Can text itself become music?

: Music-Text Relationships in
Luigi Nonos Compositions of the Early 1960s [1]
Angela Ida De Benedictis

The yellow patch in the sky

above Golgotha wasnt chosen by il
Tintoretto to mean anguish,
much less to provoke it; it is anguish
and yellow sky in the same time.
Not sky of anguish, nor anguished
sky; it is anguish transformed into a
yellow patch in the sky [...].
J. - P. Sartre

Since Il canto sospeso the music - text relationship in Luigi Nonos

work has posed many aesthetic and analytical challenges. From this
composition on, the composer consciously strove to develop his personal idiom
towards a new expressivity in the song.[2]. In this and the works which follow a
new synergic interaction takes shape between text and music: on one hand
between the form and substance of the textual material, on the other, between
the form and substance of the musical material. It is no longer possible to
analyze one component at the expense of the other.[3] The theoretical
responses to Nonos new vocal idiom can be summarized in two
apparentlyirreconcilable tendencies. One issue of debate concerns the
necessity of distorting the features of the text in such a way that it becomes
completely incomprehensible, especially when potential ethic and
political contents are to be considered.[4] The other approach avoids any
technical or analytical speculation in the name of expressiveness which would
justify any particular treatment of the text, even though the existence of a clear
link between pre-selected texts and music is acknowledged. [5] We can
overcome this text/music hiatus by analyzing the creative process in an
analytical-philological investigation, going through different generative phases,
proceeding from the sketches to the definitive work. By means of this method
the present contribution aims to re-examine the complexity and originality of
Nonos new vocal idiom in three of his compositions of the early sixties: Sar
dolce tacere (for 8 solo singers), Ha venido. Canciones para Silvia (for
soprano and female chorus) and Canti di vita e damore (for soprano, tenor and
orchestra).[6]
From the second half of 1950s Nonos compositional
activity increasingly tended to define different materials and principles of
organization for each individual piece. Between 1960 and 1963, the encounter
and the synthesis between past technical skills and new experimentations with
sound (among these, electronics and his firsttheatrical work, Intolleranza 1960)
lead to relevant syntactic and morphological developments. [7] Yet, in extremely
different ways, the exploration of sound as a complex phenomenon with

multiple implications remains constant and central in Nonos work. Like

the word in Sartres work, sound becomes action by which composer, performer
and listener are inextricably and ideally linked in an artistic commitment which is
lived openly as a necessity of communication.[8] In the three works mentioned
above, the stimuli and conditions from which this kind of sound originates are
inseparably tied to the text and its formal and semantic components. And if by
the word composition we mean the progressive adjustment of the whole
through the organization of single elements, we can posit that for Nono
composition begins with the reading of a text that provokes the subsequent
transformation into a new signifying musical fact. [9]
In Nonos work sound image always precedes any musical
writing. The manipulation of the musical material - from the general sketches to
the rough drafts on staff paper, from the first graphic representations of
the sound structures to the definitive configuration of events - constantly
searches for particular sonorities, which are pursued after numerous steps in
the drafts. Nono often figured the evolution of the sound phenomenon in his
drafts visualizing their trajectory; among the most used symbols, for example,
we can find the following to indicate groups of sounds beginning or ending
simultaneously with increasing or decreasing density:

The first step in understanding how the creative process starts from the text is
to consider the specific texts selected by the composer. [10] We should notice that
Nono also chooses poems or prose extracts independently from any proper
compositional project: sometimes the selection is the result of intense emotional
involvement or the evocation of sounds in his readings. The most cherished
texts are kept together in a sort of ideal anthology from which the composer
draws, both for future commissions and personal projects. In his vast library, in
which are more than 9000 volumes, a large number of poetry and prose texts some of them never used in any composition - show clear traces of
selection and glosses or musical annotations related to timbre, tempo, agogics
and dynamics; this also allows a mapping of the intricate routes among his
unrealized projects. We can deduce from the examination of these annotations
that Nono already thinks in musical terms while reading: the margin glosses (as
shown in Figure 1) testify that even in the composers perception, as in his
language, neither can sound be isolated from thought, nor thought
from sound.[11]
The impression that a piece is musically alive prior to any real
graphic
representation is also confirmed by the manipulation of the text after its d
efinitive election. The first operation is always to make a typewritten copy of the
text; Nonos main goal is to study carefully both formal and semantic
connections, and to find the key words which we can often see already
underlined on his printed source. The first copy is often followed by further
typescripts in which new changes in the formal disposition can be found,
together with internal modifications concerning words or sentences. In the end

the composer arrives at a new textual archetype. Sometimes this is no longer

identifiable with the original.[12]

Figure 1: Anche tu sei collina by Cesare Pavese, source of Sar dolce tacere with Nonos
handwritten glosses and annotations. Taken from the cycle La terra e la morte, in Verr la
morte e avr i tuoi occhi, Turin, Einaudi,1951, pp. 12-13 (book in Luigi Nono Archive in Venice;
with kind permission). The selection of this lyric dates back at least to 1957: it was in fact
already pre-figured in the initial project of La terra e la compagna (1957).

After highlighting with colored pencils or pens all the connections

between form, meaning, expressivity, characters, Nono makes his decisions
regarding the particular parametric materials and the overall shape of the piece.
In this new phase, all links in the typescript are marked in the same colors. Is
not
unusual
that
the
composerarrives
at detailed desiderata of
expression by arranging key-words in a succession, either taken from the text or
intimately recalled together with emotions. This array still reflects personal and
secret paths and cannot be related to any primitive programme music.
[13]
Even in the silence of the page this material should instead be considered
as the ideal sonorous development of the eventual composition in its
meaningful essence. The music embodying these emotional interpretations of
the text will not describe or imitate those impressions but will be those
emotions. In the sketches, even in some written before the draft phase, the
composer arranges the text, or parts of it, within imaginary sonorous evolutions
that find parallels in eventual musical structures. Between the language system
and the music system a loop is created in which text and music play both roles
of means and end. The network structure of the employed musical parameters
is predetermined by the text itself.

