Luciano Berio - Leaf

[huhuhmm]

art of shit... very good

[Kletian86]

I would feel ashamed to play this "music" (???) in front of so many people.

[dogatcafe]

he sucks very bad.

[trueguthan]

I"m sorry but this hurts my ears



[680stp]

ridiculous foolishness. use a comb or a hairpin or a washtub as instrument of choice--NOT the piano.

[Jovovich32]

OH MY GOD. He played that quick and shitty music in front of all those people?? :o Couldve picked a better composition.

[bilardone]

IL RE è NUDO: basta con questa non musica!

[CyberNecrovalley]

To all the people that think this sounds like "crap:" if Mozart were to hear rock, pop, and country music today, he would also think it sounds like crap, because of how fundamentally different it is from classical music :)

[Talmanonn]

@CyberNecrovalley I dunno whether I agree or not... I'm into heavy metal and I love classical. I think Mozart would appreciate that such type of music came out of his works (Mozart was a MASSIVE influence on heavy metal).

[CyberNecrovalley]

@Talmanonn He would eventually appreciate it, yes. After listening to it many times you gain an appreciation for any type of music. You just have to learn to appreciate how expressionist music allows you to see a scenario in your head without following typical standard music conventions :3

[coolsnak3]

what's he doing srsly lol

kidding...i love comments like those tho and this video is missing one like that.

<3 berio <3

[turboturbante]

Lovely miniature :)

[misterchun]

Surprised that so many didn't like this. It's one of his more "acceptable-to-the-lay-person'­s-ear" sounding pieces. To use a crude term, it's really almost "jazzy" at times. Maybe that's just me.

[NevinJarek]

@misterchun Well, i didnt like it much but i liked more the rest of the encores. i like the first one, the third, fourth and sixth the most. I find this one a little dull, as well as the fifth...

[dogshy61]

Why are we still having this debate about modernism? It's now 100 years since Webern changed music forever and we still have these retrograde sterile debates about atonalism.For me Berio is one of the half dozen greatest composers of the second half of the 20th century.Listen to his compositions written between 1955 and 1972 and prepare to be convinced!

[MyUsername156]

Don't like it.

[mbuto74]

Mitico!

[ellipticality]

that was garbage, sounds like somone just fiddling with a piano, not knowing what hes doing..

[MrBelfry666]

loverly

[MrBelfry666]

"i just have no desire to become accustomed to it.":orkid682

that says it all bro'. Same has been said of Bartok, Messiaen, and Ligeti...

[Elmothefuzzle]

terrible

[ricinoil]

maffatemi il piacere, ci voleva pigliare in giro, per essere gentili, e noi (voi) ancora ad applaudirlo!!!

[debrucey]

What an excellent piece! :D

[wesleysidney]

achei ruim

[lovesGenet]

Crossley is one of the brave courageous greats .Has done music a great service. I wouuld love to se what his programs look like what where and how he puts this music together.What did he play after this ? Does he play and Schumann , Beethoven , Scriabin,Chopin? Where do Rzewski,Bolcom,Helps go ?

[RockJuliet93]

.. terrible

[whack47]

Many people are clapping because they're glad it's so short.

[hatonerz]

@whack47

hahahh well said!

[darbeel1]

contrary to what people may think, but people will generally develop a disliking for this kind of music bcos they dont understand the philosophy or aesthetic, which intern influences their perception of the music (intra). It is well understood in music psych that the extra-musical is more influential than the intra-musical, thus dictating your tastes! There are very few 'honest' cases where people dont like genres BCOS of the music. So learn to embrace it all!!!

[lovesGenet]

there will be people who are intrigued enough to find out where 20th cent art came from. Dialogue before performance is the best way to stimulate interest and the right questions! The average person calls everything a song not a rondo,or sonata -allegro so a little education would help get people on the contemporary music ride. I bought cd's of Berio,Nono,Webern 25 years ago.Finally 10 years ago I began reading & discovery.Curiosity matters more than intellect often.

