ABSTRACT

The poetry of Antonio Machado had been important to Luigi Nono for some time; its concise, wise balance of personal despair and ecstatic faith in humanity would continue to accompany him. While planning Varianti, Nono was working on an exhaustive analysis of Schonberg’s Op. 31 Variationen fur Orchester, which became part of a paper he presented at Darmstadt the following year: Die Entwicklung der Reihentechnik. There are no dogmatic truths, no handbooks of formulae, no keys, nobody has the divine truth. But the basis is strict study, rigorous discipline in work, a conscience which rules thought and reason, and sensitivity. These words from Nono’s introduction to his composition seminars at Darmstadt in 1958 give a concise picture of his mature, resolute compositional ethos, of his continuous questioning. In Varianti the levels of dialectical opposition and mirroring are even more pervasive, however.