These features were already evident in the two vocal

compositions of 1960 (Sar dolce tacere, and Ha venido. Canciones para
Silvia) and they become even more evident in the genesis of the triptych Canti
di vita e damore, composed in 1962 upon the commission by the Edinburgh
International Festival (where it was performed on August 22 of the same year
and conducted by the composer himself). Along with this work, which is a
synthesis of at least two different compositional projects, [14] Nono defines and
systematizes an original creative procedure that can be termed a
pannelli.[15] This is based on the juxtaposition of different sound episodes which
are directly organized during the writing process using previously selected
material. In this process of permutation and interpolation, the pre-arranged
homogeneity of the musical parameters guarantees coherence between the
different sound panels. These block sections are meant to be the single units
in the construction of a unitary and logical form,[16] quite different from the
jetzt in Stockhausens moment-form. Although the idea of dividing the
composition into three distinct parts is evident from the first drafts, the definitive
selection of the text appears to be less easy. After some modifications in the
original project, the text of the first piece (Sul ponte di Hiroshima) is made up of
selected and revisited prose extracts taken from Essere o non essere (To be or
not to be), written by the German philosopher Gnther Anders. [17] The central
monody Djamila Boupach -written in memory of an Algerian combatant
tortured by French paratroopers - is based on the tones of hope of the
poem Hesta noche, by the Spanish Jess Lpez Pacheco. [18] For the final
elegiac piece, Tu, Nono picks from his textual anthology Passer per Piazza di
Spagna by Cesare Pavese, which is a poem he finally set to music after at least
four years of waiting. [19] All the definitive textual choices of this piece follow the
principal subjects of Nonos art at this time: political conflicts, the myth of love
and, above all, hope, which is unseparated from the other two poles and ties the
songs of life to the songs of love. Without any gap these three different
shades of emotion follow in a thematic collection that could be seen as a
modern collection of Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi. The selections from Anders
and Pacheco for this composition remain unique among Nonos textual
choices. The reason of these selections can be retraced to a sudden emotional
involvement in the reading of Anders text and to Nonos direct acquaintance
with Pacheco. Pavese, on the contrary, had been among Nonos selected texts
for almost twenty years. [20] For him, the musical potential of Paveses lyrics are
many, both referring to their content (the observation of reality through myth and
symbols; the illustration of the contradictions of archetypical values of existence,
etc.) or to their morphologic-syntactic structure (frequent repetition of words;
alliterating and vocalic sonorities, etc.). Both possibilities can be found
in Passer per Piazza di Spagna, a song of jubilation [canto allelujatico]
chosen to celebrate una possibilit e nuova necessit amorosa [a possibility
and a new necessity of love]. [21]
From his printed copy to the definitive version, Nono retypes Paveses poetry in four different phases. The first indications of grouping
verses and highlighting keywords are already visible on the printed source. But
only in the first typed transcription (see Table 1 in Appendix A) does the
composer mark the different phrases with symbols, numbers from 1 to 3 and
using four distinct colors (black, red, green and purple). As will be seen, these

colors relate back to the characters proposed cyclically in thepoetic

development.
From this moment on, the four colors identify their respective
textual segments in all further decisions. In this case the choice of a trisected
division is also immediate: the numbers from 1 to 3 refer to the macro-sections
of the piece. By the
second typescript Nono has already reached an almost definitive textual
structure thanks to the first substantial deviation from the original: the
elimination of the fourth phrase(I fiori spruzzati / di colore alle fontane /
occhieggeranno come donne divertite, The flowers sprayed / with color at the
fountains / will make eyes like amused women). This erasure was already
imagined by the composer in his first typescript (see Table 1, Appendix A) and is
presumably due to the expressive and phonetic difference of this phrase if
compared with the four identified textual segments.
In the third typescript stage the previous selection of short extracts
or whole sentences translates into the creation of grouping panels: four small,
separate sheets (about the size of an A8) in which the composer transcribes
different sections of the text, making groups of colors. This is aimed at
extrapolating the sections from their context and verifying their
corresponding meanings (see Figure 2).
After this phase Nono begins to work on the proper musical
structure of the piece. As mentioned, the particular parametrical materials had
been selected in the first creative phases as in a repertoire of possibilities. At
this level in the process the composer draws on this repertoire to find the
material concerning intervals, tempo and timbres. This material is then to be
organized through the various sound episodes. [22] As will be seen later on, all
decisions are definitely conditioned by the personal musical interpretation of
Paveses poetry. The first decision concerns the interval developments and the
timbres. In the definitive sketch related to these parameters (see Figure 3) and
in the several others before it, Nono always implicitly recalls the portions of text
with their colored numbers. Moreover, he always follows the same order of the
previous panels. The intervals sizes in this sketch (4 T stands for the
interval of perfect fourth and tritone; T 2 + 4 stands for the intervals of the
perfect fourth and tritone; T 2 + 4 stands for the intervals of the tritone, major
second and perfect fourth etc.) are successively transcribed on a proper
musical sheet in which the different sections are always identified by the
colored numbers.
Immediately afterwards, Nono determines the temporal dimension,
establishing its qualitative and quantitative organization of rhythm and duration.
The single units of duration and the time fields that will characterize the
different sections are now involved (Figure 4).[23]

Figure 2: Facsimile of the Third Typescript Stage (Luigi Nono Archive, with kind
permission). For ease of reproduction, the four distinct typewritten panels are
juxtaposed. The numbers are colored according to the following order: black = sar un
cielo chiaro panel; red = sapriranno le strade panel; green = il tumulto delle
strade; purple = le scale.

Figure 3: Facsimile: Sketch of the final Interval and Timbre Selections; Luigi Nono Archive, with
kind permission (The order of the colored numbers follows the one indicated in Figure 2). To the
right of each groupthe indications concerning sound articulation (bacchette ferro + piatti,
lasciar vibrare, tenere archi perco[ssi] etc.: iron drumsticks + cymbals; cymbals; go
on vibrating; keep hitting the strings), as also instrumentation and dynamics, belong to a
subsequent decision phase. This is revealed by the different quality of the ink and the
measure indications come 166-173 (as in 166-173). We should notice in this sketch and in
the following one (Figure 4) that the composer connects (respectively with an arrow and with a
curly bracket) the parts marked in black and red.

Figure 4: Facsimile: Final Sketch of Temporal Choices; Luigi Nono Archive, with kind
permission (The colored numbers in the upper part are: 1) = black, 2) = red, 3) = green, 4) =
purple).

