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Luigi Nono was born in the city in which he would spend much of his life, Venice, in 1924. As a young composer he was involved with many of the new trends of music developing from the serial ideas espoused at the Darmstadt new music courses of the 1950s. As his mentor he took the fathers of the second Viennese school, Schoenberg and Webern. After his marriage to Schoenberg's daughter Nuria, he was literally be able to call Schoenberg his father. Hand in hand with his espousal of the latest technical advances in compositional structuring, Nono espoused politcal messages in his music. An avowed Marxist and leading member of the Italian communist party, Nono saw his political ideas and his musical ideas as intimately related. He wrote in 1969, "I realized that it was no difference whether I was writing a score or helping to organize a strike. They are just two sides of the same coin." To this end, Nono's music has an important political dimension. One finds references to the Algerian revolution, Auschwitz and politcal upheaval in Vietnam, Cuba and South America throughout his work. For his texts he chose the writings of Lorca, Pavese, Ungaretti and Machado and became increasingly reliant on the voice, which he saw as an ultimate expression of humanity, often in conjunction with the latest technical advances in electronic sound processing.For Nono, the composer needed to be involved in life, needed to study history, gather experience, and be abreast of the latest advances in science, technology and art in order to more fully be an active participant in society. Nono also pioneered new ways of listening to music. From the quietest sounds, to microtonal and one-note music, to new possibilities of spatializing a sound, Nono was constantly seeking a way for the listener to participate in the experience of the sound. Similarly, Nono worked in close collaboration with a few select musicians to develop new techniques and ideas in order to force them to think of sound in a different way. |
Text:
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0:00 | Micropolyphonic cluster chords in orchestra. |
2:30 | Soprano with Tape (also soprano): Vocalizations and cries of "Luciano!" |
4:15 | Soprano with Tape: Alternation between singing and speaking |
6:30 | Piano enters with tape (also piano) with orchestral outbursts and amplifications reflecting sonorities presented by piano. Piano begins in lowest register and explores the lowest register. |
10:55 | Entry of Contrabasses and winds |
12:05 | Piano and tape solo in lowest registers rising higher in clusters of pitches. |
13:20 | Soprano enters with more lyrical section accompanied by tape and piano |
14:00 | Piano drops out leaving soprano alone accompanied by tape of herself (ghost) singing the "Luciano!" cries of before among other things. Sopranoe exits, tape continues. |
15:30 | Brass take up clusters of pitches in their lowest register. |
17:10 | Solo strings interject cluster chords with harp and clarinets. Piano enters followed by most of orchestras in chords. |
19:20 | Bass drum hits bring in chords that begin to ascend in pitch. |
20:10 | More ascending clusters edging higher and higher each time and accompanied by tape (featuring rumbling of the piano) |
24:00 | Reaching the limits of audibility. Frequency range is saturated. Frequency beatd are audible in lowest range (your speakers) and difference tones in the highest range (your ears) |
25:40 | Series of short cries from the orchestra. Chomatic cluster chords. Saturation of tonal space. |
28:08 | Tape solo (based on material heard before) until end. Sound is like that of a chorus or of the ululations of Algerian women. |
Introduction with Soprano solo |
Piano solo with orchestral interruptions |
Interlude: Piano, Soprano, Tape |
Saturation of audible space |
Cluster chords |
Coda |