Nostalgia for the Future

Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono (1924–1990) was part of the group of high modernists whose work dominated the post-war European music scene. Experimenting with sound and technology, Nono's compositions and writings frequently addressed the role of the arts in a progressive society.Angela Ida De Benedictis is Curator and Research Associate at the Paul Sacher Foundation (Basel). She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Luigi Nono Archive and Scientific Director of the Centro Studi Luciano Berio. Veniero Rizzardi is Professor at the State Conservatory of Padua and Adjunct Professor at the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. He is cofounder of the Luigi Nono Archive in Venice and also a curator of a new music series at the University of Padua. Both De Benedictis and Rizzardi have edited critical editions of music by Luigi Nono.

• PrefaceIntroductionEXERGO: Clarifications (1956)EXCURSUS I. An Autobiography of the Author Recounted by Enzo Restagno (1987)PART ONE. MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION1. Luigi Dallapiccola and the Sex Carmina Alcaei (ca. 1948)2. On the Development of Serial Technique (1956)3. The Development of Serial Technique (1957)4. Text—Music—Song (1960)5. [About Il canto sospeso] (1976)EXCURSUS II. A Letter from Los Angeles (1965)PART TWO. MUSIC ONSTAGE: FROM A "THEATER OF IDEAS" TO THE "TRAGEDY OF LISTENING"1. Some Clarifications on Intolleranza 1960 (1962)2. Possibility and Necessity of a New Music Theater (1962)3. Play and Truth in the New Music Theater (1962)4. Die Ermittlung: A Musical and Theatrical Experience with Weiss and Piscator [Music and Theater] (1966)5. Toward Prometeo: Journal Fragments (1984)EXCURSUS III. Interview with Renato Garavaglia (ca. 1979–80)PART THREE. "CONSCIENCE, FEELINGS, COLLECTIVE REALITY"1. Historical Presence of Music Today (1959)2. Music and Resistance (1963)3. Replies to Seven Questions by Martine Cadieu (1966)4. Music and Power (1969)5. In the Sierra and in the Parliament (1971)EXCURSUS IV. Technology to Discover a Universe of Sounds: Interview with Walter Prati and Roberto Masotti (1983)PART FOUR. PORTRAITS AND DEDICATIONS1. Josef Svoboda (1968)2. Remembering Two Musicians (1973)3. Victor Jara’s Song (1974)4. Preface to Arnold Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre (1977)5. Bartók the Composer (1981)6. For Helmut (1983)7. For Marino Zuccheri (1986)EXCURSUS V. Interview with Michelangelo Zurletti (1987)PART FIVE. THE "POSSIBLE INFINITIES"1. Error as a Necessity (1983)2. Other Possibilities for Listening (1985)3. Lecture at the Chartreuse in Villeneuve-les-Avignon (1989)EXCURSUS VI. “Proust” Questionnaire (1986)Notes and AbbreviationsBibliographical Notes and Comments to the TextsChronology of Nono’s WorksIndex

"The appeal of what the English music historian Harriet Boyd-Bennett called Nono's 'sonic hubub' is elucidated in this long overdue collection of the composer's writings and interviews. A comparable French edition of this material appeared back in 1993, which indicates how belated, albeit still timely, its insights are for opera lovers undeterred by avant garde sounds."