[TheGBShawFan]

This is a truely exceptional performance. Crossley opens up a new world of sound to us with his performance, and he entices us into a parallel universe of thinking. "Leaf" represents and indeed symbolises much, but it is the role of the pianist to present these symbols to us, and Crossley indeed has succeeded in such. As Charles Rosen wrote: "The pianist does not perform for the audience, or himself. Rather he performs for the music". There is an internationalism to this piece: it transcends.

[Reliony]

what is he doing with his hands? i think the public is hired and payed to clap for him

[superpiano2008]

клоун

[DODGE222]

I'm not gonna say it sucks, but can someone explain to me why this is considered good?

[CyberNecrovalley]

@DODGE222 He's an "experimenter." The reason why composers like Mozart and Bach, etc have music that sounds "good" is because they followed rules that the average person don't know really exist in music (this is where you get into music theory). But starting in around the mid 20th century, experimenters like Berio began composing music that deliberately broke the "rules" of music. Most of the time he was making the music to "test the boundaries" of certain instruments. He's really a pioneer.

[amioparere1]

Ma vai a cagare rincoglionito tu e sta roba di merda

[HeedleGlavin]

Sounds awful.

[nco62292]

wow the leaf is hurtling through the air as the music intensifies, creating a more exhilarating feeling that stirs the soul and caressing the mind. in this piece the leaf is just humanity hurtling through the universe at a high rate of speed, without understanding the complexity of life around it. wow this guy is deep...

haha yea right...cmon people, we need to open our ears

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

That's exactly how my cat plays when he walks across it. Granted, no one's pretentious and stupid enough to call it music.

[thedude69ification]

What an incredibly ethnocentric and arrogant presumption. Next time listen - carefully - not only to the sound but to the people who are telling you it brings them joy. How can we all be wrong if we like to listen to it. Maybe we can't all be as smart as you are, but it sounds like elitism. What would you say to someone in some other part of the world who professes the same pathetic nonsense about the music you enjoy listening to.

[thedude69ification]

What are you both really trying to accomplish? And what are you both afraid of? For f-ing sake open your mind. Open your ears. I dare you to really study Berio's music, and then tell someone who has spent their entire lives trying to analyze it that it's not music. We're talking PhD's here. I'm sure they would all appreciate your revelation.

[thedude69ification]

I just like how it sounds. What else is there to say?

[Daicec993]

idiot

[XXslinkymalinkyXX]

What the hell...thats crap, he looks like an octopus with turrets

[StanleyKSCBP]

Modern music just moves you so much. It's more challenging and less understandable when you first hear something like this therefore gets you into it and it's all really inspired me. Berio rules!

[ReturnOfTheStienway]

...annoying body movements

[cephalopod]

To actually contribute and maybe shed some light on how this can be considered good, a lot of the meaning in Berio's music does not come from the notes played, the melodies and harmonies. There is usually a satirical, semiotic or theatrical meaning to be derived from the textures, the structure, certain juxtapositions, and the role and execution of the performers themselves. Although listening to this for aesthetics alone, I consider it a pretty playful, airy piece with a fun bouncy quality.

[adelgab]

I agree. But I think there's more: after all the music written from Mozart to Ligeti, here's someone saying, in a way: Whoa! Wait! What was the original question? What is a piano, and what is it capable of? It is, in an age of superfast racecars, a guy bold enough to try to, if not reinvent, well then, at least understand the basic wheel.

[kutrikb]

Look at it this way: If this was a film soundtrack under the right scene, you would probably like it and you wouldn't even know why the scene is so great.

For example: Bartók's Music for strings, percussions and celesta under Kubrick's Shining.

Doesn't it work? Ok, I understand that piece may be a bit more musical. The point is, as my teacher always says: everything has its own place. Also: how many people has to say that "this piece is good" for the piece to be good?

[servirsidellaluna]

the piano rooster!

[russumm1]

It amazes me how many people waste their time and send spiteful comments about music they do not like.

