Luigi Nono
About Luigi Nono
In 1950 Nono first attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music which saw the world première of his Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell’op. 41 di Schoenberg. By using the twelve-note series from Schoenberg’s anti-Fascist Ode to Napoleon Op. 41, Nono, a member of the Italian Communist Party since 1952, referred to its political statement. At the Hamburg performance of Schoenberg’s opera Moses und Aron he met Schoenberg’s daughter Nuria whom he married a year later. Dedicated to her is Liebeslied for mixed choir and instruments which was first performed in London in 1956. His work Incontri per 24 strumenti, premiered in Darmstadt in 1955, is characterized by the use of a complex mirror form and a twelve-note series in which the intervals diverge in a zigzag. After this work, large expressive interval leaps became a typical feature of Nono’s melodies. Possibly his best-known work, Il canto sospeso for soprano, alto and tenor solo, mixed choir and orchestra, was premiered in Cologne in 1956. In this work, Nono set farewell letters from Resistance fighter condemned to death. He intended to musicalize the texts by breaking the language up into syllables, thus making its musical content ready for composition.
In the following years, he worked as a teacher on the Darmstadt Summer Courses, and from 1960 taught in Poland, the USSR, CSSR and GDR. Omaggio a Emilio Vedova, his first electronic composition, was also written at this time. Electronic sounds play an important role in his opera Intolleranza 1960 composed in 1960/61. This piece extends the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk [total artwork, or fusion of the arts] to the contrapuntal combination of scenery, visual projections, music (including tape and loudspeaker) and space.
Despite the advanced tonal language of Intolleranza, the political message of the opera was directed not only to the bourgeois audience. To Nono, it was important that his works were adopted by all social classes: in 1962 he organized the first of many discussion concerts which featured his music. Held in Italian factories, the concerts attracted up to 5,000 visitors. To make sure that his works were understood by the Italian workers, Nono also used sounds and noises for his electronic compositions which he had recorded in factories.
His next compositions had their roots in the themes from the Holocaust, but he soon felt that the combination of political agitprop and the avantgarde idiom to be an artistic dead end and his style moved on to explore subtle sound nuances, inspired by the piano technique of his friend, the pianist Maurizio Pollini, to whom he had dedicated several works from this creative period. The exploration of the individual sound became the centre of throught during this creative period, so much so that the compositions often move on the edge of audiblity; literary and musical quotations from various sources, ranging from Hoelderlin to Verdi, form isolated tonal islands which are the result of the greatest possible concentration of the innumerable sources of inspiration. Even his most mature works follow this concept so that they lack an explicit story; one might speak of an ’invisible theatre’, the ideas of which are musicalized and which, in itself, takes place only inside the listener himself.
The motif of wandering runs like a thread through his late works: First and foremost is the exploration of the sound and the process of its generation. The wandering of the sound through space, (for example by arranging loudspeaker around a room) opens the listener up to constantly new perspectives on what can be heard. Closely connected with the aspect of wandering, is the search for constantly new sounds and perspectives of perception, the search becoming the essential goal of composing while following the aesthetic principle of constant change. Nono regarded his native and home town Venice as a symbol of such aesthetics of change. Until his death he admired its wealth of colour, the constant merging of architecture and acoustic impressions such as the ringing of bells. In contrast to the strict serialism of Karlheinz Stockhausen, he achieved the combination of great subjectivity and rigid architectonics even in his late works. In 1990 Nono received the Berlin Arts Prize for Music. He died on 8 May of the same year.
Worklist
Products
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Canciones para Silvia - Lieder für SilviaComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: PartiturBrand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: soprano and 6 singers (sopranos)Product number: AVV 6Product TypeAs low as £12.99 -
Sul Ponte di HiroshimaComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreBrand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: Soprano, Tenor and OrchestraProduct number: AVV 78Product TypeAs low as £16.99 -
Diario polacco '58Composer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreBrand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: OrchestraProduct number: AVV 66Product TypeAs low as £28.50 -
aus "La terra promessa"Composer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreSeries: Music Of Our Time
Cori di Didone
Brand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: mixed choir (SSSSAAAATTTTBBBB/SSSSAAAATTTTBBBB) with percussionProduct number: AVV 54Product TypeAs low as £15.50 -
Composer: John Cage | Luigi Nono | Giacinto Scelsi | Karlheinz StockhausenInterpreter: Holger Stenschke | Mike SvobodaMedia Type: CDEdition: Super Audio CD (Hybrid Stereo + Surround Sound)Brand: Wergo
Product number: WER 67442£14.99Not in stock, but can be ordered - usually despatched (or ready for collection) within 7 days -
