Franz Schubert died in 1828 at age thirty-one, having written nine or so symphonies (five of them between 1813 and 1819), other orchestral music, over 400 songs (including some 140 in 1815 alone), numerous piano and chamber works, operas, and sacred music. Although Schubert's greatest influence as a composer was certainly Beethoven (who, thirty-six years Schubert's senior, died a year before Schubert), Schubert's mature works reveal a daringly progressive sense of harmony and form and an apparently conscious effort to move beyond the example set by Beethoven.

When Schubert died, he left behind many sketches, including complex and extensive notations for a Tenth Symphony in D major. Luciano Berio, whose connection to music history led to all sorts of grapplings with composers of the past—from Monteverdi to Mahler—in his own music, was "seduced" by Schubert's sketches and decided to take an active role in presenting them to the world.

There have been completions (most notably by Brian Newbould) of these same sketches, ostensibly "in the style of" Schubert, but Berio approached the project differently. For Rendering, Berio used the same orchestral forces as Schubert specified in the "Unfinished" Symphony to fill out what was essentially a piano or short score with bare indications of instrumentation. Then, comparing the work he was doing to the restoration of ancient frescoes—that is, reviving the existing images, but making no attempt to fill in damaged areas with other images—Berio wrote music to connect the extant fragments of Schubert's sketches.

The sketches for three movements show themes of distinct character. The first movement, Allegro, opens with a dotted-rhythm theme of unison repeated notes followed by a descending line; Berio sets this passage majestically, calling upon the tutti orchestra with timpani. This opening theme evolves through harmonic transformations for a short time before the first lacuna interrupts its development. Berio's "connective tissue" covering the gaps in Schubert's sketches is announced by the ephemeral sound of the celesta. The music Berio composed is quiet and dreamlike, and filled with references to Schubert's works, including passages from the sketches themselves.

The two other movements, Andante and Allegro, have themes of quintessentially Schubertian charm. Each is permeated by Berio's connective material; the Andante, in fact, opens with the celesta before the minor-key main theme of the movement is announced in the oboe. The third movement begins unexpectedly with a solo pizzicato note and Berio's restorative music; contrasting themes suggest a sonata-rondo form. The end of the movement presents a fugal treatment of the first theme and an orchestral tutti for an unequivocal finish to what Berio calls some of Schubert's most contrapuntally complex sketches.

Rendering was premiered in Amsterdam by the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly, to whom the score is dedicated.

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