So, I recommend you listen to what you want to listen to and post positive comments for its videos.

You are not about to change our minds about our respect for Berio, nor will we change your mind.

To my ears, the blandest music in the past 100 years came from composers who "returned" to tonality (as if it went away). Doesn't mean I need to criticize the artists and make rude comments!

[grailmastah]

watched the cythera dvd last night, i had never heard much about berio...and after the dvd, i thought,.....this guy's a hack....this piano piece does little to redeem him

[Generic1987]

This miniature captures the destruction of the western art music formalism.  Listen to contemporary works like you would listen to an interesting sound.

[dazvcc]

A lovely miniature. Could someone tell me if this piece was derived from harmonic developments notated during his early serialist phase like his Piano Sequenza?

[DrBoomy]

:O

What the fuck was that?!

Please explain the astetic quality in that to me! I really seems like its...random crap. I hate these modern composer that instead expanding the boundless horizons of tonal music, that instantly just say 'fuck trying, lets just say every note has equal importance and toss'em on a piece of manuscript'. Modern composing seems like more of a playful game composers might play to see who can make the worst succession of sounds. It seems like a joke. Why respect this?

[SimonCabrera]

OMFG xD I love you! xD Couldn't have said it any better xD

[cephalopod]

Do you seriously think that an educated career composer, who in some way or another rose to be regarded by the intellectual world as a talented and important figure above so many others, is really just saying "fuck trying I'll just do some random shit, nobody will care except maybe it will piss people off or something oh man it's gonna be so bad sounding"??? Do you really think that? OBVIOUSLY, painfully obviously, there is something you're not quite understanding here.

[inafantasy]

I'm NOT understanding it. Explain it.

[cephalopod]

(1) to be honest, I don't know anything about this piece; I could give you an extensive and well-informed explanation of some other Berio pieces, or most Xenakis or Messiaen pieces, but there seems to be little written about this one. And I don't think there needs to be. I may seem to be contradicting what I said before about Berio's music revealing more pleasing features when studied, but I can do nothing but take this piece at face value, which I have no problem with:

[cephalopod]

(2) it is simply enjoyable for me. Having immersed myself extensively in music and noise, I find that tonality has less and less and less significance and bearing on sounds that I can enjoy. I can listen to bands like Cheval de Frise or Behold the Arctopus, and I can listen to Berio and Stockhausen, all with the same aesthetic considerations. Music has reached this point independently of the many people it has left behind.

[cephalopod]

(3) If you listen in the right way, if your tastes conform, this can sound beautiful and purposeful. I truly can't be more explicative than to say that it is a matter of perception and taste. If you find this displeasing I wouldn't worry about it. I find everything I've heard by Sibelius and Saint Saens displeasing and frankly irritating. Others can feel free to enjoy it. No big deal.

[unavoltatanto3485]

Tonality has less and less significance for you in favour of atonality: this is pure nonsense. Tonality and atonality are completely empty categories, if considered in themselves. It would be more fair and honest to say that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler and Ravel fade out and lose sense to you, in favour of Berio, Nono, Boulez and Stockhausen. A world where this happens is such a horrible world, tortured and hollowed by its noisy, disgusting, inhuman modernity.

[cephalopod]

I never said anything like that. Generally, I'd rather listen to any Bach piece then most Berio pieces. But they were working in such different contexts that they are hard to compare. Tonality can occur within atonality and vice versa; I think Messiaen, Ligeti and even Xenakis have proven that. Those composers exhibit little that I could fathom calling 'inhuman modernity'. If you think it's noisy and 'disgusting' you are simply not perceiving the true nature and scope of this type of music.

[unavoltatanto3485]

Hell! I am not talking at all about the greatest works by geniuses like Messiaen or Ligeti. They are worth standing near the greats! I am talking about the post-darmstadt rationalistic, structuralistic experimental music that become the Bible of compositions students all around the world for decades! Bussotti, Berio (except some great, different works), Nono, Donatoni, Kagel, and most Stockhausen... Disorder, Nausea, Aphasia everywhere! The death of Music!

