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Luigi Nono

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Grave of Nono in the San Michele Cemetery, Venice

Luigi Nono (born January 29, 1924 in Venice; died May 8, 1990 in Venice) was an Italian composer of classical music and intellectual, increasingly regarded in Europe and beyond, as one of the most important composers of the 20th century.

Biography

Early Years

Luigi Nono was born in Venice, 1924. He was a member of a wealthy artistic family and his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono began music lessons with Gian Francesco Malipiero in 1941 at the Venice Conservatory where, amongst other styles, he acquired knowledge of the Renaissance madrigal tradition. After graduating with a degree in Law from the University of Padua, he was given encouragement in composition by Bruno Maderna. Through Maderna, he became acquainted with Hermann Scherchen (then Maderna's conducting teacher) who gave Nono further tuition, and was an early mentor and advocate of his music.

It was Scherchen who presented Nono's first ackowledged work, the Variazione canoniche sulla serie dell'op. 41 di A. Schönberg in 1950, at the Internationale Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik Darmstadt—a centre for the rediscovery of modern music after the devestation of dictatorship and war. The Variazioni canoniche, based on the twelve-tone series of Schoenberg's Op 41, marked Nono as a committed composer of anti-fascist political orientation (Annibaldi 1980). (Nono had been a member of the Italian Resistance during the Second World War).[citation needed] In fact Nono's striking political commitment distinguished him from his contemporaries at Darmstadt, including Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. With these two composers, Nono became one of the leaders of the New Music during the 1950s.

1950s and the "Darmstadt School"

A number of Nono's early works were first performed at Darmstadt, including Tre epitaffi per Federico García Lorca (1951–53), La Victoire de Guernica (1954)—intended like Picasso's painting as an indictment of the war-time attrocity—and Incontri (1955). The Liebeslied (1954) was written for Nono's wife-to-be, Nuria Schoenberg (daughter of Arnold Schoenberg) whom he met at the 1953 world première of Moses und Aron in Hamburg. They married in 1956, during which time Nono had enrolled as a member of the Italian Communist Party (Nono joined the PCI in 1952).(Flamm 1995)

The world première of Il canto sospeso (1955–56) for solo voices, chorus and orchestra brought Nono international recognition, and acknowledgement as the 'legitimate successor' to Webern.

If any evidence exists that Webern's work does not mark the esetoric "expiry" of Western music in a pianissimo of aphoristic shreds, then it is provided by Luigi Nono's Il Canto Sospeso. . . The 32-year-old composer has proved himself to be the most powerful of Webern's successors. (Kölner Stadt Anzieger, 26 October 1956, quoted in Flamm 1995).

This work, widely regarded as one of the central masterpieces of the 1950s (Stenzl 1986, Pg 3), is a commemoration of the victims of Fascism, incorporating farewell letters written by political prisoners before execution. Musically, Nono breaks new ground, not only by the "exemplary balance between voices and instruments" (Annibaldi 1980) but in the motivic, point-like vocal writing in which words are fractured into syllables exchanged between voices to form floating, disembodied sonorities—an imaginative extention of Schoenberg's Klangfarben-Melodie technique. Il canto sospeso has been described as an "everlasting warning" (Annibaldi); it provides a powerful refutation to the claim made by philosopher Theodore Adorno that "any poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric".Template:Adorno

Such anti-fascist subject matter Nono was to return to again, as in Diario polacco; Composizione no. 2 (1958–59)—whose background included a journey through the Nazi concentration camps—and the "azione scenica" Intolleranza, which caused a riot at its première in Venice, 1960 (Steinitz 1995, Schoenberg-Nono 2005).

