Chapter 1

“The New Vocality in Contemporary Music” (1966)

Cathy Berberian

Translation by Francesca Placanica

What is the New Vocality that appears so threatening to the old guard? It is the voice which has
an endless range of vocal styles at its disposal, embracing the history of music as well as
aspects of sound itself; marginal perhaps compared to the music, but fundamental to human
beings. Unlike the instrument, which can be locked up and put away after use, the voice is
something more than an instrument, precisely because it is inseparable from its interpreter. It
lends itself to the numerous tasks of our daily lives continuously: it argues with the butcher
over the roast beef, whispers sweet words in intimacy, shouts insults to the referee, asks for
directions to the Piazza Carità, etc. Furthermore, the voice expresses itself through
communicative “noises,” such as sobs, sighs, tongue snaps, screams, groans, laughter.
Moreover, the voice has a capacity for diverse types of vocal emissions, among which are two
that are still considered illegitimate to this day, and quite unfairly–considering how they had
left their mark on decidedly serious composers such as Schoenberg, Debussy, Ravel, Bartók,
etc.—namely, those styles related to jazz and folk music. These traditions are also a reflection
of our society: folk music reveals our roots and jazz expresses the fleurs du mal du siècle.
I believe that a modern singer should be both sensitive and open, albeit in an empirical
way, to these diverse aspects of vocality, isolating them from the context of linguistic
conditioning and developing them instead as “ways of being” for the voice–towards a musical
integration of possibilities and musical attitudes not yet “officially” catalogued as emerging
from musical experience and that are crucial for the further development of a “New Vocality.”
(That newness, we discover, only exists to a certain extent, though, when we trace its
genealogical tree.) The elements constituting the New Vocality have existed since time
immemorial: it is merely their justification and musical necessity that is new. I do not want to
Copyright © 2014. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

be misunderstood: the New Vocality is emphatically not based on the inventory of more or less
unedited vocal effects which the composer may devise and the singer regurgitates, but rather on
the singer’s ability to use the voice in all aspects of the vocal process; a process which can be
integrated as flexibly as the lines and expressions on a face.
At this point the usual question arises: what do these sound experiences have to do with
music? A contemporary painter like Dubuffet uses materials completely foreign to oil, tempera
and classic watercolors when he works with butterfly wings, sponges, beard hairs and the
residual incrustation of a boiler–what could be further from Michelangelo, and yet closer to the
objects with which we are in contact in our daily lives? In the chapter “Sirens” in Ulysses,
Joyce introduces the element of noise through onomatopoeia. The text becomes the verbal

Karantonis, Pamela, et al. Cathy Berberian: Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality : Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality, edited by Prof Dr Anne Sivuoja-Kauppala, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.
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 sonorification of a scene in a public place; a kind of recording. Indeed, his literary “recording”
was the basis for one of the most beautiful works in the field of electronic music: Thema
(Omaggio a Joyce) by Berio.
I must state here that the techniques of recording and montage have had a fundamental role
in vocal music. The fact that it is possible to record a sound or sounds with a tape recorder,
isolate them from their original context, listen to them per se, as a sound, then modify and
combine them with other sonic elements belonging to other contexts, has allowed the musician
(and the singer) to listen in ways different from reality and from all the sounds that normally
escape our attention because they are absorbed and masked by the action which produces them
and the experience which provokes them. In order to understand the New Vocality, it is
essential to establish that art must reflect and express its own era; and yet it must refer to the
past, accepting the weight of history (just as my daughter envies children born centuries ago
because they had less history to study!); it must, while apparently creating a break, provide a
continuity which belongs to the present and at the same time leave the door open to the future.
Another function of recording is the documentation of actual sounds: of interpretations
considered stylistically and traditionally perfect at the time, but now revealed as overrated by
the merciless evidence of vinyl. Interpretation evolves along with society. In the theater as
well, what was considered a brilliant performance 40 years ago becomes an unbearable
artifice today. I would say that the increased diffusion of artistic forms, the fast speed with
which they are absorbed into culture (not necessarily haute culture), the multiplication of the
means of entertainment for the masses to an extent never previously known, all this not only
makes for, but also benefits, the essential evolution of interpretation.
Having a tradition is as important as having a mother and a father to enable birth–but the
inevitable moment always arrives when we must leave the security of the old life in order to
be able to create a new one. However, the word “tradition” is also a trap. Just remember that
the tradition of the recital is relatively new. Liszt was one of the first virtuosi to give a soirée
with solo piano. Recitals for voice came much later–they were preceded for years by those
frightful “traditional” soirées which brought together the famous dancing horses of Vienna,
Anna Pavlova, Enrico Caruso, dwarf acrobats and a symphonic movement. At a certain point,
someone assumed the responsibility for “breaking” the potpourri soirée in favor of the recital
and so created a tradition. But a tradition is always an artifact and when it becomes no more
than a legitimized fossil (look at the semi-deserted music halls, eloquent testimony to the
mummification process), then it must make way for the “new” tradition.
Copyright © 2014. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

In this sense the New Vocality not only refers to contemporary music, but also to the new
way of approaching traditional music, exploiting the past experience of sound with the
sensibility of the present (and a presentiment of the future).
For this reason the singer today can no longer be just a singer. Now the boundaries of
interpretation, like those of the arts, are no longer clearly defined–and performers in one field
violate the territory of others. (Brecht—Weill demanded actors who could sing, Schoenberg
wanted singers who knew how to act.) The New Vocality affirms that there should be singers
who are able to act, sing, dance, mime, improvise–in other words, affect the eyes as well as
the ears. [I] propose the artist as a universal fact and the voice as part of the living body, acting
and reacting. In the same way recitals and concerts will have so many theatrical elements

Karantonis, Pamela, et al. Cathy Berberian: Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality : Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality, edited by Prof Dr Anne Sivuoja-Kauppala, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=1763125.
Created from kcl on 2023-11-17 15:23:12.
 ingrained in the musical context that these elements will function like a gestural alternative–and
this is something that music will endow to the intrusive and disordered stimuli of a culture
predicated upon seeing and doing.
Copyright © 2014. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.

Karantonis, Pamela, et al. Cathy Berberian: Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality : Pioneer of Contemporary Vocality, edited by Prof Dr Anne Sivuoja-Kauppala, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=1763125.
Created from kcl on 2023-11-17 15:23:12.