[cephalopod]

Well then, I definitely misinterpreted your perception of 20th century music; a lot of people tend to group everything together after, say, Schoenberg. I can agree with the notion that the musics of Kagel, Nono, Stockhausen et al are obfuscated and usually not fun or enlightening to listen to, but I have certainly enjoyed works from them on some level;but I find that Berio generally has deeper intangible, metaphorical concepts to his works which he is especially adept at translating into music.

[unavoltatanto3485]

Thank you Cephalopod. It is good to express opinions about this dilicate point without insulting each other, and finding a common territory where it is possible to communicate. Too many times, about this point, people are just unable to discuss and everything degenerates into hate.

[thedude69ification]

Your hatred and fear is staggering. Maybe 19th century europe would've suited you better. Where to begin? When I accuse you of ethnocentrism, I'm saying that you're arrogently critizing a cultural group (people who enjoy pantonal music) without any real understanding of it. You hear or see something different, so for you it must be wrong and not valuable. It brings you pleasure to perniciously attack someone's way of finding joy, because you don't understand it.

[thedude69ification]

How dare you. The reason why I enjoy listening to pantonal music, isn't because of insincerity or egoism: After listening to traidic sonorities for decades, I became really bored with what I was hearing. My brain demanded something different and more complex.

[thedude69ification]

Do you regularly listen to children's music? Probably not and for a very simple reason, your tastes change and develop over the years. I enjoy listening to complex sonorities just like I enjoy complex food and wine. I didn't when I was young. Now that Im older, McDonalds is disgusting

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

@thedude69ification

Why wouldn't I listen to children's music? The Rainbow Connection. Lullabys. It has less to do with complexity than taste. Complexity without taste and aethetic judgment is tasteless. Handel was considered one of the simpler composer sand Beethoven called him the greatest. Listen to Kate Royal singing Eternal Source of Light. Vivaldi's Eja Mater. Or for compleity, Scarlatti. The Ariosa. The Magic Of Bulgarian Voices. The Hilliard Ensemble.

[thedude69ification]

That's all very good music, but I get tired of being able to predict what's coming all the time. Give me chinese food once and a while: There's really no way of simplifying what I'm saying than that. Lighten up man. Stop telling other people what to like Stallin.

[thedude69ification]

What am I allowed to listen to then? And how do I know you're being honest? There is, however, a blind acquiescence or submissiveness in the art and entertainment world that drives me crazy too. It's usually because someone wants to make a buck. And like you, I'm also very tired of people telling me what to like and listen to. This is music. And although you may not like it, which is totally ok, that doesnt mean that other should too.

[thedude69ification]

Ask yourself why a landscape is so entertaining and pleasant to look at. How can something with so much "randomess" appear and feel so perfect and organized. Look closely how the trees and branches sub-divide or end up being fractals. Look at the relationships between mountains, wild life and the clouds. Things somtimes only appear to be random. I'm not trying to be narcistic, I'm trying to share something wonderful that continues to bring me pleasure and meaning, in an otherwise empty cosmos

[BaronVonLichtenstein]

@thedude69ification

Because it isn't random. It's a collection of time tested organisms that have survived millenium. Art is not random, but designed. I woudl guess he just improvised that, and anyone on this list could as well.

[thedude69ification]

He's not - check out iannis Xenakis, really learn how he wrote it, and then see how you feel.

[thedude69ification]

Yeeeaaah......So this is where our conversation has to end. I'm being dead serious about this music, yet you are incapable, or simply refuse to see why. We all get our information from other people, not just professors.

[thedude69ification]

You can only attack me personally, rather than attack the substance of my argument. I leave you with this. Try checking out the score and read up on it. Again, you may not like dissonance, which is really at the heart of this, but be a jackass and claim you know something when you haven't looked at the table of content? Well you're a stupid head too.