Up to this point the musical revisitation of the text has led to the
effective transcription into a new semiotic guise. Each text segment has found a
counterpart in the musical lexicon and will characterize each musical event. At
this point the textual material can be finally re-composed in its definitive version
(see Table 2 in Appendix B).[24]This version becomes a semantic, formal,
expressive and phonetic guide for the draft in progress.
The new connotation of the colors allows both verbal and musical
decoding of the text without leaving any doubt about the path of expressive and
semantic correspondences followed by the composer. The first nucleus, indicated
by the color black, leads back to the certainty of a happy future, which is
assimilated with the light and theclear (chiaro) element of sky and air. This is
meant to be the space symbolizing the epiphany of sentiment (the evoked aria
mattutina, morning air). The action of opening symbolic doors or roads (porte,
strade) - behind these allegorical nouns we see the reunion with the woman characterize the short phrases marked in red.

The complementarity and the connection between the two texts as

stressed by the composer in the drafts involving parametric choices [25] - are
underlined by strong temporal and intervallic similarities (with major and minor
seconds, perfect fourths and tritones). The text marked in green is more
extended than the previous one and is connected with the noise evocations of
the whole text: the agitated turmoil (tumulto) of the first verse corresponds
with the troubled voice of the heart (cuore) in the central episode, then finally
comes the revealed synthesis of the two beating in one entity (il tumulto delle
strade / sar il tumulto del cuore, The turmoil of the streets / will be the turmoil
of the heart). The rhythm and the frenzy of these textual sections are expressed
in music by the shortest time field (20 units) and by a larger division of the
harmonic surface through the introduction of the intervals of the major and
minor third. The key-element of the fourth and final text section final text section
(purple group) is the singing(canto). Upon this singing dwell the happy
moments of the delicate encounter with nature, and through and beyond it, with
the woman, to whom this hymn is dedicated at last.[26] Symbolically, no
instrument is required for this fourth character; only the voices of the man and
his companion (tenor and soprano) sing purely, musically structured in a
complete and emblematic fusion of musical parameters.[27]
The three macro-sections of the piece take shape over this total
synergy between expressive and structural needs: the different vocal or vocalicinstrumental episodes - which are strongly characterized in their temporal,
timbre, rhythm and intervallic features - alternate with orchestral inserts,
functioning sometimes as a caesura andsometimes as a connection (see Figure
5).[28]
As the solo Tenor becomes the vocal protagonist of the final act,
the timbre of his voice regains its function of carrying the verbal message.
[29]
Only in the textual sections which are related to the singing or to the voice
(number 1 and 2 purple, 2b green in Appendix A) the Soprano voice
(libero!, free!, as the composer allegorically writes in one of the sketches),
replies to his hymn of love as a presence (declaimed text) or as an idea
(vocalized text). The vocal lines are developed independently of any motivic or
thematic implication and according to a particular generative technique based
on basic intervals which is completely autonomous from the instrumental
layer.[30]
In the selection of intervals and in their use Nono attains a
personal mediation between the symbolic possibilities of the past and the
structural values of the twentieth century. Here the perfect fourth is particularly
significant,
associated
with
purity and
brightness. The word chiaro [bright, clear] occurs in almost every possi
ble and meaning.[31] The several interventions of percussions and strings
- always used in a rhythmic function and with ever-changing dynamics - are
meant to create symbolic effects. As the author recalls them in one sketch they
should represent the rumori di Pavese (Paveses noises). Along with its own
evocative sonorities, ideal or real, the text suggests timbral associations: Nono
assigns the role of the heart (il cuore), which is the mute protagonist, to the
dreamlike sounds of bells and cymbals; noise and turmoil(tumulto) are instead
articulated by strings.[32] The semantic and emotional amplification of the text is

accomplished through alternation or simultaneity between these instrumental

timbres, through which Nono creates truly self-referential scenarios.

Figure 5: Tu: General Scheme of the Formal, Timbral, Textual and Parametric
Articulation

To understand the reasons for such a choice and combination of

materials in the musical structure of the episodes, we need only reverse the
famous question asked by Stockhausen[33], and ask: Why a structure then, and
why this one?. The answer provided by studies of the genesis of this work
show that formal articulation during the composition is always guided by a

previous arrangement of the whole text, and that the morphology of the
sonorous events is organized according to the exact syntax of the single text to
which it refers. This is done by carefully controlling the relationship between
form and substance.
Therefore, the text works as a(n):
Semantic basis: One paradigmatic case is provided by the organization of episodes 2a
and 2b green (measures 226-235 and 238-247). The two episodes are developed with
mirror harmonic structures. These mirrors arise from the need for textual signification:
il cuore, the heart, subject of the whole strophe, becomes the first formative element.
In the first couplet, after composing the vocal line of the first verse (il cuore batter
sussultando, the heart will beat shaking), Nono develops from the harmonic cell
of heart - through a double germination of its six pitches - the entire
vocal line of the second verse. Its subject is always the heart.[34] Also the mirror of
the second couplet (measures 238-247,1), in the pitches of le tue scale (your stairs)
that retrograde the ones of la voce (the voice),[35] implies the genitive case (of the
generative heart).
Formal basis: As shown in the facsimili (Tables 1 and 2 of the Appendix, and Figure 2),
Nono carefully recopies the punctuation in the different typewritten phases, making a
few choices and minimal variants to the original one of Paveses text. The punctuation
marks are translated into precise syntactic caesurae within the macro-sections of the
composition. These are the orchestral inserts that clearly point out the different sections.
In Tu such musical punctuations belong to two different types: the interlude
connection and the refrain. The latter normally works as a caesura and recalls the
sonorities of theorchestra introduction.[36] One clear example where the composer
faithfully follows his textual scheme as pre-ordered basis for composing is the
elimination of Paveses comma between saprir quella strada (that street will
open; episode 2 Red) and le pietre canteranno (the stones will sing; episode 2
Purple), as is evident comparing Tables 1 and 2 (see Appendix A and B). The omission
of the pause mark implies a syntactic connection between the two sentences, a sort of
asyndeton. Likewise, regarding the formal development of the music, for the first and
last time in the whole work two segments belonging to different characters follow one
after the other. This happens without a break (measures 214-216 and 216-221), by the
overlapping of the Soprano on the last pitch of the Tenor (F# 3, measure 216,3). The
elimination of the comma is thus explained in musical terms.
Expressive and phonetic basis: One of the most eloquent examples is the anticipation
of the third red clause (saprir una porta, a door will open) at the end of the second
macro-section (this second macro-section (see Figure 5), and the following omission of
the second black phrase (this decision is made definitively in the final drafting phase,
as is confirmed by the clear deletion marks on the final typescript; see Appendix
B, Table 2). Nono appears to realize the semantic coherence between the voice of the
heart that climbs the stairs (episode 2b green) and the door that opens (third red
segment). The omission of the second black phrase [37] would then be explained by his
willingness to make this correspondence stronger. The analysis of musical structure
confirms this: the segment sar questa la voce / che salir le tue scale (this will be
the voice / that will climb your stairs) enunciated by the Tenor (measure 238-242) is
echoed on the same harmonic line by the Soprano exclusively in its vowel essence.
[38]
From this echo (and directly on the pitches used for the possessive tue, your,
referring to the woman), Nono generates the musical line for saprir una porta (a
door will open). A structuralenjambement consequently comes after the new semantic
relationship created by the textual omission. The semantic superimposition between the
vowels of the Soprano and the subsequent textual fragment of the Tenor appears to
express the desired encounter between the two in the realm of pure sound.[39] New
considerations can now arise about the reasons why Nono confers the following green
textual segment (n. 3) to the instruments. These considerations lead us to a clear case
of ,,,

