The cosmic structure in Luciano Berio's Sequenza XI for guitar

The Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003) is one of the pioneer composers of the 20th century. During his lifetime Berio has written compositions in various musical types, serial, electronic, orchestral and solo instruments. Among them the series of Sequenzas has a great importance. The Sequenza series (1958-2002), consisting of fourteen pieces was respectively composed for flute, harp, female voice, piano, trombone, viola, oboe (soprano saxophone), violin, clarinet (alto saxophone, bass clarinet), trumpet, guitar, bassoon, accordion and cello instruments. 'Sequenza XI' (1987-1988), composed for guitar, was dedicated to Eliot Fisk and premiered by Fisk. The subject of this work is the structural analysis of the 'Sequenza XI', which also contains general information about other works of the Sequenza series. In this study, the notion of modernism-postmodernism has been examined in the context of music in order to understand better the influences of his time and the environmental factors that the composer lived. Considering the ideas and statements made by Berio, the musical language was searched and general information was given about each Sequenza. In this study we have included the main features and necessary explanations of the set theory analysis method in order to emphasize the importance of the three chords at the beginning of Sequenza XI and their relations to the entire work. The different dimensions created by the interweaving musical ideas, the constantly changing (kaleidoscopic) items, the focused and out-of-focus musical materials, the cosmic structure formed by the cell/small motifs, is a characteristic feature of Berio's music. The articles and thesis which have been obtained in the literature search about the historical process of the work and the composer's musical language is leading sources of this research.