[Miguel53de]

@thedude69ification It is worthless to explain a blind one the colors. Or a dead one the wind. Don't give and don't loos your heart to a jackass. Enjoy music the way you like and discuss it with your friends. That is much better invested time and feelings. By the way, I agree with all your arguments.

[thedude69ification]

Agreed. But this guy isn't blind, he chooses to keep his eyes shut. This is part of a much larger problem not only in this country, but in the world. In this global village we no longer can afford irrational fear of anything new and foreign. Changing one person's idea can create tidal waves of change in years to come. I had some time, and I choose to challenge someone's misinformed beliefs. I had fun.

[Miguel53de]

@thedude69ification I agree even here compleatly with you. But I found out - specially here in the internet - it is useless to give yor heart to those people. I got some kind of discussions myself on other sides and I learnd to stop it at one point. Give your nice and intelligent comments here and let the others finding out if the follow you or not. Specially do not answer to obviously stupid comments. A rednack is a rednack, you can't convince him to like other colors then his one.

[Miguel53de]

@Miguel53de Part of my work was to organise exhibitions of art and concerts and to build a collection of art. The collection was shown in the offices. I had to deal with too many of those people and their typical reaction: Thats art? I can paint that too. Or: O my child paint those pictures everyday. I gave up to discuss it. I did my job and was happy to have a management with a brain and more wisdome then their employees.

[thedude69ification]

You're simply not listening. What about the rhythm? if the cluster chords were replaced with triads, would you then consider that music?

[lscully2]

Nothing says "Leaf" like this...

[shordyinabox]

wtf, that was so shit

[nlaney89]

What a great performance of this work, Paul Crossley is one of my idols.

[sick0man0joe]

..........una miniatura.......

[laurion69]

Many adiabatic composers coming out of their deception show their mediocre talent.

Berio's comprehensible piano composition "Wasserklavier" is a sample, a piece in which Berio expresses nothing else but a easy late-romantic second-hand language.

[yourforte]

It's interesting to see that Crossley has to use these ridiculous arm movements. It almost seems as if he has to give the music meaning that the music itself doesn't have. I'm afraid I agree with laurion - I think this is senseless. Another example of the Emperor's New Clothes..

[AnarchyAlleyCat]

i disagree , because i think that berio's work is not about it beeing sensless or not.. it's about dearing to do something that's out of mind.. somthing more close to free creation , and not just using classical imprinting , and the same formulas , that all just now that wold work. berio is an artist , and this is the proof ! as if for Crossley i think he did a good work , and the "hand job" is becouse he interprets it too , he lives it ! i'm sorry for my english errors :p

[jaroussky1]

that is really a great piece and performance..

[hexachordal]

I cannot imagine why that stupid arm twist at 0:56 is necessary, but nonetheless a nice rendition.

[fritzomondo]

how about that pedaling!

[opl1n4]

What is this mass of crap?

[laurion69]

Experts say it is a work of art.

If you say it is just a crap, you'll be insulted by them, 'cause they are more clever than you.

:-)

[laurion69]

A clown-rendition of a clown-composition.

Senseless music!

[Shahakazaramesh]

Only senseless if you're ignorant...

[laurion69]

Oh no, Shahakazaramesh.

It's not that I'm ignorant, you just got an anaware brainwashing!

[Shahakazaramesh]

Yeah, those anaware brainwashings are the worst...

Just because it isn't common practice doesn't mean it's "senseless." You are free to dislike the aesthetic, but just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's "senseless."

Berio's music is not in the least bit senseless - he simply composes using systems and aesthetics that you are not used to. Until you sit down with a piece like this and get to know the composition, you are unqualified to make comments about how much "sense" it has.

[laurion69]

Ma che cazzo fa 'sto pagliaccio con questa porcheria?

[Tidicappahacca]

Che bel commento, Laurion.

[kingberzerk]

I'm very interested to see a clip where he plays his Ravel repertoire.