Synthesis of the possibilities of the text: As a matter of fact, the ellipsis resulting from
the instrumental and not phonetic sound-tracking of the text creates a connection
between the two following verses given to the Tenor: saprir una porta (a door will
open) and beyond it sarai tu - ferma e chiara (there will be you - still and bright), as
slowly syllabified and declared in maximum intelligibility. By assigning the text to the
instruments in section 3 green, the effective semantic independence of the two main
instrumental voices (percussion and strings, as already laid out in the orchestral
introduction) is completed. The layout of this section is a structure comprising two distinct
levels in density, rhythm and time. The first is connected with percussion and the second
with strings: in this section the text (transcribed in the score) is sung exclusively by
instrumental voices. By now these voices are so laden with independent meanings that
their timbres are now used to represent Il tumulto delle strade, (the turmoil of the
streets, strings with support of winds), finally revealed to be the tumulto del
cuore (turmoil of heart, percussions).

The correspondences between verbal and musical material could

be extended both to the other two pieces from Canti di vita e damore (Djamila
Boupach and Sul ponte di Hiroshima) and to the vocal compositions of 1960
(Sar dolce tacere and Ha venido. Canciones para Silvia). The pieces all
share the same purpose: to adapt form to content during the composition, that
is to manipulate the musical material in order to model the message and the
colors of the text[40] in a new status reflecting Nonos direct involvement in the
almost biological events of sound and word. On one hand, words seem to
reverse their semantics in the world of music, and on the other they seem to
dissolve into incomprehensibility. While reproducing the inflections and
evocations of the text in music, the material is organized by the composer as a
set of distinctive features, in which the slightest variation also determines a
change in meaning. The articulation in the sound complexes (clusters, groups,
blocks or single vocal lines), the slightest modification among them (in density,
tempo or dynamics), the selected intervals - every little detail plays an assigned
role in the expression of the text. Now we can state even more firmly that the
genesis of sound is in the initial musical reading of the text and then organized in
the ensuing textual manipulation. Modeling the literary source along his own
musical purposes highlights even further the presence of a definite sound
thought. This sound thought, coming also after the initial textual provocation,
quickly acquires its own autonomy. In the definitive typescript definition, through
the separation into couplets or strophes, through the groupings based upon
semantic features or figures of speech, it is clear that the composer is organizing
a musical material. Indeed, the relations and the connections arranged in his
typescripts and sketches are translated into his specific musical language, and
they acquire logic and structural coherence within a form as the means to
represent musical thought, in accordance with Schnbergs teachings. The
correspondences within the text are re-created through the use of different
expedients, such as varied repetition and referential use of intervals. The latter
demonstrates the new concept of the color interval, which characterizes
harmonic surfaces according to the symbolic or semantic connotation of the
text. [41]
Furthermore, a lucid sonic imagination is involved in the articulated
procedures that determine the material use of the text. In its new musical guise
the perception of the text varies according to pre-selected techniques.
Thus, in Sar dolce tacere and Ha venido. Canciones para Silvia the textual

comprehension is rather difficult, whereas inCanti di vita e damore one can

find both discrete comprehensibility (especially for the most intense warnings and
emotional appeals) and the opposite, a complete negation of the verbal element,
attained when words are enunciated only by orchestral voices. The latter
procedure, which would appear to contradict the importance of the text, must be
interpreted instead as an ultimate confirmation of the centrality of sound in the
composers mind. This sound is able to carry within itself the entire scope of the
meaning. Its sense, its essence, its dramatization takes place in the articulation of
the material, in the mere acoustic phenomenon and in the sound experience of
music.[42] Here the search for a new vocality, ongoing since Il canto sospeso, is
applied to instruments with the creation of a specific language which is selfsufficient and functional for the semantic propagation of the text. It is not by
chance that Nono, while defining the technical and timbral aspects of Canti di vita
e damore, assimilates the instrumental to the vocal technique. In the creative
process of these of these verbally mute sections an intense attempt is evident
to musically model that very meaning, or better, the presumed sonority harmonic, rhythmic and temporal - of that meaning. The un-saying of the text
has an intense dramatic power: the voice is not permitted in the most significant
episodes, while the instruments become the only way to explain the tones of
pain, tragedy (Sul ponte di Hiroshima), or unconfidable hope (Tu).[43] If we
consider the importance assigned by Nono to the voice, we will understand that
instruments sing the text and that the procedure of writing the text over the
score is not arbitrary.
One note in a sketch, dating back probably between 1960 and
1961, is illuminating on this matter. While sketching some ideas for an
unrealized work - ideas which migrated into Canti di vita e damore - the
composer writes that voice and instruments can sound alternating - together reversed, so that the instrument becomes voice, and the voice a mere
instrument. /and so words are written on the score, but not sung by the voice,
rather played by instruments. And he adds: continuity between the 2 voices /
between
instruments
/
between voice
and
instruments.[44] The
communication of the message is denied to the voice, sublimating the real
course of emotions in the sonic essence. This must be considered as a
premonition of the sung silence in the later string quartet Fragmente-Stille, an
Diotima, where the fragments extracted from Hlderlins text, still present in the
score, have been silenced in order to obtain the maximum from its message of
rebellion with minimum means.[45] In some ways this transgressing of the text
could be compared with the syllabic fragmentation begun in Il canto sospeso.
Both techniques pose problems in the comprehension of the work and in the
use of the text; paradoxically, both start from a communicative verbal input
translated into sounds.
_______________
Even though these observations on the links existing between
form and content (textual and musical) shed light on the composers poetics and
aesthetics, they dont appear to accurately define the relation between the two
systems, that is, language and music. The question is to try to define the
process by which the music becomes an organized whole if we also consider its

