflation of the two.21The
duple metre and loose rondo design suggest the former, whereas the
character of the spirited opening theme accords with a Scherzo. These
ambiguities extend to the form of the movement. Although a recurring
refrain points to a rondo design, the exact structure remains unclear
owing to the clutter of revisions and fragments in the sketch. Nevertheless, an approximation of the intended form can be made, as shown
in Table 1, which presents Brian Newbould's realization.
Berio, however, does not care so much about the form that may have
been as the form that exists, that of the sketches themselves. His presentation works within that design, not the conjectured one of a reconstruction. To summarize briefly, the drafts for this movement consist of
six pages.22 The first two are worksheets made up of scattered ideas,
including the initial conception of prominent themes, reworkings of
those themes, and material that was later discarded. The remaining four
pages present the more polished version of the movement. However,
even this section lacks continuity, and realizing Newbould's interpretation requires cross-stitching together sections from separate pages.
Rendering incorporates both the more complete final pages and the
21 For a discussion of the formal
problems surrounding this movement, see Newbould, Schubert
and the Symphony:A New Perspective(London, 1992), 269-75, and Schubert, Symphonyno. 10, realization by Newbould, iii-iv. In his preface to Rendering,Berio states: 'These sketches alternatively
present the character of a Scherzo and a Finale. This ambiguity (which Schubert would have
solved or exasperated in some new way) was of particular interest ...'.
22 Brian Newbould, 'A Working Sketch by Schubert (D. 936a)', CurrentMusicology,43 (1987),
26-32.

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DAVID
METZER

100
TABLE 2
THIRD MOVEMENT
RENDERING,

'fanfare'introduction(Berio)
page 1 of sketch (worksheet)
interpolation
pages 5-6 of sketch (laterversion)
interpolation
page 2 of sketch (worksheet)
interpolation
page 4 of sketch (laterversion)with brief interpolationsat the end
preliminary worksheets. The basic plan of the movement is to juxtapose the two, so as to contrast earlier and later versions of the same
material.23Berio separates these two sections with an interpolation. As
shown in Table 2, there are two large units in this movement, each built
around the pairing of early and later drafts. The initial unit contrasts
ideas from the first page with their revision, and the following block
similarly places material from the second worksheet side by side with
its reworking.
A discussion of the first block will illustrate how these different components interact. After a brief fanfare-like introduction played in the
style of an interpolation, the movement begins with material from the
first page of the draft, which consists of a series of brief, discrete exercises: an early form of the refrain in the D major tonic, a later discarded
episode theme in B6 major and a D minor statement of the refrain
melody in rhythmic augmentation with two contrapuntal lines, one of
which is discontinued.24 Although not intended for performance or to
be linked together, these modules are presented in the order in which
they occur in the draft, with little or no transition between them. This
succession of fragments conveys to the listener that this is not a wellstructured symphonic movement but rather a patchwork of ideas.
The following interpolation enhances this sense of fragmentation. As
Berio describes, these passages bridge 'the gaps that exist between one
sketch and another', which, in this case, is the space separating the
early and later drafts.25That gap, however, is not a blank spot on the
page where Schubert left off but rather a space created by Berio shuffling around fragments, placing side by side materials on the first and
fifth pages. Beginning on the latter page, Berio presents an extensive
stretch of the revised section that more or less parallels Newbould's
rondo formulation from the opening refrain to the Hungarian dance
passage (Table 1). That incipient rondo design, however, is subsumed
into Berio's larger two-part formal pattern based on the pairing of early
and later drafts. The progression from one to the other underscores
23 A similar idea is used in the first movement. Berio contrasts Schubert's two different sketches
of the exposition, separating them with an interpolation.
24 Newbould, 'A
Working Sketch', 26-31.
25 Schubert-Berio, Rendering,preface.

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TABLE 3
SCHUBERT,SKETCHFOR SYMPHONYNO. 10, SECONDMOVEMENT

A
a
theme 1
B minor
A'
a'
theme 1
B minor

theme 2

b
theme 1
F# minor

theme 2

b'
theme 1
E minor

theme 3
F# major

theme 2
F# minor
coda

the sense of incompleteness


least two further steps:

