Berio's Folksongs arrangements

I just discovered these pieces yesterday (we were having a session on vocal pieces), and I must say they are something more than incredible. They were written in 1964 and it's a song cycle consisting of settings of traditional songs from various countries.

You can find a few of the songs here:

YouTube - Cristina Zavalloni , Berio Follk Songs (and click on the first "related" videos as well). This one is personally one of my favourite of the collection

I love the folksongs ♥♥♥♥♥

actually, basically anything by berio rocks.

oh yeah

interesting.

I've been waiting for cello to start , but never did.

folk music is a fresh water at times. this music is one of these times.

I'm wondering. Should Berio be credited for this? It's not like Bartok that he took and formulated "ethnic" music into his own music. He took the melodies, kept them at that and added an... accompany...

Just questioning.

The videos are great and the arrangements are also very well made. And I love Berio to his other works.

Of course he should Although the lyrics and melody are not his, he makes them what they are. And the solo viola in "Black is the colour of my true love's hair" is his, not folk, although it sounds like a fiddle. He interpreted these songs and made them concert songs, it's like a photographer taking a photograph of a village: the village is not his, but the photograph, the village at that very particular small period of time represented on paper as it is, that's his. And that's what's Berio's Berio didn't say he wrote the melody or lyrics; if he did say that, that would be wrong.

Although I don't see why we should give more credits to Stravinsky for using a well-known Lithuanian folk-tune in the beginning of his Rite of Spring, although he supported that he never used folk tunes/themes in his music (which is proven wrong, with pieces like this, Pribaoutki and the 3 pieces for clarinet)

Everyone knows that Igor was a bit of a bastard... He said various bullcrap only to take them back decades later!

But in this case, I found that Berio's input was rather "minimal", if I may say so. With all due respect and this is only the impression from 4 youtube videos, right? That's what I mean, where Stravinsky had plenty to do with the rite of spring, even if he did bastardise tons of melodies (not only one)... Same with Bartok, where he took melodies but made them his own.

Ok, it seems in this particular set of songs, Berio didn't have as much output as he could/should. But among all people who used traditional elements in their music, I find Bartok's to be the most incredibly integrated