COMPOSERS: Nono
LABELS: Hanssler
WORKS: Cori di Didone; Da un diario italiano; Das atmende Klarsein
PERFORMER: SWR Vocal Ensemble Stuttgart/Rupert Huber
CATALOGUE NO: CD 93.022 Reissue (1993-5)
Completed in 1983, Das atmende Klarsein, which juxtaposes chaste choral settings of Rilke’s Duino Elegies with solos for a bass flute constantly overlaid with electronically transformations and echoes, is one of the major works of Nono’s final period, pure and uncompromisingly poetic. It’s coupled here with two far earlier a cappella pieces – the familiar Coro di Didone from 1958, settings of Ungaretti that underpin tight-packed choral writing with unpitched percussion, and Da un diario italiano, a densely woven fragment written in 1963 for 72-part choir and intended as the start of a music-theatre piece,
but which went unperformed until 2000. Andrew Clements