meaning, that is, how the work relates effectively to its textual provocation.
Having previously considered the equivalence between thephonic and semantic
levels and between sound and sense, and, starting with the a priori belief that
the composer has no desire to play games of translation, where do we place
the essential contact between the two systems? Is the semantic autonomy of
these three compositions absolute or is it always subordinated to their poetic
texts? Is language assimilated, overcome, or does it retain primacy in the
musical structure? It is also necessary to ask the decisive question about
realization: does the un-intelligibility or even the total removal of the text modify
the semantic-syntactic dimension of the work? Studying not only the genesis of
the three compositions of 1960-62 but also of the previous and following
works including Il canto sospeso), I think it is possible to achieve a critical
interpretation beyond what Nicolas Ruwet formulated in 1961:
... obviously, is very hard to set free the peculiar relations between word and
music in a given work, and that is for a very simple reason: as far as in every
signifying system one particular signifier is defined only through its relation
with all the others, in a given system it is not possible to go immediately from
the signified of one word, a group of words, ore even of an entire poem, to the
signified of one signifier in another system - melody, series of chords, musical
phrase.[46]

In focusing the point of interaction between text and music in

Nonos creative process, one first step could be asking if this music would make
sense without these words. The present philological analysis proves
without any doubt that these musical structures are born with and for a particular
text, forged upon its content and modeled to reflect it in sound. Total changes (of
entire extracts from the text) or partial changes (of single words) would then
correspond neither to substitution nor to destruction of the text, rather to arbitrary
variation. It is in a certain way as if a sculptor molded a statue, not necessarily
resembling the original features of its model. The material of the object-statue is
not the same of the object-model, and after its creation anyone is able to inflict
changes or lacerations, even against the artists will; yet that statue retains in its
intimate essencethat very model, even when no longer recognizable or called by
another name. With or without their respective text, the musical works originating
from it continue to make sense, since not only text and its intelligibility are
important but also its deepest meaning, transposed in the musical structure.
It has been already noticed that structural procedures, far from
being functional only to construction, are part of expression, and when dealing
with the text they transmit its content. This was usually described as fusion
between semantic and musical content, and also as enhancement of the
textual meaning through the sound structure. [47] This peculiar mutual
relationship, synthesis of a new and autonomous whole, [48] has been defined
as transformation, transmutation, transposition, interpenetration or, to follow
Boulezs words, text centre-absence or text pretext. Under close examination
however, these expressions dont satisfy the range of this process; [49] I believe
that this could be defined instead as transcodification.
It is necessary to point out that my personal use of linguistic
terminology serves the purpose of exemplification, with no intention of
transposing the corpus of its rules into music. Confrontations between linguistic

and musical norms will be developed to ease comprehension, to explain the

peculiar use of the material (musical and textual) and oppose one system to the
other, searching for analogies at most, but without assimilating one to the other.
As language, also music is a system of signs which manifests
itself in structures. Once given the sign as the graphic association of a signified
with a signifier (inseparable elements), its phonic realization shows itself
acoustically as a signal that translates the signified-signifier dyad into a new
one: sense and sound (fona). In music, sign refers to pure and nonconceptual sound, but in any case, such acoustic translation, though nonconceptual, is able to recall a definite content if sounds are structured in
signifying systems. The articulation of linguistic signs exists on two
distinguishable levels. The first level is composed by units which dont carry
meaning (phonemes), the second by the carrier units (monemes). Based on this
starting point we can state the possibility of shaping signifying sound structures
even through the connection of units which have no meaning, but may
contribute to creating it (that is: single sounds). In Nonos case it is evident how
musical composition is based - like the linguistic act - on the selection of
specific entities (the parametric materials) and on their combination in complex
units.[50] This involves the phonological (the single sound), the morphological (its
internal structure) and the syntactic level (rules for sound combination).
Structure will give the signified to music, especially if the latter is conceived so
as to organize and communicate prior or implicit references and meanings of
the text, as in the case of the three compositions under examination. And
directly through the explanation of the functions of communication it is possible
to try to solve the question of musical sense, that is what should be understood
here by signified or in which system (musical or linguistic) it should be placed.
Six main linguistic functions are assumed for every act of
communication: code, message, sender, receiver, channel and context (or
reference).[51] In the musical system, the more or less certain functions are: the
sender-receiver dyad that connects a single element, the author, to a probable
multitude, the public; the code, that isthe system of musical signs chosen by the
author; the message, which becomes the whole work as a reproduceable entity
structured according to precise poetics;[52] and finally the channel, meaning the
acoustic space of sound propagation. In the specific case of Nonos music it is
necessary to dwell longer upon the informative content of the message
(physical state) and its content (information) depends upon the code which is a
system of signs, symbols and signals through which it is possible to transmit or
receive information. Although the linguistic and musical communication dont
share the same code they might have a common message content or
reference. In the case of the three compositions in question written in 1960-62,
and more generally for all Nonos works involving texts, it should be clear from
the preceding discussion that the linguistic sign and the musical one both recall
the same sense. This sense must be seen as a semantic invariant even if the
graphic representations of the message are different.[53] And directly through this
shift of sign a transcodification is realized, by which the content of the text and
that of the musical work become concurrent.[54] This can be seen as a type of
synonymy (one signified for many signifiers) reached through a semiotic bimorphism: if the signifier usually structures the signified, in this case the
same signified, as is no longer identifiable with the form of its original sign, is

structured by a new signifier. The music-code, conveying system, becomes

the expression of the text-code, which reverts to a conveyed system
by becoming the content of the music-code.[55] Given the composers typescript
as the framework of the whole text (that is, a set of formal properties in which is
hidden a content structured by words predisposed for the new semiotic order),
when transcodification is complete:
1) the framework, with its formal relations, is preserved;
2) the code changes;
3) the content remains unchanged in the new musical configuration of the message.
[56]