In 1958, Nono delivered a polemically charged lecture ("On the Presence of History in the Music Today") in which he effectively criticised and distanced himself from the composers of chance and aleatoric music, then in vogue, under the influence of American models such as John Cage.[citation needed] This would effectively end his friendship with Stockhausen (until the 1980s) and the avant-garde trinity were soon to disband.Template:Schoenberg-Nono, 2005

1960s and 70s

Nono's Intolleranza 1960 may be viewed as the culmination of the composer's early style and aesthetics (Annibaldi 1980). The plot concerns the plight of an emigrant captured in a variety of scenarios relevant to modern capitalist soceity; working class exploitation, street demonstrations, political arrest and torture, concentration camp internment, refuge and abandonment. Described as a 'stage-action' (Nono explicitly forbade the title of opera Template:Stenzl, 1999), it utilizes an array of resources from large orchestra, chorus, tape and loudspeakers to the 'magic lantern' technique drawn from Meyerhold and Mayakovsky theatre practices of the 1920s to form a rich, expressionist drama. Angelo Ripellino's libretto consisting of political slogans, poems and quotations from Brecht and Satre (including moments of Brechtian alienation), together with Nono's strident, anguished music fully accords with the anti-capitalist fullmination the composer intended to communicate (Annibaldi 1980). The riot at the première in Venice was significantly due to the presence of both left and right-wing politcal factions in the audience. Neo-nazis had attempted to disrupt proceedings with stink-bombs, which however, did not prevent the performance ending triumphantly for Nono (Schoenberg-Nono 2005). Intolleranza is dedicated to Schoenberg.

During the 1960s, Nono's musical activities became increasingly explicit and polemical in their subject, whether that be the warning against nuclear catastrophe (Canti di vita e d'amore - sul ponte di Hiroshima of 1962), the denunciation of capitalist exploitation (La Fabrica Illuminata - 1964), the condemnation of Nazi war criminals in the wake of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials (Ricorda cosi ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz - 1965) or of American imperialism in the war against Vietnam (A floresta e jovem e cheja de vida - 1966). Nono began to incorporate documentary material (political speeches, slogans, extraneous sounds) on tape, and a new use of electronics, that he felt necessary to produce the "concrete situations" relevant to contemporary political issues.Template:Annibaldi, 1980 The instrumental writing tended to conglomerate the 'punctual' serial style of the early 1950s into groups, clusters of sounds - broadstrokes that effectively complimented the use of tape collage (Annibaldi 1980). In keeping with his Marxist convictions (as 'reinterpreted' through the writings of Gramsci) (Flamm 1995), he brought this radical music out of the concert hall into universities, trade-unions and factories where he gave lectures and performances.

Nono's second period commonly thought to have begun after Intolleranza (Annibaldi 1980) reaches its apogee in his second "azione scenica", Al gran sole carico d'amore(1972-4)—a collaboration with Yuri Lyubimov, who was then director of the Taganka Theatre in Moscow. In this large-scale stage work, Nono completely dispenses with a dramatic narrative, and presents pivotal moments in the history of Communism and class-struggle "side-by-side" to produce his "theatre of consciousness". The subject matter (as evident from the quotations from manifestos and poems, Marxist classics to the anonymous utterences of workers) deals with failed revolutions; the Paris Commune of 1878, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the revolt of freedom fighters in 1960s Chile under the leadership of Che Guevara and Tania Bunke. Then extremely topical, Al gran sole offers a multi-lateral spectacle and a moving meditation on the history of twentieth-century communism, as viewed through the prism of Nono's music. It was premiered at La Scala, Milan in 1975.

During this time, Nono visited Soviet Russia where he awakened the interest of Alfred Schnittke in the contemporary practices of avant-garde composers of the West (Ivashkin, 1996[This quote needs a citation]). Indeed, the 1970s were marked by frequent travels abroad, lecturing in Latin America, and making the acquaintance of leading left-wing intellectuals and activists (Luigi Nono Archive Online, Biography-Timeline). It was to mourn the assassination of Luciano Cruz, a leader of the Venezualen Revolutionary Front, that Nono composed Como una ola fuerza y luz (1972).[citation needed] Very much in the bold, expressionist style of Al gran sole, with the use of large orchestra, tape and electronics, it became a kind of piano concerto with added vocal commentary.

Nono returned to the piano (with tape) for his next piece, ...Sofferte onde serene… (1976), written for his friend Maurizio Pollini after the common bereavement of two of their relatives.[citation needed] With this work began a radically new, intimate phase of the composer's development—by way of Con Luigi Dallapicolla for percussion and electronics (1978) to Fragmente-Stille, An Diotima for string quartet (1980). One of Nono's most demanding works (both for performers and listeners), Fragmente-Stille is music on the threshold of silence. The score is interspersed with 53 quotations from the poetry of Hölderlin addressed to his "lover" Diotima, which are to be "sung" silently by the players during performance, striving for that "delicate harmony of inner life" (Hölderlin). A sparse, highly concentrated work commissioned by the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, Fragmente-Stille reawakened great interest in Nono's music throughout Germany (Loescher 2000).