theme 2
B minor

B minor

surrounding the sketches by suggesting at

early draft -> later draft -> restoration -> Schubert's Tenth Symphony
The last step, of course, is unattainable, but the emphasis on completion
raised by Berio's sequence of materials places that goal more tantalizingly in sight. Any attempt to claim it, however, will get only as far as an
intermediary stage, be it a Berio-like restoration or a reconstruction. Yet
both reveal how close the symphony is to coming to life. Rendering,
however, differs from a reconstruction by pointing out that the sketches
will never rise from their archival slumber. The work repeatedly calls
attention to the draft status of the desired symphony, even going so far
as to manipulate the sketches - the forced pairings and imposed interpolations - to emphasize the unavoidable breaks and holes.
But what if there were no discontinuities, if Schubert's drafts were
more or less intact? Such is the case with the second movement, which,
except for one slight break, is continuous. This movement spins out a
B minor Andante that recaptures the searching melancholy of the
'Unfinished' Symphony. For Berio, the 'stunning' 'expressive climate'
also looks forward, at times 'inhabited by Mahler's spirit'.26 Whether or
not the draft presents the final form that the Andante would have taken
remains unclear. The structure of the movement is ambiguous,
suggesting double variation, modified strophic and sonata-allegro
designs.27 Taking it on its own terms, the movement breaks down into
two sections: the opening A and its varied repetition (see Table 3).
26 Ibid.

27 In his realization of the symphony, Peter Giilke describes the movement as


blending
elements of double variation and song forms. The movement does suggest both formal types. The
in
a
of
two
themes
units
hints
at
double
the
variation, although
recurring
repetition
surprise
appearance of a new theme and the absence of conventional variation procedures are atypical of
that structure. On the other hand, the subtle changes between the different units, not to mention
the lyrical quality of the themes, suggest a modified strophic design. Newbould, on the other
hand, views the movement as a sonata-allegro form. This description is less convincing. The tonal
structure and repetition of two theme units (the back-to-back pairing of themes 1 and 2) argue
against such an interpretation. In addition, the movement lacks a development section, although
Newbould unpersuasively claims that the brief transition between the two A blocks serves as an
abbreviated development. Drei Sinfonie-Fragmente,
ed. Peter Gillke (Leipzig, 1982), 97; Newbould,
Schubertand the Symphony,266-7.

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TABLE4
RENDERING, SECOND MOVEMENT

Introduction A
a
theme 1+2
B minor
A'
a'
theme 1+2
B minor

Interpolation
Interpolation b
theme 1 theme 3
F#minor F#major
b'
theme 1
E minor

Interpolation/Close

Each further divides into a and b units, both of which contain themes
1 and 2. In the first b section, Schubert introduces a new theme (theme
3), which appears only once. He conceived of this melody after drafting the Andante and wrote it down in the sketch of the third movement, directing that it be moved 'zum Andante'. This later insertion
produces the one gap in the sketch.
In his 'rendering', Berio frames the movement with his own sections
and then internally interrupts it twice (see Table 4). These four interpolations are the same number as in the third movement, a surprise
given that this is the most continuous section of the draft. That continuity, however, is never attained. The music strives to wind its way
through the unusual form, but it cannot make it, falling apart on three
different occasions. With one exception, these breaks are not the result
of gaps in the manuscript; rather, they appear to be the result of decay.
The Andante, embryonic yet almost 200 years old, collapses with age,
pieces of its lyrical lines falling into the void along with fragments of
other aging works by the composer.
Decay sets in early. The initial break occurs during the brief transition section between the first a and b sections. Nothing at this juncture suggests an interstice - no blank spaces, no juxtaposition of
different sketches. Berio instead pushes aside Schubert's linking
passage to make room for his own material, which, however, does not
completely cut off the musical flow. Presenting amorphous premonitions of a semiquaver accompanimental figure used in the b section,
the interpolation serves as a shadowy transition, thus commenting on
the passage it supplants.
In contrast to this disruption, the second internal break does result
from a gap, the one made by the insertion of theme 3. Schubert's
music, however, gives no impression of a hole, so seamlessly did the
composer later weave in that melody. In that spirit, Berio gradually
works in his own material, slowly overlaying the interpolation onto the
sketches to produce a stylistic suspension in which Schubert's melodies
dissolve. Anxious again to check continuity, the interpolation does not
even wait for the new theme to finish before overtaking it. After that

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melody has dwindled down to a solo flute line amid the harmonic void,
Berio's passage severs the rest of the b section, not even allowing the
concluding theme 2 to sound.
Besides breaking up the sketch, Berio frames the movement with his
own sections. This phantom periphery further enhances the perception of the interpolations as a void, suggesting a space from which the
Andante has emerged and to which it will return. Among the sounds
encountered there are Schubert's marginalia, a brief two-voice counterpoint exercise that Berio incorporates into his opening section. This
music that never existed, or never was meant to be performed, is just
one of the melodic shades walking around the void. In that realm it
sounds no different from the scraps of the sketches or completed compositions, declaring that all melodies, including those of jottings and
masterpieces, are 'rendered' equally lifeless and disjointed in this
netherworld.
Having momentarily lifted the Andante from that void by restoring
it, Berio then forces it back into that space. The last interpolation
abruptly cuts off the movement before it reaches the coda. Again, no
perceptible gap prompts this disruption; rather it apparently results
from the desire to obstruct the musical flow.28Nowhere in Renderingis
that obstruction more invasive than here. Instead of the overlay used
previously, this interpolation swiftly blocks the sketches. Moreover, it
not only arrests the movement at an especially expressive moment but
also prevents it from returning to the tonic, forcing it to end in the subsidiary key of E minor. Left tonally bereft, the Andante immediately
disintegrates into the temporal void - all that can be heard in Berio's
closing passage are diffused fragments.
A conventional restoration would obviously vanquish that void rather
than have it reclaim a past work. Moreover, it would never break that
work apart. However, Berio, unlike the art restorers he admires, has
used restoration not as a means of attaining historical fidelity but rather
as a creative act, one that evokes loss and disintegration. Once orchestrated, the drafts are manipulated and splintered even more so as to
bring out the incompleteness and decay of the symphony. In this way,
the sketches have been restored - restored to the fragmentary state of
the past, not the artificial reconstructions of the present.
EUROPERA
5

