Neverness is a word which didn’t survive, or perhaps never existed. I came upon it in Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil’s The Story of English as an example of “natural selection” applied to English words. What does the word mean?—the state of there being no now, no ever, no never—it seems like a more elegant word than eternity…
Neverness was written in 1996-7 in response to a commission from the ensemble Burdocks with funding provided by the Canada Council. The work is in five movements, the last two playing without a break.
First performed by Burdocks at the Music Gallery in Toronto on October 6th 1997