This special issue of twentieth-century music is not ‘in memoriam’ David Osmond-Smith, nor is it, in the mandatory positivity of our times, a ‘celebration’. Now that five years have passed since Osmond-Smith's death, it is time rather for a reassessment of his work and its significance for twentieth-century music studies. At the core of this volume is a cluster of late writings that remained unfinished or unpublished at the time of his death. They are complemented by one of his earliest and least accessible publications, reprinted as an appendix to the article by Ben Curry. It goes without saying that these texts, bookending as they do his academic career, are not wholly representative of Osmond-Smith's work; readers are referred in particular to his two important (though concise) monographs on the work of Luciano Berio: Playing on Words and Berio.
Born in Worthing (West Sussex) in 1946, Osmond-Smith read music at Cambridge and undertook doctoral studies at York, followed by stints in Milan to work with Umberto Eco and Paris to study with Roland Barthes. In 1973 he joined the fledgling Music Department at the University of Sussex, which he did much to shape intellectually, acceding to a Chair in 1994. Having suffered from AIDS-related illnesses for many years, he took early retirement in 2004. Since his condition had stabilized, his death in 2007 came unexpectedly.
Of the many tasks that had to be performed immediately following his passing, one was finding any unfinished or unpublished work, and another was identifying suitable opportunities for publication. Fortunately, he kept the files on his computer well organized, so the former task was relatively easy to solve. It would appear, however, that he was not in the habit of drafting or recording plans: the great majority of the extant material consists either of complete texts or of work-in-progress clearly destined for publication (or at least written for the benefit of readers other than himself). While a notebook and a small bundle of sheets with hand-written jottings were also found, these proved to be of very limited use.
Two book chapters were in press at the time of his death, ‘The Ethics of Formalisation: Some Recent Italian Examples’ and ‘Temps perdu: Aldo Clementi and the Eclipse of Music as Praxis’ (details in the bibliography of his writings below). I oversaw the editorial process for both, although the quality of his writing meant that in neither case was there much to do. The greatest importance was attached to salvaging whatever there was of the substantial book on Berio that was known to be in progress. It is probably fair to say that everyone involved felt a degree of disappointment on finding that only the first chapter had been completed in draft form and that, except for the outline proposal (presumably prepared for future submission to a publisher and included here), there was precious little material for the remainder of the book. It was well known among friends and colleagues that Osmond-Smith had been working on the book for quite some time, so there was a widespread assumption that it had progressed further than it had – except that, in keeping with his working methods mentioned above, he may have had quite detailed plans in his mind. (It should not be forgotten either that the disability brought on by his condition made writing, whether by hand or using a computer, a slow and laborious process, such that he may well have tried to restrict it to what was strictly necessary.)
‘Masculine Semiotics’, published here for the first time, was destined for publication in Italian, but this has yet to materialize. I am indebted to Ben Earle for reminding me of that fact and for insisting on the essay's importance. It is coupled here with another late piece, ‘Voicing the Labyrinth’, which appeared in Osmond-Smith's lifetime only in French translation: this is its first publication in the original English. These texts illustrate both continuity and change in Osmond-Smith's work throughout his career. The continuities are expressed in the title of this volume, which introduces semiotics and politics alongside music. As many readers will be aware, and as is clear from this double issue, despite wide and varied interests, both in music and beyond, Osmond-Smith's primary research area throughout his life was twentieth-century Italian music, notably that of Luciano Berio. While his theoretical interest in semiotics is well documented and expertly discussed here by Ben Curry, this was complemented by a somewhat less overt but nonetheless similarly crucial indebtedness to Adorno and the work of the Frankfurt School. It is no coincidence that both the earliest and the latest essay represented here cite Adorno; the relative inconspicuousness of these citations should not be read as an indication of their lack of importance. Not uncommonly for a scholar who came of age during the 1970s, semiotics and Frankfurt School critical theory provided the twin pillars of his intellectual edifice. While he perhaps contributed more directly to the former in his publications, at least in later years he leant more in the opposite direction in his teaching and in conversation.
In Osmond-Smith's thinking semiotics and critical theory must have been interrelated. If I may speculate on the nature of this connection, semiotics allowed him to analyse the mechanics of what Curry calls ‘external signification’ with some rigour, while critical theory provided him with a clearer idea of the content of that signification. To put it the other way around, it is its social function, analysed by means of critical theory, that gives music meaning, but how that meaning is concretely embodied or expressed by the music is a matter for semiotics to investigate.
