Luigi Nono: A Pierre. Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum - ...sofferte onde serene... - Omaggio a György Kurtág - Con Luigi Dallapiccola

DEDICATIONS

Between 1981 and 1984 Luigi Nono created the first version, and immediately after its premiere the final form of his central work of the 1980s, the Prometeo. Tragedia dell'ascolto. All works after the legendary string quartet Fragments - Silence, To Diotima (1979/80) were written by the composer as »Paths to Prometeo«. But already in the piano piece written for Maurizio Pollini (with a shadowy tape) …offer on de serene… and the "in memoriam" percussion piece Con Luigi Dallapiccola first signs of what is possible via the string quartet can be seen The breathing clarity for choir, solo flute and live electronics (1981). Nono himself has repeatedly pointed out that only with this work was what he was after Al gran sole carico d'amore, the »azione scenica« from 1975.

Significantly, in November 1980, half a year after the quartet's premiere, Nono's work began in what was then the EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation in Freiburg im Breisgau, directed by Hans Peter Haller. In the first half of the 1980s, the major goal was the »Tragedia dell'ascolto« Prometheus. Originally the complete Breathing Clarity this Prometheus decide on. The on the Prometheus The following works are largely based on various compositional experiences achieved in this work.

This is particularly revealing Omaggio a György Kurtág, like Nono's answer to Omaggio a Luigi Nono, which his friend György Kurtág composed in 1979 for a cappella choir to texts by the poets Anna Achmatova and Rimma Dalos. The premiere of Omaggio a György Kurtág in Florence there was extensive improvisation, based on a series of agreements between the composer and his interpreters; but this "guided" improvisation was based on the intensive experimental work of the composer with his performers. It wasn't until three years later that Nono did Omaggio a György Kurtág written down in a score.

All works created in and with the Freiburg EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO, beginning with the Breathing Clarity, rely to a large extent on this direct collaboration with certain musicians over the years. Each new work was in turn a new starting point for the following one. In a first, »experimental phase«, Nono initially wanted to explore the tonal possibilities of the individual instruments and the respective singing voice with the help of the studio's equipment. The scores then written down are based on these experimental, improvisational materials and their transformation possibilities through live electronics.

The rehearsals that followed were no less significant; In the written scores, Nono often reserved certain decisions for this rehearsal phase. The joint development of a work with the musicians and the employees of the EXPERIMENTALSTUDIOS has Nono's way of composing on the way to Prometheus and moreover changed just as fundamentally as the relationship between composer and performers. From some works, such as from Resonance erranti (1986), different elaborations were made for each new performance until a final version was available and printed.

It was quite unusual within Nono's overall oeuvre that with …offer on de serene… a whole series of small-scale works for those musicians with whom he worked intensively; Almost without exception, they also took part in larger works, including the flutist Roberto Fabbriciani, the clarinettist Ciro Scarponi, the trombone and tuba player Giancarlo Schiaffini and the alto Susanne Otto.

About an alleged »turnaround« in Nono's work Al gran sole a lot has been puzzled after the premiere of the string quartet; but even for those who were personally close to him at the time, the reasons for the noticeable changes in his work after the five years between Al gran sole and the string quartet in the dark, a time when just …offer on de serene… and the work for Dallapiccola were created.

The commemoration of the deceased, on the other hand, connects these late works with Nono's work since its beginning, the Epitaph for FG Lorca, the  Canto sospeso and many others. As a reflection on the first encounters with Pierre Boulez, the composer also wrote his homage to Boulez's sixtieth birthday, APierre. Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum understood.

Nono himself answered such questions in May 1981: "After Gran Sole I felt the need to rethink my entire work and my entire existence as a musician today and as an intellectual in this society in order to discover new possibilities of knowledge and creativity. Some concepts and ideas are stale, today it is imperative to bring the imagination to the fore as much as possible.«

When asked where he wanted to go, the answer was: "Especially to Prometheus. But now I have to clarify things for myself, understand my own work better. Up to now my musical works have been understood in a too schematic and ideological way – in a positive as well as in a negative way – and my (musical) linguistic, stylistic and structural concerns have been somewhat undervalued.« The question of what had driven Nono to these insights was then however not answered. The temptation to look for psychological answers remains great, but answers can hardly be found in the biography, not even in Nono's texts or letters: Luigi Nono's biography is his Works.

In the course of the 1980s, periods of euphoria and such deep depressions seemed to diverge more and more. But such contrasts have existed for a long time. »Hardly anyone wandered about so defenselessly with his contradiction«, wrote Helmut Lachenmann and continued clairvoyantly: »By the way, Luigi Nono likes about the complexity and contradictoriness of the human being Luigi Nono, his vulnerability and hurt, his warm-heartedness and his cruelty, his profound high-spiritedness and his Depressiveness, his unreserved devotion to and his often ice-cold turning away from his surroundings, his flammability in both positive and negative ways, someone who believes he can cope with human complexity par excellence - and this with linguistic means.«

It was perfectly clear to Helmut Lachenmann that Nono had questioned himself in a radical way that had never been seen before. After 1975, this vulnerable composer tore down all – including the ideological – protective walls. He had become a seeker, also a wanderer, a questioner, and all the works on this SACD bear witness to this.

Even more: for the Nono of the 1980s, this formed hören the absolute center of his composition. He commented on this in his Geneva lecture with the significant title Error as Necessity in March 1983: »Listening to music. That's very difficult. I believe this is a rare phenomenon today. One hears literary things, one hears what has been written, one hears oneself in a projection…”.

Antonio Machado's words about his last works express this compositional self-image, but also his goals in the image of a wanderer: »Wanderer, your tracks / are the way, nothing else; / […] Wanderer, there is no path, / Path is made by walking«.

What had become decisive for the composer is also of decisive importance for the listener of these works - for the listener of all demanding art, be it medieval monophony, Josquin, Beethoven or contemporary music: a searching, erring, exploratory listening, the new Horizons, unknown listening worlds opened up.

Juerg Stenzl