Whereas Renderingconveys the loss of symphony that could have been,


Cage's Europera5 traces the loss of a genre that has thrived: opera. The
work is the last instalment in a series of that title. Paired together, the
first two operas, Europeras 1 & 2, were premiered in 1987, and the
following duo in 1990. Although Cage claimed the series follows no
28 The interpolation might suggest the absence of theme 3 in the second half of the movement,
which Schubert perhaps intended but never directed to be placed in an analogous position of
that section. It could also respond to Schubert's scratching out of the coda, which, however, does
not begin until several bars later.

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'single direction', a gradual diminution of size and scope emerges, a


course owing just as much to performance exigencies as to Cage's
changing conception of the works.29Written for the Frankfurt Opera,
Europeras1 & 2 aspire to grand opera, utilizing the full stage resources
of the house, a large orchestra and 19 singers. They strew elements of
European opera (from Gluck to Puccini) into a large-scale collage. For
instance, fragments of arias, orchestral music, costumes, sets, lighting
and other operatic and non-operatic materials occupy the stage independently of each other, their comings and goings determined by a
computer simulation of the I Ching.30That same microchip oracle
watches over the remaining Europeras,which preserve the collage ideal
but forgo the grand opera trappings. Numbers 3 and 4 discard the sets,
costumes and orchestra, settling instead for fewer singers, a piano and
phonographs.
Commissioned by the pianist YvarMikhashoff as a chamber work that
could easily be taken on the road, Europera5 simplifies the musical and
theatrical means even more. The work is scored for two singers, who
select five arias of their choice (again from Gluck to Puccini), and one
pianist, who performs six opera transcriptions, such as the Liszt fantasies mentioned by Cage. Various reproduction media also appear,
including a Victrola that plays six 'antique' recordings of opera arias, a
television, set on a random channel but alwayswith the volume off, and
an off-stage radio, which Cage recommends be tuned to ajazz station.31
Also heard but not seen is Truckera, Cage's name for a tape consisting
of 101 bits of European opera compressed together, so named because
when panned from speaker to speaker the bulky, decidedly nonoperatic sound suggests 'a huge truck' passing by, although as from a
distance - the directions stating that the tape should be 'often no more
than barely audible'.32 Also on the verge of audibility are the many
patches of silence that emerge during those moments when none of
the parts is active. Cage supplants the conductor with the Europeraclock, a videotape that counts down the one-hour duration of the work
and gives timings to the performers. As in the earlier Europeras,the
entrances and durations of the different elements have been determined by computer, which also fixes the lighting and stage positions,
set by segmenting the performance space into 64 small grids.
This brief introduction exposes two tensions underlying Europera5.
During the course of the piece, live performance and sonic-visualreproductions vie with each other. The voice and piano insist on the spontaneity of opera performance, whereas the Victrola asserts the
29

Musicage:CageMuses on Words,Art, and Music, ed. Joan Retallack (Hanover, NH, 1996), 226.
30 On Europeras1 & 2, see Laura D. Kuhn, 'Synergetic Dynamics in John Cage's Europeras1 &
2', Musical Quarterly,78 (1994), 131-48, and Herbert Lindenberger, Opera in History:From
Monteverdito Cage (Stanford, 1998), 240-64. A discussion of all the Europerascan be found in
William Fetterman, John Cage'sTheatrePieces(London, 1996), 167-87.
31 The directions for the work list 'one antique mechanical horn phonograph (His Master's
Voice Victrola)'. They also state that a jazz station is 'preferable'. Sections of the score can be
found in Musicage,333-9.
32 Musicage,300, 335.

