Thinking About Berio

Richard Dyer remembers composer Luciano Berio, who died this week at the age of 77: “While Berio was fond of generic titles – ‘Chorus,’ ‘Symphony,’ ‘Opera’ – his work was anything but generic as he reinvented and revitalized old forms. His music appealed to traditionalists because it carried the past within it; it appealed to the young because of its theatricality and its political conviction; it appealed to the avant-garde because of its tough, original thinking – which always emerged with an Italianate glow.”