Introducing Luigi Nono

One of the benefits of YouTube that isn't mentioned much is the good chance of running across something interesting from time to time. True, the algorithm keeps throwing up stuff that you have heard a zillion times, but every now and then it tosses in something new to the mix that might, somehow, be related to something you once listened to. That is how I stumbled across some clips of music by Luigi Nono. Now I had certainly known his music since the 70s, but I had only a superficial acquaintance with it. The one LP I had of a couple of orchestral pieces was lost in a move and never replaced. So it was with interest that I listened recently to some more of his music courtesy of the vagaries of YouTube.

Here, for example, is a piece that just came up today:

One remarkable thing about that is how much it sounds like Medieval music from time to time. In any case, since I know very little about how Nono went about composing and very little about his life as well, I will do a series of posts on him so we can all get better informed!

There are a few reference books available through Amazon, but they are all quite expensive:

https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Handbook-Luigi-Musical-Thought-ebook/dp/B07H4YS42F/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2D3GBDIX37E9L&keywords=luigi+nono&qid=1560089948&s=books&sprefix=luigi+nono%2Caps%2C190&sr=1-4

I will be working through both this monograph and the works themselves in a series of posts. Here is a little quote from the introduction:

In many respects his music anticipates the new technological state of culture of the twenty-first century while radically reconnecting with our past. His work is itself a case study in the evolution of musical activity and the musical object: from the period of an apparently stable place for art music in Western culture to its manifold new states in our century. 

Impett, Jonathan. Routledge Handbook to Luigi Nono and Musical Thought (Kindle Locations 640-642). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.