1980s

Nono had been introduced to the Venice-based philosopher, Massimo Cacciari (now Mayor of Venice), who began to have an increasing influence on the composer's thought during the 1980s (Carvelho, 1999). Through Cacciari, Nono became immersed in the work of many German philosophers, including the writings of Walter Benjamin whose ideas on history (strikingly similar to the composer's own) formed the background to the monemental Prometeo - tragedia dell' ascolto (1984) (Stenzl, 1995). Nono's late music is haunted by Benjamin's philosophy, especially the concept of history (Über den Begriff der Geschichte) which is given a central role in Prometeo.

Musically, Nono began to experiment with the new sound possibilities and production at the Heinrich Strobel Stiftung in Freiburg. There, he devised a whole new approach to composition and technique, frequently involving the contributions of specialist musicians and technicians to realise his aims (Fabbriciani, 1999).The first fruits of these collaborations were Das atmende Klarsein (1981-82), Diario polacco II (1982), and Geldi e mostri (1983). The new technologies allowed the sound to circulate in space, giving this dimension a role no less important than its emission. Such innovations became central to a new conception of time and space (Pestalozza 1992). These highly impressive masterworks were partly preperation for what many regard as his greatest acheivement.Template:Columbia Encycleopedia online.

Prometeo has been described as "one of the best works of the 20th century"(Beyst). After the technical excesses of Al gran sole, which Nono later remarked was a "monster of resources" (Stenzl,1995), the composer began to think along the lines of an opera or rather a 'musica per dramatica' without any visual, stage dimension. In short, a drama in music - 'the tragedy of listening' (the subtitle a poignant comment on consumerism today). Nono blamed this tragedy on commercialism, especially television - whose "breathless succession of sounds and images destroys our understanding of content" Template:CD notes - Variazaioni Cannoniche) ). Hence in the vocal parts, the most simple intervalic procedures (mainly 4ths and 5ths) profoundly resonate amidst a tapestry of harsh, dissonant, micro-tonal writing for the ensembles.

Prometeo is perhaps the ultimate realisation of Nono's "theatre of consciousness" - here, an invisible theatre in which the production of sound and its projection in space become fundatmental to the overall dramaturgy. The architect Renzo Piano designed an enormous 'wooden boat' for the première in Venice, whose acoustics must to some extent be reconstructed for each performance. (For the Japanese premiere at the Akiyoshidai Festival (Shuho), the new concert hall was named 'Prometeo Hall' in Nono's honour, and designed by leading architect Arata Isozaki).(Casa Ricordi Online, Historical Background)> The libretto incorporates disparate texts by Hesiod, Hölderlin and Benjamin (semantically inaudible during performance due to Nono's characteristic deconstruction) which explore the origin and evolution of humanity, as compiled and expanded by Cacciari. In Nono's timeless and visionary context, music and sound predominate over the image and the written word to form new dimensions of meaning and 'new possibilities' for listening.

Nono's last works, such as Caminantes… Ayacucho (1986–87, inspired by a region in Peru that experiences extreme poverty), La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura (1988-89) and "Hay que caminar" soñando (1989), offer poignant comment on the composer's life-long quest for political renewal and social justice. Toward the end of his life, Nono came accross an inscription on a monastry in Toledo, (attributed to Antonio Machado) which became a kind of motto:

'Traveller, there is no pathway, there is only traveling itself'.

After Nono's funeral in 1990, the German composer Dieter Schnebel remarked how "that was a very great man" Template:Loescher, 2000 —a sentiment widely shared by those who knew him, and those who have come to admire his music.Template:Davismmoon, 1999a Nono is buried on the island of San Michele, alongside other such luminaries as Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Ezra Pound.