Despite his pioneering role in introducing semiotics and the Frankfurt School to British if not English-speaking musicology, Osmond-Smith seems not to have taken much notice of, let alone responded to, later developments in cultural theory. Although there are changes of emphasis and approach in his later work, these seem not to have been occasioned by new theoretical influences. Furthermore, what influence he did have on methodological debate was somewhat undermined by his hesitancy to produce substantial publications that adequately represented his thinking. While his publication list is hardly insubstantial, it is dominated by short, often occasional writings. Yet his impact should not be measured by his publication record alone. Despite the elegance of his style, he was, in his own estimation and in that of most of his students, friends, and colleagues, a teacher, conversationalist, and raconteur first, and a writer second.
But there is another reason why his importance is perhaps in danger of being underestimated, and this has to do with the changes in his interests. Although Osmond-Smith started out as a theorist, he gradually became more interested in what one may call practical criticism. Whereas, as Ben Curry details, his early articles in music semiotics seemed designed to put that new subject on a firmer footing, he soon became absorbed by the desire to arrive at a better understanding of specific pieces of music or the music of a particular composer, a change of emphasis which is accompanied by a commensurately more essayistic writing style. In conversation he highlighted a similar development in the work of his erstwhile teacher Roland Barthes. His pioneering work on Berio's Sinfonia, Playing on Words, which for many (including my undergraduate-student self) set the standard for contemporary music studies, still relied on a formidable theoretical apparatus. Not least due to the requirements of its format, his monograph Berio already wore its methodological ambitions much more lightly. The dazzling combination of historical scholarship, cultural critique, theoretical insight, and analytical close-reading exhibited in ‘Masculine Semiotics’ probably best encapsulates his mature work. It can hardly be claimed that the essay lacks theoretical ambition, but this is now decidedly a means to an end, not an end in itself. As Ben Earle's introductory footnote indicates, though, due to the article's ostensible focus on Goffredo Petrassi, a composer not currently near the top of the musicological agenda in the English-speaking world, it is unlikely to receive the attention that it arguably deserves.
If, whether justly or unjustly, his influence as a theorist therefore remains limited, it is as a critic that Osmond-Smith's work remains exemplary. Balancing the demands of analytical close reading, cultural theory, and historical scholarship is an ideal that is rarely reached at the best of times; combining all this with lucid and engaging writing is well-nigh unique. And yet, Osmond-Smith achieved this arguably before music analysis had developed a canon of ‘approved’ methods and before the ‘new musicology’ made the reference to cultural theory mainstream. It is his ability to remain attentive to the specificity of the work at hand, while at the same time bringing to it the full awareness of its historical and cultural contexts and relevant theoretical insights, that still has a lot to teach us. It is therefore extremely gratifying to witness Osmond-Smith's writings finally seeing the light of day in an appropriate form, even more so in the company of work by younger scholars, who respond to some of the issues brought up in Osmond-Smith's work and, in doing so, exhibit some of the same qualities just mentioned.
It is Ben Curry, in his appraisal of the early essays on music semiotics, who engages most directly with Osmond-Smith's work. Curry's article is complemented by Giles Hooper's more general account of anglophone music semiotics, which puts Osmond-Smith's contribution to that field in perspective. Two contributions discuss the work of Berio's foremost Italian contemporary, Luigi Nono, and both engage – arguably cannot but engage – with the fraught cultural and ideological climate of post-war Italy. Wesley Phillips relates Nono to one of Osmond-Smith's enduring theoretical interests mentioned previously: the philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno. It is hardly a mere coincidence that Phillips's highlighting of Adorno's comparison of music and painting registers with Osmond-Smith's observation in ‘Masculine Semiotics’ of how, in the twentieth century, it was often through musical and visual media, rather than verbal propositions, that ‘ideology crystallized’ (12). Angela Ida De Benedictis, meanwhile, provides a meticulously researched account of the genesis of Nono's Intolleranza 1960, illustrating how, after the composer's collaboration with the original librettist (Angelo Maria Ripellino) had foundered, his plans, in particular regarding pitch structure, were ultimately compromised by the overwhelming need to rush out viable material in time. Apart from the subject matter it is, once again, the combination of historical scholarship and analytical precision that is reminiscent of the best of Osmond-Smith's work.
