Burt Bacharach, the debonair pop composer, arranger, conductor, record producer and occasional singer whose hit songs in the 1960s distilled that decade¡¯s mood of romantic optimism, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94.
His publicist Tina Brausam confirmed the death. No specific cause was given.
A die-hard romantic whose mature style might be described as Wagnerian lounge music, Bacharach fused the chromatic harmonies and long, angular melodies of late-19th century symphonic music with modern, bubbly pop orchestration, and embellished the resulting mixture with a staccato rhythmic drive. His effervescent compositions epitomized sophisticated hedonism to a generation of young adults only a few years older than the Beatles.
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