Luigi Nono - La Fabbrica Illuminata / Ha Venido... / Ricorda Cosa Ti... (1968)

Early 90s reissue of a classic Luigi Nono LP on Wergo, which was the first to be fully devoted to the iconoclastic Italian composer.  This disc came with a promising 20 pages of liner notes, but like Shigeaki Saegusa a few weeks ago, only in one language - in this case German.  So it's off to Google I go, in search of background on these two haunting pieces of tape music, with a choral piece in between.

Ricorda Cosa Ti Hanno Fatto In Auschwitz (Remember what they did to you in Auschwitz) (1965) has actually appeared on SGTG before - see the Complete Works For Solo Tape link below - so information is available there on how this eerie Holocaust memorial work was edited down from a larger project, Die Ermittlung.  The Wergo CD benefits from a somewhat clearer mix, all the better to get immersed in the ghostly horror that Nono evoked in the wake of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials.

That leaves Ha Venido, Canciones Para Silvia (1960), a short atmospheric acapella choral work composed by Nono on the occasion of his daughter's first birthday (might as well work in reverse order of tracklist), and La Fabbrica Illuminata (1964).  Dedicated to the steelworkers of Italsider in Genoa, 'The illuminated factory' uses voices and sounds recorded at the steelworks, other synthesised studio sounds and improvisations by a soprano voice.  Nono conceived of the work as a "scenic action" that would expose the "lives in danger of fetishisation by technology", and it's a superb piece of tape music that's utterly engrossing on headphones.

Original LP cover with "Jlluminata" typo, 1968

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Complete Works For Solo Tape

La Lontananza.../Hay Que Caminar

Como Una Ola De Fuerza Y Luz

Y Su Sangre Ya Viene Cantando

Masterworks Of The 20th Century 10xCD box set - posting now complete

Disc 1 - Pierre Boulez: Le Marteau Sans Maître/Livre Pour Cordes - posted here
Disc 2 - Toru Takemitsu: Asterism, Requiem, Green, Dorian Horizon - posted here
Disc 3 - Igor Stravinsky: Agon/Gunter Schuller: 7 Studies On Themes Of Paul Klee - posted here
Disc 4 - Charles Ives: The "Concord" Sonata - posted here
Disc 5 - George Crumb: Voice Of The Whale/Night Of The Four Moons etc - posted here
Disc 6 - Harry Partch: The World Of Harry Partch - posted here
Disc 7 - Extended Voices - posted here
Disc 8 - Xenakis, Del Tredici, Stockhausen, Cage, Crumb - posted here
Disc 9 - Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center - posted here
Disc 10 - The New Music, Volume 2 - see below.

"The New Music" was a short series by RCA Victrola, the first three of which were Italian recordings conducted by Bruno Maderna.  For the "Prophets Of The New" reissue series/the final disc in this box set, this CD presented all of Vol. 2 plus half of Vol. 3, spotlighting the legendary Italian flautist Severino Gazzelloni.

The first two tracks are chamber pieces that higlight the range of sonorities that Boulez and Haubenstock-Ramati could conjure up for flute, before a temporary switch in lead instrument gives us Maderna's Concerto for Oboe (played by Lothar Faber) and Chamber Orchestra.

Back with Gazzelloni for the tracks from The New Music Vol. 3, Y Su Sangre Ya Viene Cantando is the middle section of Luigi Nono's Epitaph For Lorca, with a definite Spanish tinge to its rhythmic orchestration.  Lastly, Berio's Serenade I for Flute & 14 Instruments is a great evolving dialogue between the soloist and other instruments.

link
pw: sgtg

Luigi Nono - Como Una Ola De Fuerza Y Luz, etc (1988 compi, rec. 1970-79)

An essential collection of three works by Italian firebrand Luigi Nono (1924-90), from DG's 20th Century Classics series.  All three had appeared previously on the label on LPs, the earliest being a 1970 release on their legendary Avant-Garde imprint for Contrappunto Dialettico Alla Mente (1968), a purely magnetic tape stew of voices reading a poem about the death of Dr King that year, an anti-Vietnam War flyer and other things.  This haunting soundscape also appears, in a different mix, on the collection of Nono's complete tape works that I posted early on in this blog.

