Cascando

First American edition of Beckett's translation from the French of his radio play, Cascando. New York: Grove Press, 1968

Cascando is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. 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."[1] The term cascando[2] ('cascades') involves the decrease of volume and the deceleration of tempo.

Cascando is also the title of a 1936 poem by Beckett.

  1. ^ Bair, D., Samuel Beckett: A Biography (London: Vintage, 1990), p 574
  2. ^ "From the Italian, it means stumbling, falling, tumbling, and is usually associated with rubble or jumbled ruins." - Bair, D., Samuel Beckett: A Biography (London: Vintage, 1990), p 574