Chamber Music is a composition in three sections for female voice

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

, clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

, cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 and harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

 by the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 composer Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...

. It is a setting of three poems from the collection of poetry Chamber Music

Chamber Music (book)

Chamber Music is a collection of poems by James Joyce, published by Elkin Matthews in May, 1907. The collection originally comprised thirty-four love poems, but two further poems were added before publication .-Summary:Although it is widely reported that the title refers to the sound of urine...

by James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

, whose work was to be a frequent source for Berio. The songs were composed in 1953, and show the influence of Luigi Dallapiccola

Luigi Dallapiccola

Luigi Dallapiccola was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions.-Biography:Dallapiccola was born at Pisino d'Istria , to Italian parents....

 with whom Berio had studied in 1952 at the Tanglewood Music Center

Tanglewood Music Center

The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops designed to provide an intense training and networking experience...

.

About his composition Berio said that,

[a]s often happens to me with important encounters, I reacted to Dallapiccola with four works: Due pezzi

Due pezzi (Berio)

Due pezzi, literally meaning "two pieces", is a composition for violin and piano, written by the Italian composer Luciano Berio in 1951. It was published by Suvini Zerboni. The first performance—by pianist Seymour Lipkin and violinist Lorin Maazel, to whom the work is dedicated—took place during...

, for violin and piano, Cinque variazione

Cinque variazione (Berio)

Cinque variazione is a composition for solo piano by Luciano Berio, written in 1952/3 and greatly revised in 1966. It was published by Suvini Zerboni and the first performance was given by Berio in Milan in 1953...

, for piano (based upon the three-note melodic cell—"fratello"—from Il prigioniero), Chamber Music (setting poems by Joyce) and Variazione, for chamber orchestra. With these pieces I entered Dallapiccola's "melodic" world, but they also allowed me to escape from it.