Ulrich J. Blomann's ‘A Semblance of Freedom’ seems superficially less directly related to Osmond-Smith's concerns. Yet Blomann too delves into the fraught terrain of the cultural politics of the Cold War and their impact on music, undermining received wisdoms and cherished beliefs in the process. As Blomann demonstrates, like Nono, Karl Amadeus Hartmann became the victim of a resurgent anti-communism during the Cold War, which seemed in many ways inherited directly from the Third Reich and which makes the claims of the West to represent ‘the free world’ sound hollow.
Blomann's direct reference to politics points to a strange absence, an empty centre, in Osmond-Smith's own work. For all his familiarity with and frequent reference to Marxist theory, not only that of the Frankfurt School, his actual political allegiances were less than clear (at least to me). His dismissal of popular culture – in the writings presented here and elsewhere – may have been indebted to Adorno, but it also hints at a tendency towards elitism which was rarely far from the surface. Likewise, although the first chapter of his planned Berio book published here seems informed by a relatively uncontroversial, tacitly liberal view of Fascism, ‘Masculine Semiotics’ strikes a different tone. Its implicit critique of representative democracy, about which Osmond-Smith rarely concealed his scepticism, could potentially be the result of Marxist convictions. Yet, at the same time, many sections in the article seem to go in the opposite direction, hinting at a certain admiration for the grander aspects of the Fascist project. While this may be unsettling for many readers, it was very much part of Osmond-Smith's flamboyant personality, an aspect that may be difficult to appreciate in print but that readers need to be aware of and potentially engage with.
Books
Playing on Words: a Guide to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia. London: Royal Musical Association 1985; 2nd edn, 1989. It trans. Giocando con le parole. Turin: Einaudi, 1994.
Berio. Oxford Studies of Composers 20. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Japanese trans. by Yoriaku Matsudaira. Tokyo: Seidosha, 1999.
Articles in books and conference proceedings
‘Iconic Relations within Formal Transformation’, in Actes du 1er congrès internationale de sémiotique musicale / Proceedings of the 1st International Congress on Semiotics of Music, Belgrade 1973, ed. Gino Stefani. Pesaro: Centro di Iniziativa Culturale, 1975. 45–55.
‘Introduction générale à une methode d'analyse sémiotique formelle de la musique’, in La musique en projet. Collection Cahiers Renaud-Barrault / IRCAM. Paris: Gallimard, 1975. 173–88.
‘The Role of a Typology of Transformations within the Semiotics of Musical Form’, in A Semiotic Landscape / Panorama Sémiotique: Proceedings of the 1st Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Milan 1974, ed. Seymour Chatman, Umberto Eco, and Jean-Marie Klinkenberg. The Hague: Mouton, 1979. 1025–8.
‘Retreat from Dynamism: a Study of Brahms's Fourth Symphony’, in Brahms: Biographical, Documentary and Analytical Studies, ed. Robert Pascall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 147–65. Rev. version in Brahms Symphony no. 4 in E minor, Op. 98: Authoritative Score, Background, Criticism, Analysis, ed. Kenneth Hull. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. 252–70.
‘Op. 27/127’, in Musicacittà, ed. Luciano Berio. Bari: Laterza, 1984. 114–31.
‘Il linguaggio armonico di Busoni: un problema faustiano’, in Il flusso del tempo, ed. Sergio Sablich and Rossana Dalmonte. Milan: Unicopli, 1986. 338–44.
‘Multum in parvo: the Music of Luciano Berio, in Komponisten des 20 Jahrhunderts in der Paul Sacher Stiftung, ed. Hans Jörg Jans, Felix Meyer, and Ingrid Westen. Basel: Paul Sacher Stiftung, 1986. 347–9.
‘Entre musique et langage’, in La musique et les sciences cognitives, ed. Stephen McAdams et Irène Deliège. Liège: Mardaga, 1989. (Translation of article in Contemporary Music Review 4 (1989): see below.)
‘Brahms's Third and Fourth Symphonies’, in Lo spazio di Brahms, ed. Giuseppe Pugliese. Treviso: Matteo, 1990. 157–66.
‘Prima la musica e poi quante parole?’, in La nuova musica fra compositori, organizzatori e interpreti. Brescia: [n. p.], 1990. 131–3.
‘Aspetti della musica pianistica di Berio’, in Da Beethoven a Boulez: il pianoforte in ventidue saggi, ed. Paolo Petazzi. Milan: Longanesi, 1994. 195–8.
