BERIO: SINFONIA, CONCERTO FOR

Prophets of the New is a series from Sony focusing on classic recordings of the 20th century's most revolutionary works. "[Sinfonia] is a wild, four-movement work and shows the new direction music is taking. Gone are the strict constructions and parameters of serialism. Instead there is a concentration on pure sound... With the Swingle Singers grouped around microphones, breaking the language (French and English, mostly) into bits of sound components, and with the orchestra often blasting away with fortissimo chords that contained all 12 notes of the scale, there was not a dull moment anywhere... It is one of the musics of the future." -- Harold C. Schonberg, The New York Times "...the Swingle Singers perform this music as if their lives depended on it. Sinfonia becomes a piece of musical theater on that recording..." -- Raymond Tuttle, www.classical.net