At the start of this CD is the half-hour work for orchestra, soprano, piano and tape that Nono completed in 1972 and was released in 1974, Como Una Ola De Fuerza Y Luz (Like a wave of strength and light).  In seven sections, it pays tribute to a Chilean revolutionary, Lusiano Cruz (died 1971 in unexplained circumstances).  The increasing sophistication with which Nono could blend live instrumentation with tape production is very much in evidence here, and is endlessly listenable and thought-provoking.  The latest work is .....Sofferte Onde Serene..... (1976), putting a further spotlight on the great Maurizio Pollini as he expertly picks his way through Nono's piano-cluster variations, meant to evoke melancholy memories of the composer's home life and deceased family members in Venice.

link

previously posted at SGTG:
Complete Works For Solo Tape (link in post above)
La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura

Luigi Nono - La Lontananza..... / Hay que caminar (rel. 1992)

Luigi Nono's final works before his death in 1990, these two epic violin workouts certainly aren't easy listening, but they're a uniquely rewarding experience to get lost in - ideally on headphones in a dark room.  Roughly translating as 'Nostalgia for a future utopia, viewed at a distance' (one of many renderings out there!), the 40-minute main work here was constructed by Nono, Gidon Kremer and Sofia Gubaidulina onto eight tapes in 1988 with the live solo part written the following year.  In performance, the soloist is instructed to walk between several different music stands in the performance space, playing against the tapes.

On an album, we obviously lose that theatrical element, but Lontananza is still a striking listening experience.  Waves of howling violin overdubs drift around like ghost trains passing in some vast abandoned station. Periodically a mournful or shrieking solo part will tell it's story centre stage, like a passenger emerging from the train.  Ambient sounds from the recording process were added to the tapes, enhancing the otherwordly atmosphere with occasional creaks, clicks and fragments of conversation.

Straight afterwards on this disc, there's a 20-minute epilogue-dialogue for the final two ghosts left on the platform - may as well extend the metaphor as "Hay que caminar" Soñando inhabits a similar sonic space.  Gidon Kremer and Tatiana Grindenko frequently play extremely high frequenices as if the two voices are crying out to each other, and at other times having a spirited, bruising conversation as they navigate their way through the piece.  The title of this work came from a motto that Nono had seen on the walls of a Spanish monastery: "there is no way to travel, there is only the journey" - ideal words to have in mind when digesting a great, unique album like this.

link

Previously posted at SGTG: Tape works

Luigi Nono - Complete Works for Solo Tape (rec. 1960-74; 2006 compi)

Been listening to Luigi Nono (1924-1990) a lot recently, and reading about him too.  One of the most fascinating and stridently political figures in 20th century composed music, if Nono were alive today he definitely wouldn't shy away from frequent Twitter beefs with anyone he disagreed with.  Back in the 1960s though, his main mode of expression (when not writing angry letters to his contemporaries, or knocking over their dinner tables) was to put together some of the most haunting electroacoustic music ever heard.

'Die Ermittlung' (The Investigation), a play by Peter Weiss about the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt, premiered in 1965.  It incorporated 22 minutes of music by Nono, split into sometimes tiny fragments to correspond to the 35 scenes of the play.  On this recording, the electronic bleeps separating each section are left in, sounding like snippets of urgent morse code.  The music combines children singing 'Mama' with vocal phenomes performed by Stefania Woytowicz in 1959 (fittingly, given the subject matter, the Polish soprano would go on to feature in an 80s recording of Górecki's Third Symphony) and other suitably unsettling noise.  After the play, Nono condensed some of the raw material into a shorter, more focused piece to even more devastating effect, titling it Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz (Remember what they did to you in Auschwitz).  Presented in sequence on this release, the two recordings make for a stunning, spine-chilling half hour.

Also of note here is Contrappunto Dialettico alla Mente (Inner dialectic counterpoint - I think!) which takes shouted fragments of revolutionary poetry and political tracts to a uniquely weird place, especially when sped up into surreal unintelligibility as the piece progresses.  Fans of early Nurse With Wound will find a clear reference point in this one, and indeed, all of these pieces prefigure the menacing, dada-esque drift of Stapleton's early 80s work.  This 2-disc set is rounded out by material from two of the original radio programmes, taken from RAI's archives (as were all the original masters for the six pieces, mixed down for broadcast by Nono).  The 'Contrappunto' broadcast sounds particularly enlightening as to the creative process - unfortunately, you'll need pretty fluent Italian to appreciate it, as opposed the virtually nil Italian that I can speak!

Disc 1
Disc 2