The full impact of Nono's art, especially the late music, has only just begun to take effect in the English speaking world. (Prometeo still awaits its UK premiere). However, its influence has been widely felt on the European continent by such composers as György Kurtág, Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann, Heinz Holliger, Brian Ferneyhough and Nicholas A. Huber. Other distinguished admirers include architect Daniel Liebeskind and novelist Umberto Eco (The Nono Project 2006-07[This quote needs a citation]), for Nono totally reconstructed music and engaged in the most fundamental issues with regards to its expressivity.

Sources

  • Adorno, Theodore. 1951. Kulturkritik und Gessellschaft.
  • Annibaldi, Claudio. 1980. Luigi Nono. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Edition I.
  • Assis, Paulo de. 2006. Luigi Nonos Wende: zwischen Como una ola fuerza y luz und sofferte onde serene. 2 vols. Hofheim: Wolke. ISBN 3-936000-62-X
  • [Author]. 1993. "[Title of article]." The Columbia Encyclopedia. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Beyst, Stefan. [Year]. "Nono's Il Prometeo—a Revolutionary Swan Song"[This quote needs a citation](Online).
  • Borio, Gianmario. 2001a. "Tempo e ritmo nelle composizioni seriali di Luigi Nono." Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft/Annales suisses de musicologie/Annuario svizzero di musicologia no. 21:79–136.
  • Borio, Gianmario. 2001b. "Nono, Luigi." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
  • Davismoon, Stephen (ed.). 1999a. Luigi Nono (1924-1990): The Suspended Song. Contemporary Music Review 18, part 1. [Netherlands] : Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-5755-112-8
  • Davismoon, Stephen (ed.). 1999b. Luigi Nono (1924–1990): Fragments and Silence. Contemporary Music Review 18, part 2. [Netherlands] : Harwood Academic Publishers.
  • Carvelho?, M. 1999. Text and Montage in the Music of Nono?, Contemporary Music Review, Harwood.
  • Fabbriciani, Roberto. 1999. Walking with Gigi, Contemporary Music Review, Harwood.
  • Feneyrou, Laurent. 2002. Il canto sospeso de Luigi Nono: musique & analyse. [Paris?]: M. de Maule. ISBN 2-87623-106-9
  • Feneyrou, Laurent. 2003. "Vers l'incertain: Une introduction au Prometeo de Luigi Nono." Analyse musicale no. 46 (February).
  • Flamm, Christoph. 1995. "Preface" to Luigi Nono, Il canto sospeso (score), 13–28. London: Eulenburg Edition.
  • Frobenius, Wolf. 1997. "Luigi Nonos Streichquartett Fragmente—Stille, An Diotima." Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 54, no. 3:177-193.
  • Hopkins, Bill. 1978. "Luigi Nono: The Individuation of Power and Light." Musical Times 99, no. 1623 (May): 406–09.
  • Ivashkin, Alexander. 1996. Alfred Schnittke, 20th Century Composers, Phaidon.
  • Kolleritsch, Otto (ed.). 1990. Die Musik Luigi Nonos. Studien zur Wertungsforschung 24. Vienna: Universal Edition. ISBN 3-7024-0198-9
  • Loescher, Wolfgang. 2000. Luigi Nono (1924-1990), Col Legno.
  • Licata, Thomas. 2002. "Luigi Nono’s Omaggio a Emilio Vedova". In Electroacoustic Music: Analytical Perspectives, edited by Thomas Licata, 73–89. Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance 63. Westport, Connecticut & London: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31420-9.
  • Metzger, Heinz-Klaus, and Rainer Riehn, eds. 1981. Luigi Nono. Musik-Konzepte 20. Munich: Edition Text+Kritik. ISBN 3-88377-072-8.
  • Nielinger, Carola. 2006. "The Song Unsung: Luigi Nono's Il canto sospeso." Journal of the Royal Musical Association 131, no. 1:83-150.
  • Nono, Luigi. 1975. Texte, Studien zu seiner Musik, edited by Jürg Stenzl.Zürich: Atlantis. ISBN 3-7611-0456-1.
  • Pestalozza, Luigi. 1992. Nono: La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, "Hey que caminar" sonando, Deutsche Grammophon.
  • Pon, Gundaris. 1972. "Webern and Luigi Nono: The Genesis of a New Compositional Morphology and Syntax." Perspectives of New Music, 10, no. 2 (Spring-Summer): 111–19.
  • Schaller, Erika. 1997. Klang und Zahl: Luigi Nono: serielles Komponieren zwischen 1955 und 1959. Saarbrücken: PFAU.ISBN 3-930735-62-8
  • Schoenberg-Nono, Nuria. 2005. Interview. "BBC Music Matters", Radio 3[This quote needs a citation].
  • Spangemacher, Friedrich. 1983. Luigi Nono, die elektronische Musik: historischer Kontext, Entwicklung, Kompositionstechnik. Forschungsbeiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 29. Regensburg: G. Bosse. ISBN 3-7649-2260-5
  • Spree, Hermann. 1992. Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima: ein analytischer Versuch zu Luigi Nonos Streichquartett. Saarbrücken : PFAU. ISBN 3-928654-06-3
  • Stenzl, Jürg. 1998. Luigi Nono. Rowohlts Monographien 50582. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. ISBN 3-499-50582-7
  • Stenzl, Jurg. 1999. Stories/ Luigi Nono's "theatre of consciousness", Al gran sole carico d'amore. Teldec New Line.
  • Stenzl, Jurg. 1986. Luig Nono: Fragments - Stillness, for Diotima, Deutsche Grammophon.
  • Stenzl, Jurg. 1995. Prometeo -Tragedia dell'ascolto, EMI Classics.
  • Stenzl, Jürg. [Year]. Luigi Nono. Milan: Casa Ricordi. [ISBN}
  • Steinitz, Richard. Luigi Nono . Introduction, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Broachure, 1995.
  • Zehelein, Klaus. 199?. Intolleranza 1960 - Music at the Crossroads, Teldec.
  • Luigi Nono Archive, Venice.
  • Luigi Nono Exhibition - "Gigi e Nuria, il racconto di un amore in musica", Federazione CEMAT. Sonora|Ritratti
  • Casa Ricordi (Online) - Historical Background (Prometeo).
  • The Luigi Nono Project 2006-07 (Online)[citation needed]. European Union.

