Il canto sospeso
Il canto sospeso ( Interrupted Singing ) is a composition by Luigi Nono . The textual basis of the 9-part work for soprano, alto, tenor, choir and orchestra are the last letters of those sentenced to death from the European resistance, Lettere di condannati a morte della Resistenza Europea , which were first published in 1954 by Giulio Einaudi (Turin) in published in an anthology. The composition Il canto sospeso was composed in 1956.
Text basis
Nono selected ten letters from young women and men for his composition, on the basis of which he formed the text for the choral work Il canto sospeso. They are the farewell letters from:
- Anton Popov (Bulgaria - teacher and journalist, 26 years old)
- Andreas Likourinos (Greece - pupil, 14 years)
- Eleftherios Kiossès (Greece - student, 19 years)
- Konstantinos Sirbas (Greece - hairdresser, 22 years)
- Chaim (Galicia) (Poland - farm boy, 14 years)
- Esther Srul (Poland)
- Lyubov Grigoryevna Shevtsova (USSR)
- Irina Malozon (USSR)
- Eusebio Giambone (Italy - typesetter, 40 years)
- Elli Voigt (Germany - worker, 32 years)
dedication
The composition Il canto sospeso , published by Schott Music International, was dedicated to Luigi Nono a tutti loro , "all of them".
Luigi Nono on the farewell letters in his composition:
"The message of those letters from people condemned to death is engraved in my heart as in the hearts of all those who understand these letters as a testimony of love, conscious decision and responsibility towards life and as an example of willingness to make sacrifices and resistance to Nazism, this monster of irrationalism, which tried to destroy reason. "
premiere
Originally, Luigi Nono had received a commission to compose the work for the Kranichstein Music Festival in Darmstadt. Since the completion of the score was delayed, Nono's mentor Hermann Scherchen arranged the premiere for Westdeutscher Rundfunk (main music department at WDR) in Cologne. Scherchen himself took over the direction of the premiere on October 24, 1956.
occupation
Il canto sospeso is a 9-part cantata for soprano, alto and tenor, choir and orchestra. The latter includes:
- 4 flutes (also piccolo )
- 2 oboes
- 2 clarinets
- Bass clarinet
- 2 bassoons
- 6 horns
- 5 trumpets
- 5 trumpets
- 3 timpani
- 5 drums without snare strings
- 5 hanging basins
- Vibraphone , xylophone , marimba , glockenspiel
- 12 bells
- 2 harps
- Celesta
- Violins I and II
- Violas
- Cellos
- Double basses
Political and social reference
Luigi Nono on the structure of his music:
“A musical concept in which every tone point is hermetically sealed corresponds to a way of thinking that is completely alien to me. Applied to everyday life, this would mean that every person is self-sufficient and only has to go out to realize himself. For me, however, it has always been clear that a person can only realize himself with others and with society. In my early pieces, the tone points aren't that important either. I wanted a horizontal melodic construction that seizes all registers: a floating from sound to sound, from syllable to syllable - a line that sometimes arises from the sequence of single notes or single pitches and sometimes thickens into sounds. "
Helmut Lachenmann on the relationship between artist and society in Luigi Nono:
“Composing has got into an almost hopeless problem. Composing for this society or against it is the same for it and carries the risk of being insidiously embraced by it, especially if you want to hit this society very sensitive. The basic problem of composing today is: How do I free the technical means of composition from their misinterpretations established in society so that I, as a creative artist, can behave freely and critically towards this society? However, this must be preceded by an understanding of the political relevance of any artistic activity and communication. As I said, almost everyone shirked this insight. The most important exception: Luigi Nono. "
Massimo Mila on the ethical statement of the composition Il canto sospeso :
“In the Canto sospeso there is no shadow of cheap sentimental blackmail, which has repeatedly encouraged the surviving resistance fighters to paraphrase Leconte de Lisle : It is forbidden to place notes on the graves of our dead . In contrast, the highest praise that can be given to the Canto sospeso is that the music proves itself worthy of the texts set to music, and that it succeeds in its own sphere in mastering the dramatic moral height of the letters of the resistance fighters sentenced to death and to recreate these words, the validity of which has been confirmed by the most decisive of all trials. "
Nonoproject
The composition Il canto sospeso and the letters that Luigi Nono selected as the textual basis from the anthology Lettere di condannati a morte della Resistenza Europea ( Last Letters to Death Convicts from the European Resistance ) are the basis for the nonoproject , which is an initiative was developed by Claudio Abbado together with the Fondazione L'Unione Europea Berlin and IncontriEuropei for schools in Europe. Various DVD productions were created as an impetus for project lessons .
