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.