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mechanical ability to contain and reproduce it. In contrast, other media


- the radio and television - ignore opera altogether. This snub points
to another conflict, which Cage calls 'the opposition of the centuries',
specifically the nineteenth and twentieth.33As made clear by his chronological restrictions on the singer's choice of arias, opera belongs largely
to the former, as well as to the unacknowledged eighteenth century.
Cage also upholds the Victrola as representative of the nineteenth
century, although operatic recordings did not take off until the early
1900s. The radio, television and Truckera (all belonging to the era of
the truck), however, form a unified front of contemporary technology,
declaring that opera is now either absent or, as with Truckera, mutilated. Facing that wall of technological indifference, opera trembles,
never taking full form and coming close to disappearing altogether.
The vulnerability of opera especially comes across in the presentation
of the voice. The singer stands alone, offering only the vocal line from
a treasured aria without any accompaniment. This melodic remnant,
full of silences and lacking a foundation, suggests the fabric of opera
being eaten away bit by bit. Within that shrinking musical world, the
performer could perhaps find companionship with the other singer,
but he or she is also isolated, presenting the vocal line of a different
aria. The two do sing simultaneously; however, the ensuing vocal clash
only repels them further from each other. In the desire for some clarity,
and perhaps as part of an effort to alienate the two performers even
more, Cage directs that one face the audience, while the other step
aside, either facing the opposite direction or leaving the stage so as to
sing from behind it.
Unlike the melodic slivers offered by the two singers, the pianist presents complete works: the piano transcriptions. Yet even these virtuoso
pieces evanesce. Cage directs that the pianist 'shadow-play'three of the
six fantasies, that is, that he or she skim the keys, rather than hit them.34
As the composer anticipated, individual pitches randomly pop out here
and there when the pianist's fingers accidentally press too hard, blips
that serve to underscore the gradual dematerialization of opera.
'Shadow-playing' can be considered the doppelgiingerof the playerpiano - a live performer producing no sounds at the keyboard. Perhaps
out of a desire to avoid any doublings, even ghostly ones, Cage decided
against his original conception of including a player-piano in the
collage. An early draft includes a separate part for that instrument,
which was to play a series of rolls entitled 'Echoes of the Metropolitan',
an apt choice given the echoes, albeit distorted ones, of a bygone
operatic past in Europera 5.35
The player-piano would have called further attention to the gradual
disappearance of the live performers from the work, that is, the

33 Ibid., 226.
34 'Shadow playing' also serves as another means of reducing the obstruction produced by the
three live musicians performing simultaneously.
35 Europera5, Durational Chart and List, The John Cage Collection, Research Library for the
Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, New York Public Library, New York.

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effacement of their musical and corporeal presence. The pianist, for


instance, has been reduced to a shadow, merely going through the
motions. The singer, on the other hand, is reduced to a pawn. The computer program directs where he or she should stand, moving him or
her from one randomly chosen grid to another. The impression
created is that of a singer not commanding the stage but being commanded on it.36
Even more threatening than losing control of the stage is the possibility of completely vanishing from the space. That possibility is raised
by the juxtaposition of the singer and Victrola recordings. In the
recorded voice, the singer confronts his or her shadow, the sonic
residue left after his or her disappearance.37 This second form of
'shadow-playing' suggests that opera, as live performance, is slowly
fading away into a realm of reproductions. The silent pianist may
already be there. His or her presence not only evokes the player-piano
but also adds to the muted images seen on the television. More than
that, he or she plays reproductions, namely the fantasies, which, despite
the interpretative excesses of Liszt and others, are instrumental imitations of operatic moments.
Considered as such, the fantasies initiate a broad historical timeline
of simulations that stretches throughout Europera5. This line extends
from the nineteenth-century arrangements through the Victrola to the
electronic media of radio and television. It is useful to consider these
various components in terms of Jean Baudrillard's well-known 'three
orders' of simulacra.38The piano fantasies loosely accord with the first
of these: the counterfeit. Both are products of non-mechanical technologies. Moreover, as in Baudrillard's example of the proliferation of
valued images by stucco replications, the keyboard works democratized
opera by removing it from its 6lite moorings and making it available in
concert and domestic environments. However, in that transplantation,
as in all reproductions, key elements are lost, including the voice and
theatricality, already endangered species in Europera5.
The erosion of opera deepens with the use of the Victrola, an apparatus typifying mechanical reproduction, Baudrillard's second order. As
Walter Benjamin described, such reproductions diminish the 'aura' of
uniqueness and tradition that surrounds an artwork.39Cage calls attention to the depletion. Indeed, he flaunts it. Europera5 stages a paradox
by inviting listeners to the concert hall to hear recordings. The scratchy
discs played there offer desiccated opera, arias that sound not only ageworn but also hollow and anonymous. However, these recordings -

36 Cage's droll direction that each of the vocalists at one non-singing moment in the work wear
'a head and shoulders animal mask' also effaces the performer's presence, besides adding some
levity to the work.
37 Before Europera5, Cage had discussed the idea of replacing singers with phonographs. David
Revill, TheRoaringSilence:John Cage,A Life (London, 1992), 293.
38 Baudrillard, Simulations,83-159.
39 Walter Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', Illuminations,
trans. Harry Zohn (New York, 1968), 220-2.

