NonesNones, for orchestra (1954)
London Symphony Orchestra
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio has been strongly influenced by the works of Anton Webern, about whose music Arnold Schoenberg perceptively commented, "Every glance is a poem, every sigh a novel." But unlike his contemporaries who have followed Webern only to lapse into a dry, academic structuralism, Berio has used Webernist techniques to evolve a style combining consummate craftsmanship with profoundly human concerns. Writers, including Auden, Joyce, Proust, Brecht and E. E. Cummings, have served as sources of inspiration for him.
Nones (the title alludes to 3 p.m., one of the canonical hours), completed in 1954, is a case in point. Although the work was originally conceived as an oratorio based on W. H. Auden's poem of the same name, Berio revised his plan in favor of a purely orchestral version, giving poignantly wordless expression to the searing lines. In his poem Auden sets the Good Friday Passion in a contemporary context of indifference, of business-as-usual.