Luciano Berio O king

O King (for mezzosoprano and five instruments) was originally composed in 1968 as a tribute to the recently assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. The text is essentially made of the letters of the martyr s name and the words and their parts follow a musical analysis that is part of the general structure. The voice firstly pronounces only some phonetic elements of the name, which is gradually composed and completed in the final bars. This piece was lately included in one of his biggest works: Sinfonia (196869), where the second movement is an arrangement of this piece for orchestra and 8 voices. Berio was born in 1925 in Oneglia (Italy). Both his father and grandfather were accomplished musicians, and Berio was initially trained by the latter as a youngster. He studied composition at the Milan Conservatory (Carlo Maria Giulini was one of his teachers) and, from the early 50s, began traveling to New York City often, where he came to know the Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola, and was