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uninterrupted, un-'shadowed' and featuring full orchestral accompaniments - are the most complete operatic experiences in the work. If
opera is to be found in the shadow-world of Europera5, then it is to be
found in recordings.
Opera is altogether absent from the radio and television in the work,
two media that belong to Baudrillard's third order: the hyperreal.40 It
is not just that the two ignore the genre but that, according to Baudrillard, they have freed themselves from it and all originals, attaining a
state of pure simulation based on abstract codes and models. Along
these lines it is important to remember that watching over Europera5,
determining the timing and placement of the individual parts, is a computer simulation of the I Ching,a program that replaces the tossing of
coins with various commands and sub-commands. Television, as Baudrillard has discussed, similarly creates its own reality, transmuting originals - sports, cooking, arts - into new media-based forms.41 For those
who find the hyperreal to be theoretical hyperbole, the matter can be
approached from a different perspective by simply considering what
makes the unreality and emptiness of television more clear than watching it in a theatrical context, especially with the volume off.42
With each link of Cage's historical chain, there is less opera: the loss
of voice and theatricality in the piano fantasies, the elimination of the
body and dimming of the aura by the Victrola, and the disappearance
of the genre with the television and radio. One other simulation,
though, needs to be mentioned: Europera5 itself. Consisting of operatic scraps and reproductions, as well as indifferent media, the work is
nothing more than a simulation. But of what kind? With all the operatic flotsam, it never achieves the autonomy of the television or radio.
Neither are there many similarities with the mechanical reproduction
of the Victrola. Europera5, notwithstanding its standardized title, does
not roll down an assembly line; rather, each production of the aleatoric
work is unique, thus playfully adding to its aura a layer of uniqueness
unforeseen by Benjamin. Ironically, recordings prove more than
usually inadequate in capturing the work, being unable to accommodate not only the infinite versions of the piece but also all the simulations involved, namely the silent television and the barely audible
Truckera.43 Perhaps even more ironically, Europera 5, despite its
technological verve, most resembles the nineteenth-century piano fantasies. The work is essentially an individually conceived reproduction
of opera dependent on live performers, although a virtuoso may not
be necessary to turn the television on and off. Both indulge in operatic moments: Liszt's works embellishing them in pianistic filigree,
Cage's piece casting them in shadows.
40 Baudrillard, Simulations,103-52.
41 Jean Baudrillard, Seduction,trans. Brian
Singer (Montreal, 1990), 159-63.
42 A different sort of simulacrum
autonomy is attained by Truckera, which remains beholden
to opera but transforms the fragments of the genre into its own distinct sound, a noise unknown
on the opera stage.
43 Although well produced, the CD on the Mode label (Mode 36) testifies to the inadequacies
of recordings in capturing the piece.

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Liszt also referred to his fantasies as reminiscences, a title befitting


Europera5 as well. The two leaf through operatic memories; however,
Cage's work tinges those musings with a nostalgia absent from the Liszt
pieces, which recalled operas from past seasons rather than a disappearing genre.44 This nostalgia emerges not only in the faded arias
but also in the stage design. The composer turns the stage into an
antique shop, containing five 'old chairs', three 'old tables' and three
'old lamps'.45 The Victrola adds to the bric-t-brac. Cage prominently
displays the antique apparatus and cultivates its sonic patina, the
scratchy, 'beautiful sound' produced by needles on the old discs.46This
parlour of yesteryear captures both the pastness of opera and its disappearance, as only remnants of what was once an adorned room
appear on the sparse stage.
Such nostalgia seems uncharacteristic of the iconoclast and technology maven Cage. It also belies his view of past works and genres as
'material rather than art'.47Europera5 presents opera very much as an
art, a rich tradition that the work devotes itself to displaying and
remembering. Moreover, as is made clear by the sentimental trappings,
the piece is not indifferent to the disappearance of the genre. Its cultivated nostalgia mediates the sense of loss by creating the illusion that
the operatic past is just within reach: all one has to do is step into the
parlour, sit in a comfortable 'old chair' and listen to the 'antique'
recordings. The flickering television screen, distant radio and passingby Truckera, however, interrupt that wistful fantasy, making it clear
that opera belongs not to the present but to an irrecoverable past.
DECAY

Despite using different approaches of reproduction and restoration,


Europera5 and Renderingpresent similar views of both the past and the
present. In the two compositions, the former period emerges as a state
of decay and loss, a realm that either exists in scraps or is on the brink
of vanishing, if it has not already done so. Berio offers an incomplete
work from the past, thus making that period synonymous with fragmentation, and then splinters it further, yielding a tattered symphony
that is less likely than before to be realized. Cage, on the other hand,
draws upon finished works, but similarly fragments them by either
excising individual parts, as in the arias, or smothering them in
shadows, as with the piano fantasies. The various reproductions used
by the composer do not break apart operatic originals but instead
efface them, having them disappear in a historical chain of simulations,
a sort of technological decay.