Comprehension follows the change of code; for this reason the

intelligibility of a given text cannot be assimilated to the intelligibility of the same
text when set to music. The system of signs through which the text has been
coded, is decoded by the composer and re-coded into another system of
musical signs, creating a shift between two systems. The new decoding (the
reception in sound of the new musical work) now occurs on a different axis of
comprehension, involving a new system of communication, no longer based
on linguistic signs but on musical signs. If the message is structured in the
music-code, the listener must refer to the coordinates of the music-code at his
or herdisposal.[57] The comprehension of that music will then depend on the
degree of complexity of the composers idiom, and also on the encounter
between the listeners capacity of musical decoding and the creative horizon of
the composer. Any possible incomprehension of the text does not undermine
the semantic coherence of the inner structures ofthe musical work; the
inseparability between signified and signifier is not compromised by the nonperceptibility of the phonetic material caused by discontinuity, syllabic decomposition or complete removal of the text. If while standing in front of
Leonardo da Vincis Cenacolo one were to refuse or were unable to enjoy the
iconic-objective reality of this masterpiece, its symbolic meaning surely
wouldnt cease to exist!
At this level, the straightforward comprehension of the text is no
longer important since one should pay attention to the text in its sonic guise; it is
the same meaningful essence achieved through the articulation of another
code.[58] The references implied in this music, with all the emotional and ideal
implications of the composer, reach the listener anyways. On one hand, as
receiver, he or she will be in that sound, involved in the message even without
intending to be; on the other, as addressee, he or she will stand in front of that
sound and the reality that it represents. If the form of a work is the result of the
density of its contents,[59] as maintained by Varse, the meaningful and
structural densities of works like Canti di vita e damore Sar dolce
tacere and Ha venido. Canciones para Silvia will be then the mirror image or transcoded image - of the syntactic and semantic density of the text. This
deduction, however, feeds, as in Nonos words, on the awareness that there
isnt any formula!!!!!! Today as always. [...] the real solutions and the
techniques are on their way. They can only become. [60]
APPENDIX A, Table 1:
First Typescript (facsimile; Archivio Luigi Nono in Venice, with kind permission)

APPENDIX B, Table 2:
Final Typescript (facsimile;
permission)

Archivio

Luigi

Nono in

Venice,

with

kind

[1]

Originally published as Costituzione della struttura musicale a partire dalla materia

verbale. Sul rapporto testo musica nelle composizioni dei primi anni Sessanta, in La nuova
ricerca sullopera di Luigi Nono, a cura di G. Borio, G. Morelli and V. Rizzardi, Firenze, Olschki
1999 (Archivio Luigi Nono. Studi, I), pp. 67-94. This essay would not have been possible
without the availability of Nuria Schoenberg Nono, the support of Gianmario Borio, Veniero
Rizzardi and Stefano Bassanese, and the love of my father. My special thanks to each one of
them. The quotation in the new English title comes from L. Nono, Musica e teatro (1966), in
Luigi Nono, Scritti e colloqui, edited by A.I. De Benedictis e V. Rizzardi, Milano, Ricordi 2001, I,
pp. 210-215: 214.
[2]
L. Nono, Cori di Didone, in L. Nono, Scritti e colloqui, cit., p. 432.
[3]
See for example the analyses of Il canto sospeso by Kathryn Bailey and Ivanka
Stoianova. The former pursues a detailed, if sometimes contentious, analysis of the musical
structure of the work but omits the textual aspect and misunderstands the aesthetic implications
of serialism. The latter takes a completely opposite approach but lapses into at least three
conceptual errors: (a) by assigning a causal function to a process (proxemics) which
originates a posteriori, and confusing it with the effect; (b) by wrongly using the
term spatialization, reducing its meaning to its mere graphic-objective connotation and thereby
confusing graphic with acoustic information; and (c) by not associating its treatment with a
technical-compositional investigation. Paradoxically, starting with a defensive attitude towards
the composer, the scholar then obstructs any true comprehension of his work. See K. Bailey,
Work in Progress: Analysing Nonos Il Canto Sospeso, Music Analysis, XI, 2/3, 1992, pp. 279-

335; I. Stoianova, Testo-musica-senso. Il Canto Sospeso, in Nono, edited by E. Restagno,

Turin, EdT, 1987, pp. 126-142. On the masterpiece of 1955-56 see moreover: Wolfgang
Motz, Konstruktion und Ausdruck. Analytische Betrachtungen zu Il canto sospeso von Luigi
Nono, Pfau Verlag, Saarbrcken, 1996; Jeannie Guerrero, Serial Intervention in Nonos Il canto
sospeso, Music Theory Online, 12/1, Ma. 2006, and Carola Nielinger-Vakil, The Song
Unsung: Luigi Nonos Il canto sospeso, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 2006,
131(1), pp. 83-150.
[4]
See K. Stockhausen, Luigi Nono. Sprache und Musik II, in Texte zu eigenen Werken,
zur Kunst Anderer, Aktuelles, II (1952-1962), Kln, DuMont Schauberg, 1964, pp. 157166. Similar doubts, but in the wider context of the entire post-Wagnerian production, are
expressed by E. Fubini in Da Wagner a Stockhausen: Musica e Parola, Studi Musicali, XV, vol. I
1986, pp. 139-149: 142-143.
[5]
See among others: M. Mila La linea Nono, Rassegna Musicale, XXX, IV, 1960, pp.
297-311; A. Gentillucci, La tecnica corale di Luigi Nono, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, a II,
vol. 1, 1967, pp. 111-129; M. Zurletti, Le opere corali, in Nono, cit., pp. 116-125.
[6]
The first two pieces were written in 1960; Canti di vita e damore was written two
years later. The following analytical exposition and aesthetic reflections stem from extended
research at the Archivio Nono in Venice which specifically dealt with the cited compositions but
covered the entire production of the years 55-65 (See A. I. De Benedictis, Il rapporto tra testo
e musica nelle composizioni vocali di Luigi Nono. Studio filologico e analitico con particolare
riferimento a Canti di vita e damore, thesis of Universit di Pavia, Faculty of Musicology, 19951996).
[7]
The first piece for four-track magnetic tape Omaggio a Emilio Vedova dates from
1960. An electronic thought was already recognizable in the treatment of sound material
since Il canto sospeso. A letter dated 10.10.1956 sent by Berio to the composer reads:
in Milan we will try and spend all day in the [RAI electronic] Studio calmly explaining what can
be done and demonstrating it practically. (Letter preserved at the Paul Sacher-Stiftung, Basel,
Sammlung Berio; with kind permission). The theatrical piece Intolleranza 1960 also follows
several uncompleted projects (see V. Rizzardi, Verso un nuovo stile rappresentativo. Il teatro
mancato e la drammaturgia, in La nuova ricerca sullopera di Luigi Nono, cit., pp. 35-51).
[8]
La necessit decisiva : comunicare [The conclusive need is: to communicate] (L.
Nono, Possibilit e necessit di un nuovo teatro musicale (1962), in Scritti e colloqui, cit., I, pp.
118-132: 131).1
[9]