‘La Vera Storia’, in Berio, ed. Enzo Restagno. Turin: Edizioni di Torino, 1995. 88–97.
‘Luciano Berio: Sequenza III (1965–66)’, in Settling New Scores: Music Manuscripts from the Paul Sacher Stiftung, ed. Felix Meyer. Basel: Paul Sacher Foundation, 1998. 144–6.
Contributions to Settling the Score, ed. Michael Oliver. London: Faber & Faber, 1999. 19, 23, 27, 101, 106–7.
‘Here Comes Nobody: la dramaturgia sperimentale di Outis’, in Sequenze per Luciano Berio. Milan: Ricordi, 2000. 165–81. Eng. version in Cambridge Opera Journal, 12/2 (2001): see below.
‘Infinità finita: due avventure liriche’, in Per Giacomo Manzoni, ed. Carmelo di Gennaro and Luigi Pestalozza. Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2002. 99–104.
Preface to Gianluigi Mattieti, Geometrie di musica: il periodo diatonico di Aldo Clementi. Lucca: LIM, 2002, v–vi.
‘La disciplina del privato: una prospettiva sulle opere 116–119 di Brahms’, in Maurizio Pollini: ritratto di un artista, ed. Enzo Restagno. Milan, Skira, 2003. 193–204.
‘New Beginnings: the International Avant-Garde, 1945–62’, in The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music, ed. Nicholas Cook and Anthony Pople. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 336–64.
‘“Als geübteste Ferne”: Birtwistle incontra Celan’, in I silenzi della poesia e le voci della musica: Atti del convegno internazionale Torino, 16 settembre 2004, ed. Luigi Forte. Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2005. 57–77.
‘Articuler le labyrinthe: collaborations entre Edoardo Sanguineti et Luciano Berio’, in Musiques vocales en Italie depuis 1945, ed. Pierre Michel and Gianmario Borio. Notre Dame de Bliquetuit: Millénaire III, 2005. 109–33. Orig. Eng. version pubd in this issue.
‘Introduction’ to Berio's Sequenzas: Essays on Performance, Composition and Analysis, ed. Janet K. Halfyard. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. 1–8.
‘Prove di fede: appunti sulla formazione ideologica di Luigi Dallapiccola’, in Luigi Dallapiccola e suo secolo, ed. Fiamma Nicolodi. Florence: Olschki, 2007. 21–32.
‘The Ethics of Formalisation: Some Recent Italian Examples’, in La musique et la scène: l'écriture musicale et son expression scénique au XXe siècle, ed. Giordano Ferrari. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2007. 83–102.
‘Temps perdu: Aldo Clementi and the Eclipse of Music as Praxis’, in The Modernist Legacy: Essays on New Music, ed. Björn Heile. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. 123–34.
Articles in journals and periodicals
‘Music as Communication: Semiology or Morphology?’. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 2/1 (1971), 108–11.
‘The Iconic Process in Musical Communication’. VS [Versus]: Quaderni di studi semiotici 3 (1972), 31–42. Reprinted in this issue.
‘Formal Iconism in Music’. VS [Versus]: Quaderni di studi semiotici 5 (1973), 43–54. French version, ‘L'iconisme formel: pour une typologie des transformations musicales’. Semiotica 15/1 (1976), 33–47.
‘Problems of Terminology and Method in the Semiotics of Music’. Semiotica 11/3 (1974), 269–94.
‘Berio and the Art of Commentary’. Musical Times 116 (1975), 871–2.
‘Berio in London’. Music and Musicians 23/7 (1975), 18–19.
‘The Semantics of Pluralism: a Study of Connotations of Origin and Use in Music’. VS [Versus]: Quaderni di studi semiotici 13 (1976), 5–10.
‘From Myth to Music: Lévi-Strauss's Mythologiques and Berio's Sinfonia’. Musical Quarterly 67/2 (1981), 230–60.
‘The Mathematics of Chauvinism: Mozart's Metric Structures’. Adam International Review 422–4 (1981), 74–81.
‘Au creux néant musicien: Recent Work by Aldo Clementi’. Contact 23 (1981), 5–9.
‘Joyce, Berio et l'art de l'explosition’. Contrechamps 1 (1983), 83–9.
‘Radical Challenge’ (on Aldo Clementi, Franco Donatoni, Camillo Togni). The Listener, 6 December 1984, pp. 38–9.
