“A Rumour of History”: An Approach to the Poetics of Literary and Musical Montage in Laborintus II (1963-1965) by Edoardo Sanguineti and Luciano Berio

Abstract

The practice of montage constituted one of the major aspects of twentieth-century artistic production and art criticism. The retrieval of preexistent materials and their incorporation to a new totality, by means of juxtaposition, not only represented a relevant strategy—which was susceptible to be used in different artistic realms—but also stimulated important interdisciplinary encounters. This article, which is based on the approach to the collaborative work Laborintus II (1963-1965) by the writer Edoardo Sanguineti and the composer Luciano Berio, centers on the study of literary and musical montage. This research aims both to understand the strategies with which the formal and thematic correspondences are established between varied artistic practices, and to enlighten the critical scope that derived from these encounters. To do so, this paper presents a brief characterization of montage as an artistic procedure and its literary and musical manifestations along the twentieth century. Furthermore, it explores the parallel trajectories of both Sanguineti and Berio, as well as the ways in which they envisaged a poetics of literary montage and a poetics of musical montage, respectively. Moreover, this article analyzes the internal organization of Laborintus II and displays the reciprocity of the montage conceived by both artists, in the formal realm as well as in the critical perspectives endorsed by this work of art. Lastly, an assessment of the timeliness of both the piece and the strategies of literary and musical composition conceived by Sanguineti and Berio is offered.