Trasformazione in fatto musicale nuovamente significante; expression used by the

composer in Il musicista nella fabbrica, in Scritti e colloqui, cit., I, pp. 206-209: 207).
[10]
Although the present paper concentrates on the compositional procedures from
the 50s and 60s, consultation several of the poetry and prose texts in Nonos private
library (preserved in the Archivio Nono in Venice) confirms the application of the procedure
described above also to many subsequent compositions (vocal and instrumental) based on a
text.
[11]
F. de Saussure, Course in general linguistics, ed. by C. Bally and A. Sechehaye,
transl. from the French by W. Baskin, London, Gerald Duckworth, 1990. This way of musically
living the reading seems to anticipate what Nono will experiences in the space of S. Lorenzos
Church during the composition of Prometeo, tragedia dellascolto: io mi sento attualmente
come se la mia testa fosse S. Lorenzo... Mi sento occupare [] dai suoi silenzi... e ascoltando
tutto ci cerco di trovare i suoni che possono leggere, scoprire quello spazio e quei silenzi: i
suoni che poi diventeranno Prometeo. [] e lopera che non c, la cui scrittura, i cui suoni sono
assenti, vive gi [] [I feel like my head is Saint Lorenzo I feel occupied by his silence
and while I listen to all of this I try and discover the sounds that possibly read this silence and
this space: the sounds that will become Prometeo. [] and the piece that dont exist yet, its
writing, its missing sounds already live], see Verso Prometeo, conversazione trans. L. Nono e
M. Cacciari (1984), inScritti e colloqui, cit., vol. II, pp. 338-358: 350-351.
[12]
More interested in the essence of the text than in its original formal layout, Nono
takes possession of the poetic and literary surface as the material to be used for his musical
ends. A case of total re-elaboration of the text involves, for example, the textual selection for Sul
ponte di Hiroshima - first part of Canti di vita e damore. Several extracts from the original prose
text are freely re-constructed in verses (seeinfra). We should recall here what Nono writes in
1969: [Text] is not limited to a naturalistic and literary use, but it is confronted in its internal

linguistic structure, in the heart of its life (Il testo non limitato a un uso letterario
naturalistico ma affrontato nella sua interna struttura linguistica nel vivo della sua vita, Il
potere musicale, in L. Nono, Scritti e colloqui, cit., I, pp. 261-271: 270).
[13]
L. Nono, Sul ponte di Hiroshima, Musical Events, September 1963, pp. 11-12: 12
(now in Scritti e colloqui, cit., I, p. 443). For the first project of Sar dolce tacere (conceived as a
triptych on the lyrics: Tu sei collina, Di salmastro e di terra, and Sei la terra e la morte, all written
by Cesare Pavese), Nono creates a type of meta-textual expressive path by connecting in
sequence the following words: TU-SEI-TUA-RITROVERAI-CONOSCI // SALMASTROTERRA-MARE // MORTE-DOLORE [you are yours you will find again you know //
brackish land sea // death pain], and matching each term with different sound forms (what
is written by Nono in his notes is faithfully marked between quotation marks, here as
everywhere). Among the desiderata of expression that I found, the most articulated is the one
he outlined for the first project of Sul ponte di Hiroshima. The first textual part (never composed)
is summarized in four emotional stages: A: distruzione e conseguenze [destruction and
consequences]; B: volo raccolta viaggio / I tentativo reazione [flight gathering journey
/ first attempted reaction]; C: delusione mortificazione abbattimento [delusion
mortification - despondency]; D: DECISIONE AZIONE / GRIDO AZIONE / NO LOTTA
AZIONE [decision - action / shout action / no fight action]. Also the second part (text
included in the actual measures 40-164), is summarized in an internal path: A: annuncio
[announcement] is tied to B: descrizione [description]; C: inizio impegno [engagement
begin] preludes D: impegno [engagement]. The third part (text included in the actual
measures 14-34) is assigned to the epitaffio [epitaph] with a function of final motto.
[14]

As the study of the pre-compositional material reveals, the first piece of the work (Sul
ponte di Hiroshima) was initially independent and separate from another tripartite project, which
the author refers to in a sketch only as CANTI DAMORE (Songs of Love, based on texts by
Brecht, Pavese and Pacheco). The two different ideas seem to come together in the same work
only after the commission by the Edinburgh International Festival. The priority of the initial
project is clearly shown in the works title, written on the second page of the Schott
edition: Canti di vita e damore. Sul ponte di Hiroshima. The idea of the canti wasnt new:
between Canti per 13 (1955) and Il canto sospeso (1955-56) a further incomplete project was
figured by the composer as CANTI DI VITA (Songs of life), perhaps first idea for Il canto
sospeso.
[15]
While the Italian pannelli can hardly be translated by anything but panels it refers
to block sections in common English analytical discourse [ed].
[16]
One of the first hints of the panels composition appears already in Composizione
per orchestra n. 2 - Diario Polacco 58 (1959), where the title itself (diario = journal) refers to
a composition formed by different pages. The novelty in Canti di vita e damore is the
systematic way in which this procedure by panels is applied. This composition is a true
synthesis of processes and intuitions already present in embryonic stage in previous works: in
the first sketches of the work the composer takes upon himself to develop, among others, the
techniques
used
in Incontri (1955); Varianti (1957); La
terra
e
la
compagna(1957); Composizione per orchestra n. 2 - Diario Polacco 58; Intolleranza
1960 and Ha venido. Canciones para Silvia. Also in the quartet Fragmente-Stille, an
Diotima (1979-80) the succession of fragments recalls this procedure by panels.
[17]
G. Anders Essere o non essere. Diario di Hiroshima e Nagasaki, preface by N.
Bobbio, translation by R. Solmi, Torino, Einaudi, 1961. Nono copies out long sections from this
dramatic documentary text in several subsequent typescripts. Through these different stages it
is possible for us to observe a peculiar case of de-construction of the prose text and subsequent
re-interpretation in a poetic and epigrammatic form. (Here and in the following two notes the
bibliographic indications refer to Nonos text sources preserved in the Archivo Luigi Nono
in Venice).
[18]
J.L. Pacheco, Pongo la mano sobre Espaa, presentation by G. Vigorelli, translation
by A. Repetto, Roma, Rapporti Europei, 1961, p. 42 (on the figure of the Algerian combatant,
see S. de Beauvoir - G. Halimi, Djamila Boupach, Paris, Gallimard, 1962).
[19]
C. Pavese, Passer per Piazza di Spagna [I will pass by Piazza di Spagna], in C.
Pavese, Verr la morte e avr i tuoi occhi, Turin, Einaudi, 1951, pp. 34-35. It is possible to date
the different selections of this lyric thanks to several handwritten glosses in Nonos copy. On one
hand, these annotations go back to the hypothetical first project of La terra e la