‘Intimate Rapport: Berio's Coro and Requies’. The Listener, 28 November 1985, p. 38.
‘Extending Melody: Vic Hoyland's In Transit’. The Listener, 30 July 1987, pp. 28–9.
‘Reinventing the Orchestra: Berio's Concerto for Two Pianos and Formazioni’. The Listener, 5 November 1987, pp. 40–41.
‘Conference Report: Symposium on Music and the Cognitive Sciences (Pompidou Centre, Paris, 14–18 March 1988)’. Music Analysis 7/3 (1988), 369–72.
‘Between Music and Language: a View from the Bridge’. Contemporary Music Review 4 (1989), 89–100.
‘Jeux de cache-cache’. Le monde de la musique 120 (1989), 41–2.
‘Prospero's Peace: the Making of Berio's Opera Un re in ascolto’. The Listener, 9 February 1989, pp. 34–5.
‘Sinfonia de Luciano Berio (O King)’. InHarmoniques 5 (1989), 180–200 (translation of chapter from Playing on Words).
‘A Wide Arc: the Range and Variety of Petrassi's Achievement’. The Listener, 23 November 1989, pp. 42–3.
‘La mesure de la distance: Rendering de Berio’. InHarmoniques 7 (1991), 147–52.
‘Beyond Fox-Hunting: Hoyland's Vixen’. Musical Times 138/July (1997), 5–9.
‘Nella festa tutto? Structure and Dramaturgy in Luciano Berio's La vera storia’. Cambridge Opera Journal 9/3 (1997), 281–94.
‘Here Comes Nobody: a Dramaturgical Exploration of Luciano Berio's Outis’. Cambridge Opera Journal 12/2 (2001), 163–78.
‘The Tenth Oscillator: the Work of Cathy Berberian, 1958–1966’. Tempo 227 (2004), 2–13.
(with Paul Attinello). ‘Gay Darmstadt: Flamboyance and Rigour at the Summer Courses for New Music’. Contemporary Music Review 26/1 (2007), 105–14.
‘Masculine Semiotics: the Music of Goffredo Petrassi and the Figurative Arts in Italy during the 1930s’. Pubd in this issue.
‘Voicing the Labyrinth: The Collaborations of Edoardo Sanguineti and Luciano Berio’ (2003). Pubd in this issue.
Reviews of books, scores, and recordings
Abbri, Ferdinando. Un altro paesaggio: studi sulla musica brittanica del Novecento. Saggiatore musicale 11/1 (2004), 222–5.
Berio, Luciano. Scores of Sequenza I (revd version), Ricorrenze, Rendering. Musical Times 134 (1993), 80–81.
Biasin, Gian-Paolo. Montale, Debussy and Modernism. Music & Letters 72/1 (1991), 149–50.
Bussotti, Sylvano. The Rara Requiem, Bergkristall, Lorenzaccio Symphony. 2CD, Deutsche Grammophon 437 739-2. Musical Times 134 (1993), 520–21.
Dalmonte, Rossana, ed. Il gesto della forma: musica, poesia, teatro nell'opera di Luciano Berio. Music & Letters 63/1–2 (1982), 101–2.
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. Fondements d'une sémiologie de la musique. Times Literary Supplement, 3 December 1976, p. 1522.
Orledge, Robert. Satie the Composer. Times Literary Supplement, 1 February 1991, p. 17.
Restagno, Enzo, ed. Luigi Nono. Musical Times 131 (1990), 202–3.
Rosen, Charles. Sonata Forms. Music Analysis 1/2 (1982), 231–8.
Steinitz, Richard. György Ligeti: Music of the Imagination. Times Literary Supplement, 30 January 2004.
Articles in dictionaries and encyclopedias
‘Berio, Luciano’, in Makers of Modern Culture, ed. Justin Wintle. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 48–9.
25 entries (Berio, Clementi, Corghi, Ferrero, Gentilucci, Guarnieri, Manzoni, Nono, Pennisi, Sciarrino, Sinopoli, Togni, and Tutino, as well as associated entries on individual operas) in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie. 4 vols. London: Macmillan, 1992.
12 entries (Berio, Bussotti, Clementi, Dallapiccola, Ferrero, Guarnieri, Maderna, Manzoni, Nono, Petrassi, Sciarrino, and Togni) in The Viking Opera Guide, ed. Amanda Holden, with Nicholas Kenyon and Stephen Walsh. London: Viking, 1993.
