Cascando
It was written in French in December 1961, subtitled Invention radiophonique pour musique et voix, with music by the Franco-Romanian composer Marcel Mihalovici.
It was first broadcast on France Culture on 13 October 1963 with Roger Blin (L'Ouvreur) and Jean Martin (La Voix).
The first English production was on 6 October 1964 on BBC Radio 3 with Denys Hawthorne (Opener) and Patrick Magee (Voice).
"The play was originally to be called Calando, a musical term meaning 'diminishing in tone' (equivalent to diminuendo or decrescendo), but Beckett changed it when ORTF officials pointed out that calendos was the slang word for camembert in French.
The music was then composed separately by Marcel Mihalovici, who, of course, at that time had the text as guidance, and only then were the three parts combined and produced in the studio by [the director].
"[3] The play opens with a familiar Beckettian theme, the search to put an end to language: "—story .
Broadly speaking words convey meaning, music feeling; Opener is trying to combine these two elements to tell a more rounded version of his story.
Like other Beckett characters (e.g. May in Footfalls[14]), writing, although clearly not the most pleasant of activities, sustains him: “they don’t see what I live on.”[11] (Roberta Satow's article on "repetition compulsion" makes interesting reading here: https://web.archive.org/web/20100117153938/http://www.robertasatow.com/psych.html).
His output was certainly not large and he was plagued with long bouts of ‘Writer's block', always stuck "between the limitations of words and the infinity of feelings"[15] as Kafka put it, and yet this aspect of him kept pushing him a little further from the shore, metaphorically speaking.
When instructed by Opener Voice begins mid-sentence, reminiscent of Krapp's taped diary entries.
Voice jumps straight to describing his ongoing need to complete a last story, to say what needs to be said, and keep on with this tale until its end; then he will be able to "rest [and] sleep … not before.
[17] Throughout the play Voice returns to these thoughts, willing himself on, determined this will be his final attempt, convinced this is the right story.
Beckett told his friend, the scholar Alec Reid that this play is "about the character Woburn who never appears".
[20] Woburn/Maunu has had a long life and a misfortunate one which has changed him but he's still recognizable as the man he once was five or even ten years earlier.
Two routes present themselves: “right the sea … left the hills … he has the choice.”[4] “Voice delivers his lines in a rapid, panting, almost unintelligible stream, very much like Mouth in Not I.
Beckett refers to the road as a "boreen" which gives us a specific location for the story, Ireland.
Woburn, we learn, is a huge man, dressed in an old coat with a broad brimmed hat jammed on his head.
He's been here before, a long time ago perhaps but he is still anxious in case he is identified; the night is too bright and the beach offers no cover but he's in luck, there's not a soul about.
In the original French "libretto",[23] as Vivian Mercier calls the text, there are only two 'musical' stage directions: “brève” (“brief”), used twice and “faiblissant” (“weakening”) which occurs only once.
"[28] Humphey Searle's approach was to work with leitmotifs: "The chief motif, 'Woburn', would, Humphrey thought, be associated with the flute.
Other motifs would be the 'island' and 'the journey', one linked with ethereal light and space, the other with restlessness and images of falling, getting up again, walking with a stick and so on.
"[29] A more recent version was composed by Martin Pearlman on a commission by the 92nd Street Y in New York for the Beckett centennial (2006).
Lloyd Schwartz of the Boston Phoenix wrote that "Pearlman's evocative music seemed so right for these unsettling plays, it's now hard for me to imagine them without it.
of the Pacific, ( for electric guitar and other sounds) 1971 [2] List of music students by teacher: T to Z Philip Glass: Mabou Mines, 1975 (Apmonia entry on Glass) Wayne Horvitz: Theater for Your Mother, 1979 (for trumpet and vocalists) [3] Humphrey Searle: Produced by: Katherine Worth for UL-AVC, 1984 William Kraft: co-production of Voices International and Horspiel Studio lll, WDR, 1989[32] Peter Jacquemyn: BRT, 1991 Gerard Victory: RTÉ radio broadcast, 1991 Dan Plonsey: Three Chairs Productions, 2002 [4] Obadiah Eaves: Division 13 Productions, 2003 [5] David J (founding member Bauhaus/Love and Rockets): Devaughan Theatre, 2005 David Tam: WKCR in association with Columbia University Arts Initiative, 2006 Martin Pearlman: 92nd Street Y Poets’ Theatre in association with Nine Circles Chamber Theater, 2006 Paul Clark: Gare St Lazare Players Ireland, RTÉ radio broadcast, 2006 Elisabeth Lutyens: Cascando, for contralto, solo violin and strings, 1977 Charles Dodge: Cascando, 1978 (Dodge used electronic sounds for Voice and Music, while retaining a human voice for the part of Opener).