44 Fetterman also discusses the feelings of nostalgia and wistfulness evoked by the work. John
Cage'sTheatrePieces,186-7.
45 Musicage,333.
46 Revill, TheRoaringSilence,293.
47 Quoted in Fetterman, John Cage'sTheatrePieces,169.

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Fragmentary or evanescent, the past still dominates Renderingand


Europera5, whereas the present has receded. In the former work, there
are only traces of the present, specifically the interpolations, which
were composed in the late 1980s and incorporate modern idioms.
These passages, however, seem more like atemporal voids than contemporary voices, suggesting that the present, like all the years after
Schubert's death, is an emptiness from which the sketches have been
unable to free themselves. That emptiness waits at the edges of the
drafts, a surrounding space that catches the collapsing pieces of the
would-be symphony. This border between past and present contrasts
with the superimposition of the two periods in Sinfonia, which has
vibrant contemporary idioms jostle past styles in collage textures. Europera5 also creates a collage from various elements, but it offers an
austere mix in which past and present remain just as detached. The few
twentieth-century components stand indifferent amid the operatic
reminiscences, being either silent or off-stage. Even Truckera pulling
into the work fails to foreground the present. The tape offers a cacophony of operatic debris that verges on 'bare audibility'. Moreover, it too
occupies a peripheral position, sounding as if it was 'passing just
outside or under the [performance] space'.48As in Berio's voids, remnants of the past sound from a distant realm.
In Renderingand Europera5, the similar realizations of past and
present evoke extensive fragmentation and decay, that is, the crumbling of entire works or genres. This fascination with large-scale disintegration can also be seen in contemporary visual artworks, many of
which use gestures analogous to those in the two musical pieces. Kopystiansky's RestoredPaintings, to return to our opening scene of decay,
take classical images to the brink of decomposition. A 1992 work from
that series presents a ripped, pockmarked version of Ingres's La
Princessede Broglie(1853), seemingly salvaged by stretching out the frail
canvas and piecing together torn parts (Figure 1). The painterly act
involves not so much the faithful copying of the original but the fabrication of a patina, the flakes and gashes. With that veneer, Ingres's burnished blues and gold dim into sooty lavenders and bronze. Moreover,
his detailed muted background fades away, leaving behind only the
figure and chair, the most memorable features of the painting.
What elevates Kopystiansky'spainting above the distressed-look items
at Conran's is the embroidery of his scratches and the ironic twist of
the title. Moreover, RestoredPaintingis perhaps too gloomy for the retail
shelf. It evokes not only decay but also nothingness. The ravaged Ingres
is mounted upon a larger black canvas which provides ample borders
and a background, a vacuous one to replace Ingres's d6cor. The new
canvas is more than mere matting, as elements of the original, colour
streaks emanating from the dress and chair, pour into the empty

48 Musicage,339. Accounts of the 1992 performances at the Museum of Modern Art in NewYork
City, however, make clear that Truckera went well beyond 'bare audibility'. Fetterman, John Cage's
TheatrePieces,186.

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on""

Figure 2.

?e

Mike and Doug Starn, Crucifixion, 1985-8. Toned silver print, wire, ribbon,

and the
wood, tape, 120" X 120".CourtesyLeo Castelli,PaceWildensteinMacGill,
artists.

bottom space of that canvas, making it part of the painting.49 Once


again, flecks of a past work settle in a blank periphery. As with Schubert's themes in Berio's interpolations, Ingres's image disappears into
nothingness, unable to exist beyond the original, itself dwindling away.
The fragility of the Ingres may explain the efforts to extend the painting, to have more of it and to stave off decay. Kopystiansky, however,
exposes the error and futility of such attempts. The extension misshapes the original by making the Ingres bottom-heavy, and it ultimately adds to the deterioration, coming across as nothing more than
a faded patch of colour.
Evocations of extensive decay also appear in the works of Mike and
Doug Starn, known as the Starn twins. Many of their pieces from the
1980s feature photographic reproductions of past paintings.50 The
ChristSeries,for instance, draws upon Philippe de Champaigne's Le
Christ mort couche sur son linceul (c.1654). A major piece in that collec-

tion is the wall installation Crucifixion(1985-8), which presents ragged,


fragmented photographs of five hanging figures (see Figure 2). The biblical scene is enhanced by the use of studio materials: heavy nails
holding up the photographic slabs and wire coil suggesting the crown
of thorns in the original, notably absent from the Starns' prints. As
evident in the use of outside materials, Crucifixion,unlike Kopystiansky's
canvas, does not faithfully replicate an original; rather it draws upon a

49 A similar gesture occurs in the RestoredPainting, No. 5. A reproduction of that work can be
found in Art News, 88 (March 1989), 143.
50 In their recent work, the Starns have focused on images of the sun, often incorporating
digital shots taken by a NASA satellite. These works have appeared in a variety of media, including
video.

