Cast in three movements for full orchestra, it takes as its structure the fragmentary score of Schubert's uncompleted D major symphony, D 936A.
Its first two movements were completed in 1989 and first performed in June of that year, with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.
As Giordano Montecchi states Schubert's fragments give rise to musical moments of vertiginous beauty which nevertheless constantly founder in the emptiness of what was "not done" - and Berio fills this emptiness with... an iridescent musical screed woven around the timbre of the celesta... separating the fragments and at the same time holding them together, enabling them to reach the symphonic goal for which they were intended..."[2]Unlike pieces such as the various editions of Gustav Mahler's fragmentary Tenth Symphony, or Brian Newbould's conjectural orchestration of the Schubert, Rendering is intended as a completed work in its own right, rather than a 'performing version' of Schubert's Tenth.
It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in F, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, celesta, and strings Rendering has proved one of Berio's most enduring pieces and has been recorded several times, twice by Chailly alone.
When illness caused the Italian maestro to withdraw from performances in Munich in 2011, David Robertson took over and the result was a new reading and recording by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.