Discography

  • Nono, Luigi. 2000. Variazioni canoniche/A Carlo Scarpa, architetto, ai suoi infiniti possibili/No hay caminos, hay que caminar...Andrei Tarkovski. SW German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen, cond. Naïve CD 782132.
  • Nono, Luigi. 1986. Fragmente -Stille, an Diotima, Jürg Stenzl[This quote needs a citation]. Deutsche Grammophon CD 437 720-2.
  • Nono, Luigi. 2000. Orchestral and Chamber Music. Wolfgang Loescher[This quote needs a citation]. Col Legno CD WWE 1CD 20505.
  • Nono, Luigi. 1993. Canti di vita d'amore/Per Bastiana/Omaggio a Vedova. Gerhard R. Koch[This quote needs a citation]. Wergo CD WER 6229-2 286 229-2.
  • Luigi, Nono. [year]. Intolleranza 1960. Notes by Klaus Zehelein. Teldec CD[This quote needs a citation].
  • Luigi Nono. 1988. "Coma una ola de fuerza y luz/Contrappunto dialettico alla mente/…Sofferte onde serene…". Slavka Taskova (soprano), Maurizio Pollini (piano), Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond. Deutsche Grammophon CD 423 248-2. First and third works reissued 2003 (together with Manzoni's Masse: Omaggio a Edgard Varèse) on Deutsche Grammophone CD 471362.
  • Nono, Luigi. 1995. Prometeo. Igo Metzmacher, (with notes, "Prometeo - Tragedia dell'ascolto", by Jürg Stenzl). EMI Classics CD (5 55209 2)
  • Nono, Luigi. [year]. Al gran sole carico d'amore. With notes, "Stories—Luigi Nono's 'Theatre of Consciousness'—Al Gran sole carico d'amore," by Jürg Stenzl. Teldec New Line CD 8573-81059-2.
  • Nono, Luigi. 1992. La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, 'Hay que caminar'—soñando. Luigi Pestalozza[This quote needs a citation]. Deutsche Grammophon CD 474326-2.

External links

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