Luigi Nono: Il Canto Sospeso e.a.

In 2014 it will have been 90 years since the Italian Luigi Nono (1924-1990) was born. He was one of the greatest European composers of his time. Almost a quarter of a century after his death, his music is seldom performed. Having organised similar projects dedicated to the music of Varèse (2009), Xenakis (2011) and Cage (2012), this year the Holland Festival honours Luigi Nono with a mini festival featuring, over the course of a long weekend, highlights from his extensive and varied body of work. As well as three full-scale concerts, there will also be an intimate late-night performance of La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, a two-day conference entitled “… Hay que caminar …” - Luigi Nono’s musical paths between politics and art, and the exhibition Luigi Nono 1924–1990 - Maestro di suoni e silenzi, which will be accompanying the concerts held at the Gashouder. This year's annual free concerts in the underpass of the Rijksmuseum by conservatory students will be fully dedicated to Nono's music. Musical direction for the three central concerts at the Gashouder will be in the hands of the conductor and Nono expert Ingo Metzmacher. A very special highlight will be the contribution made by the Swiss composer, conductor and sound engineer André Richard, who worked in close collaboration with Nono for years and who gave his name to one of Nono's compositions, entitled André Richard.

One of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde, Nono, together with contemporaries such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, for years spearheaded the New Music movement. He also married Nuria Schönberg, daughter of Arnold Schönberg, the founder of twelve tone music. Still, the historical inevitability of serialism as advocated by the avant-garde, was never sufficient for Nono. Viewing music as a system which was not self-contained, Nono wanted his music to be open to the world from the start, looking for ways to change political consciousness through sound. To Nono, radical music could never stand on its own, but is always the inevitable outcome of radical, political ideas.

Day two of Luigi Nono: trilogy of the sublime will be dedicated to a number of compositions which explicitly convey a revolutionary message. The text Nono used for his early masterpiece Il canto sospeso (1955-1956) consists of farewell letters from political prisoners written shortly before their executions. Although Il canto sospeso was composed according to the guiding principles of serialism, the layered harnonies of choir and orchestra express not only an uncompromising solidity, but also an almost sensual beauty. Dry is definitely not the operative word here.

Nono started composing Como una ola de fuerza y luz (1971-72) as a piano concerto for Maurizio Pollini, but the death of the young Chilean revolutionary leader Luciano Cruz, whom he knew, changed his concept of this work. Composed for soprano, piano, orchestra and tape, Como una ola is an exceptionally intense requiem or lamentation for a friend and kindred spirit, which in the space of 30 minutes takes the audience through all stages from inner calm to wild ferocity. The composer's involvement with the revolutionary cause and the death of his comrade can be felt in every note; here, politics and private life are one and the same. Between these two major works, the relatively short electronic composition Non consumiamo Marx will be performed.

Unlike the other concerts, in which all of the space surrounding the auditorium will be used for the performance, on this day the performance space for the concert is restricted to the front stage. The Saturday concert will be concluded by a late night performance of La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura by Irvine Arditti and André Richard.