Introduction

Luciano Berio knew enough about words not to laugh at musicologists (or at least, not as often as they perhaps deserved). In a world dizzy with verbiage, he knew well enough that the space through which music may follow its own compass must be defended from logos by logos: fighting words, cautious scholarly words or, in his own case, playful raids upon the inarticulate which never underestimate the vastness of the territories into which they have ventured. When one of the regiment of commentators found the mot juste, he applauded; when they floundered in labyrinthine elucubrations, he sighed wryly – but did not mock.