The past as future: Luciano Berio

In the aftermath of the Second World War, many composers of Luciano Berio’s generation felt obliged to wipe the slate clean. To a composer with roots as deep in the achievements of the past four centuries as Berio, this was never an option.

His work constantly re-invented continuities where others saw only the possibilities of rupture. Not that he was ever tempted by the assorted nostalgias that haunted some part of the music of the last century. On the contrary, he maintained an insatiable curiosity about the explorations of his contemporaries – musical or otherwise. But his dialogues with literature, with linguistics, with structural anthropology, [...]