The Sequenza of Berio is for me a special piece from the oboe repertoire. It is one of the only piece coming from what we consider modern music which oboe players arriving to a certain level need to master because this piece is now being asked in most of international competitions and even sometimes for audition for certain ensembles. This piece is also one of the most challenging of our repertoire. Written in 1969, this piece includes many difficulties for the performer such as extended techniques and high level technical difficulties. Because of the many audio versions that are available, it is in our days possible to get an idea of how the piece can be performed. however, I have made in this research a comparison between two reference recordings and how many differences can be found. Some other versions of the piece have been made in order to help the performers to practice the Sequenza. Jaqueline Leclair wrote a “a” version that can be found when you buy the piece in the store. That version, with the allowance of Berio, is a measured version of the piece intended to help the performer play the piece in a literal way and gives guidance regarding the tempo and the necessary time for this piece to be performed. This version has been refused by Heinz Holliger, who argued in letters with J. Leclair about how difficult and out of context her version can be, compared to the normal version. We will see in this research that this version is actually irrelevant to the original concept/idea of the piece if performed literally and also that it brings more troubles that it solves problems because of the impossibility to perform the piece in such a tempo.
The method I used to go through this process is, based on a reference recording, to show the difficulties point per point. For more clarity, I have divided the research per section, and I have put in each section the difficulties that were relevant to me, according to the comparison I have made between versions of the piece, and my own technical struggles. On each of those difficulties, there is a recording of the experimentation, including different ways of playing it, and a recording of which version is the easiest for the performer. Each result and their difficulties have been discussed with one of my three specialists and experimented and recorded by myself so I strongly believe in the result of each of the difficulties I am talking about. Also, every oboe player is different and the best way of tackling those technical issues might be different for all of us, so what I am trying to do here is to help the performer who perform his piece and the results are all according to my own way of playing and of my strong and weak point as a oboe player. I would recommend to the reader to have a flexible view on that work and to take what is helpful for the player. I would be glad to have any performer telling me that he would have used one section of this whole research.
