None of Argento's music approaches the experimental, stringent avant-garde fashions of the post-World War II era.

"[5] Argento wrote fourteen operas, in addition to major song cycles, orchestral works, and many choral pieces for small and large forces.

He earned bachelor's (1951) and master's (1953) degrees from Peabody, where his teachers included Nicolas Nabokov, Henry Cowell, and Hugo Weisgall.

Argento moved to Minneapolis in 1958 with his new wife, soprano Carolyn Bailey, to begin teaching theory and composition at the University of Minnesota.

His students there included composers Philip Brunelle, Juliana Hall, Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, and Marjorie Rusche.

Argento also developed close professional relationships with several prominent singers, notably Frederica von Stade, Janet Baker, and Håkan Hagegård, tailoring some of his best-known song cycles to their talents.

In the mid-1970s, Argento began writing choral works for the choir of Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis, which his friend Philip Brunelle directed.

In this period Argento composed Jonah and the Whale (1973), co-commissioned by Plymouth Congregational Church and the Cathedral of St. Mark-Episcopal.

The recording by Frederica von Stade and the Minnesota Orchestra of his song cycle Casa Guidi won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

It was not initially well-received, and Argento revised it into a one-act monodrama, Miss Havisham's Wedding Night, which the Minnesota Opera premiered on May 1, 1981, at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, conducted by Philip Brunelle.

Argento next composed The Aspern Papers (1987) as a vehicle for Frederica von Stade, with his own libretto adapted from the 1888 novella by Henry James.

Critic Anne Midgette of The New York Times has noted that Argento's operas tend to be very well received upon their premieres but lack an "easy popular hook" and are rarely revived.

[11] Argento's song cycles are notable for his frequent use of dramatic, unusual text, most often prose that does not have immediately apparent musical possibilities.

For the Dale Warland Singers, Argento wrote I Hate and I Love (1981), with text by Catullus, and Walden Pond (1996), based on excerpts from Thoreau.

In 1987 Argento composed a massive Te Deum that integrates the Latin text with medieval English folk poetry.

A Toccata of Galuppi's (1989), a 20-minute setting of a Robert Browning poem, is one of many works inspired by Argento's time in Florence.

In 2008, the Harvard Glee Club premiered his Apollo in Cambridge, a multi-movement setting of texts by Harvard-affiliated writers of the 19th century.

He wrote two ballets that were fashioned into orchestral suites, The Resurrection of Don Juan (1956) and Royal Invitation (Homage to the Queen of Tonga) (1964).