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MUSICAL
DECAY

111

pre-existent work to create a new but related image.51The Starns' piece


props up Champaigne's recumbent Christ into a suspended figure, or
five nearly identical ones. Instead of any sort of violation, such liberties
suggest the inevitable melding of images and motifs created by the
accumulation of Christ representations over centuries.
Whereas Crucifixiondoes not exactly copy a specific work, it none the
less comes across as a reconstruction of an earlier original, albeit an
unknown one. In particular, the installation calls to mind reassembled
wreckage. Like a shell constructed from debris, fragments of some sort
of Christ image have been pieced together, each placed in what appears
to have been its original location and separated by the blank stretches
of missing remnants. Viewing the work this way reveals the ironic game
of Renderingand the RestoredPaintingsbeing played out once again. Like
them, Crucifixioncrumbles the past while pretending to shore it up, a
twist that underscores the frailty of that period. Again as in the other
two works, that point is reinforced through the use of empty space,
which is filled not with bits of the original but scraps of wood, wire,
ribbon and tape. Those materials conventionally appear behind the
scenes, being used in the construction and hanging of artworks. Placed
up front, they call attention to the absence of a complete finished work
to cover the stretches of white wall and, instead of supporting a painting, they become part of the work itself, not only adding to the wreckage but also often limning the outline of the missing Christ figure.
As with Kopystiansky,the Starns evoke the past through a mixture of
restoration and reproduction. The two initially attracted attention with
their photographic innovations, including the developing of prints on
sheets of non-photographic paper which are taped or glued together
to form a larger image. Many of these signature touches evoke decay.
The twins, for instance, often dye the paper sepia tones of yellow (used
in Crucifixion),blue and orange that recall faded photographs. Like
age-worn snapshots, the sheets are often crumpled and ripped. Finally,
much to the anxiety of collectors, the materials themselves, especially
the paper and tape, are fragile and will not endure. Fascinated by age
and decay, the Starns have woven those elements into their art: 'our
work is conceived to change and age.... Art cannot be excused from
time.'52

Photography and other reproduction technologies, though, are supposed to give art a partial reprieve from time, at least allowing a secondary version of a work to survive. However, as in Europera5, reproduction
serves as the agent of decay rather than of preservation. The photographs disintegrate Champaigne's image just as the historical chain of
simulations effaces opera. Moreover, the promise of infinite reproducibility, the means by which reproductions stay one step ahead of
decay, is not fulfilled. Five Christ figures appear, no two looking the
same, none of them complete.
51 If the Starn twins had wanted to incorporate a true crucifixion
image, they could have used
Champaigne's own painting of that scene.
52 Quoted in Andy Grunberg, Mikeand Doug Starn (New York, 1990), 38.

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The Starns' yellowed Christs and the three other works discussed
above extend a tradition of aestheticizing decay. Predecessors in that
tradition include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings of the
Roman Forum and Chateaubriand's musings upon the 'poetics of the
dead' overheard in sacred ruins.53Such evocations often peer back at
a distant and faint past, like the Roman and Gothic ruins which speak
of their time in mysteries and fragments. The late twentieth-century
progeny of that tradition, on the other hand, usually draw on a voluble
past - operas that still ring in halls and paintings that hang in museums.
They treat these familiar pieces with a high degree of artificiality and
irony, hallmarks of so much recent art. In that vein, the above four
works do not depict actual dilapidated objects but appropriate intact
works (or, with the Schubert sketches, an intact incomplete symphony)
and subject those secondary versions to decay.
If the decay is artificial, so is the means of borrowing. Each of the four
works draws upon past originals under the claim of restoration and
reproduction. That conceit facilitates the wholesale borrowing of earlier
pieces. In their respective modes of presentation those two approaches
focus on entire works and aim to minimize any alterations to them.
Appropriating those practices, the four works, especially Renderingand
Restored
Painting, can drawupon complete originals and downplay transformation to achieve a close likeness to the originals, while all the time
making room for differences, specifically the signs of decay and fragmentation. The presentation of a whole original deepens the illusion of
disintegration. We see or hear what seems to be an entire, possibly even
familiar, work having succumbed to age, its expansive surface scarred
and faded, its bulk breaking apart into shards.
That illusion is part of the chronological outlook of dissolution shared
by these four works. In this view of time, nothing lasts. The past, be it
Ingres, Champaigne, opera, or even an incipient symphony, fades away
into nothingness. The process of disintegration is irreversible. Attempts
at restoration and reproduction, the four works make clear, only exacerbate it. The present is also a site of loss. In Europera5 and Rendering,that
period emerges as either a void depleted of the creative wealth sought
in earlier centuries or a technological realm oblivious to those riches.
Both pieces draw on works and traditions that are disappearing, if not
entirely lost, and do not offer any new styles to replace them. The two
instead lead into emptiness, the blank stretches that abound in each,
like the voids opened up in the symphonic sketches or the extended
silences and media ethereality of Europera5. The artworksfollow similar
paths, this time leading to white walls and black canvases.
This bleak view appears to portend an aesthetic crisis or, as one critic
recently said of postmodern musical styles in general, a descent into 'the
black hole of nihilism'.54 Before sliding into that hole, it is important to
remember that twentieth-century arts, including postmodern styles,
53 FranCoisAuguste-Rene de Chateaubriand, Le ginie du christianisme(Paris, 1904), 426.
54 Robin Hartwell, 'Postmodernism and Art Music', The Last Post: Music afterModernism,ed.
Simon Miller (Manchester and New York, 1993), 27-51 (p. 50).