8 entries (Berio, Bussotti, Clementi, Donatoni, Manzoni, Pennisi, Sciarrino, and Togni) in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. 29 vols. London: Macmillan, 2001.
5 new entries (Battistelli, Corghi, Donatoni, Pennisi, and Vacchi) and revisions of 12 entries (see above under The Viking Opera Guide) in The New Penguin Opera Guide, ed. Amanda Holden. London: Penguin, 2001.
Programme notes
‘Classicismo? Le opere giovanili di Schubert’, in book of essays for Orchestra Regionale Toscana, 1982–3 season. 63–72.
‘Music in Post-War Italy’, Proms 86: Complete Programme of the 92nd Season, 18 July – 13 September 1986. London: BBC, 1986. 28–9.
‘Parole e musica in La vera storia’, in handbook of 49o Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro Comunale, Florence, 1986. 37–43.
‘Il Masque’, in handbook of 50o Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, ed. Mauro Conti. Teatro Comunale, Florence, 1987. 191–9.
‘Berio's Theatre’, in programme book for Un re in ascolto, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, February 1989. Repr. in Ars musica (1990), 67–72.
‘Beyond Narrative: Berio's Music Theatre’, in programme book for Outis, Teatro all Scala, Milan, 1996. Ger. version, ‘Jenseits des Narrativen: das Musiktheater von Luciano Berio’, programme book for Salzburger Festspiele 1999. 16–21. Fr. version, ‘Au delà du récit: le théâtre musical de Luciano Berio’, in programme book for Festival de l'Automne, Paris, 1999. 34–9.
‘Concerto per due pianoforte e orchestra’. Katia and Marielle Labèque, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, cond. Manfred Honeck. 5o Festival di Milano Musica. Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 13 October 1996.
‘Das Geheimnis entschlüsseln: zum Werk von Luciano Berio’, programme book for Gütersloh '99: Luciano Berio, 29–33.
Programme notes on Berio, Sequenza IX and Récit. Concert, Claude Delangle (saxophone), Pascal Gallois (bassoon), BBC Singers and Symphony Orchestra, cond. Luciano Berio. Royal Festival Hall, London, 8 February 2000.
Programme note on Berio, Solo. Christian Lindberg (trombone), BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Jukka-Pekka Saraste. BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, 11 August 2000.
‘Un no man's land fertile: Francesconi et le théâtre musical’, in programme book for Luca Francesconi, Ballata, Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, October 2002.
Programme note on Berio's Stanze. Andreas Schmidt (baritone), London Voices, Orchestre de Paris, cond. Christoph Eschenbach. BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, 28 August 2004.
‘Break-Out from the Concert Hall’, in programme book for Luigi Nono, Royal Festival Hall, London, 27 April 2005.
Translations and English-language editions
Berio, Luciano. Two Interviews, with Rossana Dalmonte and Bálint András Varga. London: Marion Boyars, 1985.
_____. ‘Of Sounds and Images’. Cambridge Opera Journal 9/3 (1997), 295–9.
_____, and Italo Calvino. The True Story: an English performing version of Luciano Berio's and Italo Calvino's La Vera Storia. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1987.
Bettetini, Gianfranco. The Language and Technique of the Film. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.
Clementi, Aldo. ‘A Commentary on My Own Music’. Contact 23 (1981), 4.
Eco, Umberto. ‘A Componential Analysis of the Architectural Sign /Column/’. Semiotica 5/2 (1972), 97–117.
_____. ‘Introduction to a Semiotics of Iconic Signs’. VS [Versus]: Quaderni di studi semiotici 2 (1972), 1–15.
_____. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.Footnote 1
_____. ‘“Eco in ascolto”: Umberto Eco in Conversation with Luciano Berio’. Contemporary Music Review 5 (1989), 1–8.
Rognoni, Luigi. Commentary on Béla Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, for facsimile of autograph score. Basel: Paul Sacher Stiftung, 2000.
Sanguineti, Edoardo. Verses for Luciano Berio's Sequenzas, in Berio: Complete Sequenzas, Alternate Sequenzas, and Solo Works. 4 CD set, Mode Records 161/4, 2006.
Volli, Ugo. ‘Referential Semantics and Pragmatics of Natural Language’. VS [Versus]: Quaderni di studi semiotici 4 (1973), 22–50.