Earle Brown Contemporary Sound SeriesComposer: David Bedford | Luciano Berio | Sir Harrison Birtwistle | Earle Brown | Morton Feldman | Bruno Maderna | Sir Peter Maxwell Davies | Luigi Nono | Richard OrtonEditor: Earle BrownInterpreter: Seymour Barab | Don Butterfield | Jacques Castagner | Alan Ray Hacker | Don Hammond | Philip Kraus | Walter Lewis | Jane Manning | Richard Orton | Francis Pierre | Matthew Raimondi | David Soyer | Mary Thomas | John Tilbury | Walter Trampler | David Tudor | Moray WelshConductor: Luciano Berio | Bruno Maderna | Sir Peter Maxwell DaviesOrchestra/ensemble: The English Chamber Orchestra | The Pierrot PlayersMedia Type: 3 CDsEdition: 3 CDs in slipcaseBrand: Wergo
Product number: WER 69312£28.99Not in stock, but can be ordered - usually despatched (or ready for collection) within 7 days -
(1) Espana en el corazón nach Gedichten von Lorca und Neruda - (2) Y su sangre ya viene cantando - (3) Memento - Romance de la Guardia civil espanolaComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreBrand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: Soli, small mixed Choir and Instruments (1) - Flute and small Orchestra (2) - Speaker, Spreaking choir, mixed Choir and Orchestra (3)Product number: AVV 313Product TypeAs low as £28.50 -
for percussion ensembleComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: Performing scoreSeries: Essential Exercises
Edition Schott
Brand: Schott Music
Instrumentation: percussion-ensembleProduct number: ED 22904Product TypeAs low as £11.99 -
Cantata (Brieftexte europäischer Widerstandskämpfer)Composer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreBrand: Eulenburg
Instrumentation: soloists (SAT), mixed choir (SSAATTBB) and orchestraProduct number: ETP 8029Product TypeAs low as £29.99 -
Facsimile of the autograph scoreComposer: Luigi NonoEditor: Christoph FlammMedia Type: Sheet musicSeries: Il canto sospeso
Brand: Schott Music
Instrumentation: soprano-, alto- and tenor-solo, mixed choir and orchestraLanguage: German, EnglishProduct number: ED 23371£253.50Not in stock, but can be ordered - usually despatched (or ready for collection) within 7 days -
Composer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreSeries: Music Of Our Time
Incontri
Brand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: 24 InstrumentsProduct number: AVV 52Product TypeAs low as £15.50 -
Handlung in 2 TeilenComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: LibrettoSeries: Intolleranza 1960
Brand: Schott Music
Instrumentation: Soloists and OrchestraProduct number: BN 3620-10Product TypeAs low as £5.50 -
Handlung in 2 TeilenComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreSeries: Music Of Our Time
Intolleranza 1960
Brand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: Soli and OrchestraProduct number: AVV 75Product TypeAs low as £38.50 -
Azione scenica in due tempiComposer: Luigi NonoEditor: Angela Ida De BenedictisMedia Type: Sheet musicSeries: Intolleranza 1960
Brand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: Soli and OrchestraLanguage: German, ItalianProduct number: AVV 328£55.50In preparation, not yet available -
Composer: Luigi NonoInterpreter: Carla Henius | Barbara Miller | Stefania Woytowitz | Marino ZuccheriConductor: Guilio Bertola | Clytus GottwaldMedia Type: CDBrand: Wergo
Product number: WER 60382£14.99Not in stock, but can be ordered - usually despatched (or ready for collection) within 7 days -
LiederComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreBrand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: mixed choir (6S 6A 6T 6B) and orchestraProduct number: AVV 56Product TypeAs low as £15.50 -
GesängeComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreBrand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: mixed choir (SATB) and orchestraProduct number: AVV 69Product TypeAs low as £16.99 -
Composer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreSeries: Music Of Our Time
Liebeslied
Brand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: mixed choir (SATB) and instrumentsProduct number: AVV 60Product TypeAs low as £8.50 -
Composer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreSeries: Polifonica - Monodia - Ritmica
Brand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: Woodwinds, Percussion and PianoProduct number: AVV 76Product TypeAs low as £12.99 -
Composer: Luigi NonoInterpreter: Angelika LuzOrchestra/ensemble: Ensemble UnitedBerlinConductor: Peter HirschChoir: United VoicesMedia Type: CDBrand: Wergo
Product number: WER 66312£14.99Not in stock, but can be ordered - usually despatched (or ready for collection) within 7 days -
Canto per 8 soli da "La terra la morte" di Cesare PaveseComposer: Luigi NonoEdition: PartiturSeries: Edition Schott
Brand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: 8 soloists (SSAATTBB)Product number: AVV 5Product TypeAs low as £16.50 -
Composer: Luigi NonoEdition: Study scoreSeries: Music Of Our Time
Varianti
Brand: Ars Viva Verlag
Instrumentation: Violin solo, Strings and WoodwindsProduct number: AVV 51Product TypeAs low as £16.50 -
Strawinsky, Schnebel, Cage, Nono, StockhausenComposer: John Cage | Luigi Nono | Dieter Schnebel | Karlheinz Stockhausen | Igor StravinskyInterpreter: Timothy Albrecht | Juan Allende-Blin | Hans-Martin Balz | Guiseppe G. Englert | Carla Henius | Leopold Keijsers | Aloys Kontarsky | Alfons Kontarsky | Angelika Luz | John McCaughey | William Pearson | Gisela Saur-Kontarsky | Gerd ZacherOrchestra/ensemble: ensemble recherche | Ensemble UnitedBerlin | Interpretenensemble Darmstadt | Quatuor HêliosConductor: Peter Hirsch | Rupert Huber | Dieter SchnebelChoir: United VoicesMedia Type: 5 CDsEdition: 5 CDs in slipcaseBrand: Wergo
Product number: WER 69462£29.99Not in stock, but can be ordered - usually despatched (or ready for collection) within 7 days