Publications
The translations of the farewell letters selected by Luigi Nono for Il canto sospeso were made available on the Internet in cooperation with Canzoni contro la guerra , an Italian web portal. The letters are documented in several translations: Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Romanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Serbian, Polish and Danish / Faroese.
literature
- Piero Malvezzi and Giovanni Pirelli (eds.): Lettere di condannati a morte della Resistenza Europea. Foreword by Thomas Mann. Giulio Einaudi, Turin 1954
- German: Last letters from the European resistance condemned to death. Steinberg-Verlag, Zurich 1955
- Luigi Nono: Il canto sospeso. Pocket score. Ernst Eulenburg, Mainz / London 1995, ISBN 978-3-7957-6444-9
- Jürg Stenzl (Ed.): Luigi Nono - texts, studies of his music. Atlantis, Zurich / Freiburg i. Br. 1975, ISBN 3-7611-0456-1
- Hansjörg Pauli and Dagmar Wünsche (Eds.): Hermann Scherchen Musicians 1891–1966. Academy of Arts. Edition Henrich, 1986, ISBN 3-926175-01-X
- Christina Dollinger: Infinite space - timeless moment. Pfau, Saarbrücken 2012, ISBN 978-3-89727-478-5
- Rainer Nonnenmann: The walk through the cliffs - Helmut Lachenmann's encounters with Luigi Nono based on their correspondence and other sources 1957–1990, Verlag Breitkopf, ISBN 978-3-7651-0326-1
Web links
- Virtual library for musicology Bayerische Staatsbibliothek | Nonoproject
- Il canto sospeso at the Luigi Nono archive
- Initiative Il canto sospeso non-project
- "How difficult it is to say goodbye to the good life" . Dealing with fear, violence and death in Luigi Nono's “Il canto sospeso” - a teaching project for high school at Schott Music
- Canzoni contro la guerra
- Website nonoproject
Individual evidence
- ↑ Last letters from the European resistance condemned to death. Edited by Piero Malvezzi and Giovanni Pirelli. Foreword by Thomas Mann. Steinberg-Verlag, Zurich 1955, p. 52
- ↑ ibid p. 240
- ↑ ibid. P. 232
- ↑ ibid p. 243
- ↑ ibid p. 467
- ↑ ibid. P. 463
- ↑ ibid p. 550
- ↑ ibid, p. 547
- ↑ ibid p. 277
- ↑ ibid. P. 136
- ^ Luigi Nono: Il canto sospeso. Pocket score. Ernst Eulenburg, Mainz / London 1995, ISBN 978-3-7957-6444-9 , page 1 Schott Music ( Memento of the original dated December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Luigi Nono: Il canto sospeso. Pocket score. Ernst Eulenburg, Mainz / London 1995, ISBN 978-3-7957-6444-9 , page X (quote from Luigi Nono in the foreword by Christoph Flamm)
- ^ Archivio Luigi Nono
- ^ Luigi Nono: Il canto sospeso. Pocket score. Ernst Eulenburg, Mainz / London 1995, ISBN 978-3-7957-6444-9 . S. XVIII
- ↑ ibid p. IX
- ↑ Helmut Lachenmann in: Luigi Nono - Text studies for his music. Edited by Jürg Stenzl . Atlantis Verlag, Zurich / Freiburg i. Br. 1975, p. 314
- ↑ Massimo Mila: Nono's way - to the "Canto sospeso". In: Luigi Nono - Text studies for his music. Edited by Jürg Stenzl. Atlantis Verlag Zurich / Freiburg i. Br. 1975, p. 393
- ^ Nonoproject of the Fondazione L'Unione Europea Berlin
- ↑ Lettere
- ^ Letters
- ↑ Les Lettres
- ↑ Las Cartas
- ↑ The Cartas
- ↑ De Brieven
- ↑ Scrisori
- ↑ писмата
- ↑ Pisma
- ↑ писма
- ↑ Listów
- ↑ Danish / Faroese