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have offered myriad ways of viewing the past - some bleak, some not.55
Two other works by Berio, for instance, see the past and the present
quite differently from Rendering. In Recital I (for Cathy) the past similarly

exists in fragments; however, instead of dwindling away,those pieces are


piling up and threatening to overrun the present. Starring in this
chronological drama is a recital singer who is being buried under three
centuries of repertoire. She finishes her concert not with an encore but
with a prayer, a prayer for liberation from the past. Like Rendering,the
third movement of Sinfoniafeatures an entire work from the past, this
time the Scherzo from Mahler's Second Symphony. The Scherzo takes
us on a voyage through bits of spoken texts (Beckett, Valery, student
protests, among other things) as well as the musical past and present,
passing through a Beethoven symphony one moment and a Boulez work
the next. That journey, though, is in constant peril, as the Scherzo, like
Schubert's symphony, is always breaking apart.56 The Mahler movement, however, does reach the end of the trip, ending intact in its final
bars. With it, we have come to the end of a journey through (to use a
phrase from the verbal text) the 'unexpected', a voyage at times exhilarating, frightening and comical. Unexpected too is the experience of
the past not as dead or decaying but as a living period from which we
can survey both other vibrant pasts and an equally active present.57
Renderingand Europera5, on the other hand, lead us into nothingness. What this disintegration of past and present says about the late
twentieth century can only be conjectured. Such scenes of decay may
spring from a mingled unease and fascination with the fragility of the
past or from a scepticism over what new styles can be created to stand
beside those of previous centuries. Whatever the impetus, the two
musical works represent the present as a period in which decay eclipses
creation. Yet, in both, decay itself becomes a means of creation, that is,
the past can be made new, experienced again and differently, by
making it old. The touches of disintegration and emptiness lend the
replications of earlier works that 'expressive' quality that Berio found
so inspiring in the bald walls of the Giotto frescoes. This scratching of
new expressive wrinkles into earlier works suggests that even these pessimistic pieces want to keep the past alive, to find something new in its
familiar sounds. Renderingand Europera5, however, make clear how
ephemeral these revivalsare, as they keep a nascent symphony and venerable operas caught in the slow ebb of the past.
University of British Columbia
55 For different approaches to the relationships between past and present in recent works, see
Robin Holloway, 'Modernism and After in Music', The CambridgeReview,110 (1989), 60-6; Jann
MusicReview,7 (1993),
Pasler, 'Postmodernism, Narrativity,and the Art of Memory', Contemporary
3-32; and David Nicholls, 'Avant-Garde and Experimental Music', The CambridgeHistory of
AmericanMusic, ed. David Nicholls (Cambridge, 1998), 522-34.
56 On the handling of the Mahler Scherzo in Sinfonia, see David Osmond-Smith, Playing on
Words:A Guideto Luciano Berio'sSinfonia (London, 1985), 43-53.
57 These two works are further discussed in my in-progress study of quotation in twentiethcentury music.

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114

DAVIDMETZER

ABSTRACT
Restoration and reproduction have served as two of the primary means by
which the present has approached the past. These practices are the focus of
Luciano Berio's Renderingand John Cage's Europera5, two recent works that
draw upon earlier compositions. In Rendering,Berio 'restores' the drafts for
what would have been Schubert's Tenth Symphony. Contrary to conventional
restorations, Berio not only builds up the sketch materials but also fragments
them, having Schubert's themes disappear into musical voids. Europera5 looks
back at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century opera, which is presented in a
collage of live performance and reproductions. During the course of the work,
opera gradually disappears into a world of reproductions, losing its vocality
and presence. In both compositions, restoration and reproduction ultimately
make the past more distant and inaccessible. A similar use of these two practices occurs in recent visual artworks by Igor Kopystianskyand Mike and Doug
Starn. Both the musical and visual artworks create scenes of decay, in which
the past appears as crumbling and the present as an emptiness.

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