on music and beauty

Tag: Luigi Nono

Henze, Canti di Viaggio

La vita di un artista romantico, con la stessa intensità e passione, ma anche con le inevitabili cadute di stile e prolissità che caratterizzano la musica di Henze. Rimane un nostalgico, commovente ritratto dell’Italia dagli anni Cinquanta in poi, soprattutto del Sud – quel Sud che comincia dai Colli Albani… – visto con gli occhi di un artista nordico alla ricerca della sua Grecia, dell’ideale classico, della bellezza.

Appaiono nell’autobiografia tantissimi personaggi della cultura artistica del ‘900, da Luchino Visconti a Michael Vyner, da Wystan Auden a Ingeborg Bachmann…mi hanno sorpreso la descrizione della lunga e difficile amicizia con Luigi Nono, che getta una luce nuova sul personaggio, e la totale assenza di ogni riferimento a Berio (a parte uno piccolissimo).

Sligo New Music Festival

I spent a different weekend in Sligo, on the North-West coast of Ireland, where I was invited to talk about Nono, Feldman and contemporary music in a public discussion chaired by Ian Wilson, the Irish composer and Artistic Director of the Sligo New Music Festival.

Some very good memories of intelligent interpreters (Callino Quartet, Sarah Nicolls, Nancy Ruffer, Nicole Tibbels), during the three days of the Festival and lively discussion with fellow panelists Andrew Toovey, Ioana Petcu-Colan and Jürgen Simpson.

One image stuck in my mind: the description of the effort in performing Morton Feldman’s work for piano and string quartet lasting 85 minutes, by Ioana, the leader of the Callino Quartet: what the listeners’ experience should be, is something like looking at a beautiful swan, gliding effortlessly on the water, while the performers, unseen, conscientiously paddle under the surface to keep the piece together, counting beats and bars but never showing it in the music…

As for the real thing, I managed to spend one (almost) rainless morning walking along the endless beaches north of Sligo at low tide, the first time I have been near the sea for a very long time.

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