compagna (1957), and on the other to the never-realized cycle based on Paveses texts,
conceived about 1960, almost at the same time of the first tripartite idea of Sar dolce
tacere (see note 14).
[20]
Chosen for the first time for La terra e la compagna (1957), Pavese will appear in Sar
dolce tacere (1960), Tu (1962), La fabbrica illuminata (1964), Musica-Manifesto n. 1: Un volto, e
del mare (1969) and Al gran sole carico damore (1972-74). This list increases remarkably if we
also include selections for unrealized projects. For more details see F. Breuning, Luigi Nonos
Vertonungen von Texten Cesare Paveses Zur Umsetzung von Literatur und Sprache in der
politisch intendierten Komposition, Mnster et al., Lit 1999, and A.I. De Benedictis, Luigi Nono et
Cesare Pavese: miroir crois, in Musique vocales en Italie depuis 1945.Esthtique, relations
texte/musique, techniques de composition, sous la direction de P. Michel et G. Borio, Paris,
Millnaire III, 2005, pp. 79-106.
[21]
L. Nono, Canti di vita e damore, cit., p. 443.
[22]
The complexity of the organization of time and intervals in the work does not allow
any lingering over analytical exemplifications. For more details on these technical aspects, see
my paper Il rapporto tra testo e musica nelle composizioni vocali di Luigi Nono. Studio filologico
e analitico con particolare riferimento a Canti di vita e damore (cit., see footnote 6), pp. 4256; 59-98; 99-126; 127-140 and, with particular reference to the third section Tu, pp. 141164.particolare riferimento a Canti di vita e damore (cit., see footnote 6), pp. 42-56; 59-98;
99-126; 127-140 and, with particular reference to the third section Tu, pp. 141-164.
[23]
The organization of tempo is structured according to subdivided fixed duration fields,
which the composer associates with different time units (quaver, triplet eighth, crotchets etc.). The
comprehensive proportions of each field result from the sum of its internal subdivisions (which are
further sub-divisible). The pre-selected temporal fields chosen here are: 1) subdivisions 1-3-6-10
(total duration 20); 2) subdivision 2-5-9-14 (total duration 30). After several second thoughts, the third
field (below to the right) is fixed in the succession of 3-8-15-24 units (total duration 50). The third field
results from the sum of the respective elements of the two preceding fields. For a deeper discussion
on the matter, see my dissertation cited in footnote 23.
[24]

While the term le scale (the stairs) is kept in the purple panel (see Figure 2), in this
copy it occurs as le strade (the streets); this version (presumably an assonant error in the
copying) is kept in the draft. We can notice this confusion in the score: on page 5 appears
scale, while in measure 204 appears the incorrect version strade kept in the typescriptguide. The question marks near the second verse of the black panel (see Figure 2) are
removed in the final copy. Other hesitations inherent in the second green section are also
evident. The marks crossing the text do not indicate an erasure but the compositional
completion of the respective section.
[25]
See caption Figure 3.
[26]

Which, according to the particular connection made by the composer (see purple
panel, Fig. 2) in the final verse - sarai tu - ferma e chiara ([It] will be you - still and clear) - the
song of the stones, swallows, balconies and stairs (subjects of the first two segments), seem to
objectify.
[27]
While pre-figuring time units and durations for the four textual characters, in one
sketch Nono provides that the color purple has a function of rhythm and intervals synthesis
(sintesi ritmo e intervalli). The third duration field (see Figure 4), the 50-unit time field (3-8-1524, used only for the vocal episode of measures 204-212) is thus meant as synthesis of the
other two of 20 and 30 units (see note 24). This hasgreat symbolic significance. The duration
units and the intervals are also enunciated in their totality by the three distinct occurrences
of the color purple.
[28]
The instrumental timbres are subdivided on four levels (percussion, strings, brass
and woodwinds). The punctuation of Paveses poetry reproduced in Figure 5 is the result of the
collation of the two final typescripts. The writing of the intervals (2+, 4 etc.) follows that of
the composer. The designation of the time fields is global and refers to the whole duration
(therefore 20 = 1-3-6-10 units, etc.) The second purple episode (measure 217-221) is based on
the scansion of the unit 14 only, the last temporal subdivision of the durational field 30.
Fermatas and measure indications are in conformity with the printed edition. Refr. stands for
Refrain (Ritornello).
[29]
In the first piece of the Canti di vita e damore - Sul ponte di Hiroshima - Anders
text is almost entirely enunciated by instrumental voices (in over 164 measures only 18 show in

fact the use of the human voice); in Djamila Boupach, the central monody, the alternating
sentiments of hope are only tied with the Soprano. Conversely, in this third part (Tu), harmonic
motion is suppressed in the instruments by different variation techniques on the initial sound
profile and through the fixed registration of pitches.
[30]
This new technique, defined in 1960 with Sar dolce tacere and Ha venido.
Canciones para Silvia, and then evolved in the theater play Intolleranza 1960, allows him to
develop the pre-selected interval relations starting from a basic pitch. For more detail on this
particular technique of interval generation, see A.I. De Benedictis, Gruppo, linea e proiezioni
armoniche. Continuit e trasformazione della tecnica allinizio degli anni Sessanta, in Le
musiche degli anni Cinquanta, Olschki, Firenze 2004 (Archivio Luigi Nono. Studi II), pp. 183226.
[31]
See: the initial Sar (It will be, D-G, measure 174), which refers to
the clear (chiaro) sky (F-B flat, measure 176); the two occurrences of cante/ranno (they
will sing, A-E/D-G, measures 209-210; A-D/E flat-Aflat, measures 217-218; in the final sarai
([it] will be you, F#-B (measure 263) and the sealing chiara (clear), (D-G, measure 269,
same of the beginning). This peculiar structural/semantic meaning of this interval is already
anticipated in Djamila Boupach, with the F#-C# pre-selected for the Spanish word distinto
(clear). The absence of the interval of perfect fourth in the vocal sections marked in green
(associated with the turmoil and the beat) is symbolic. Also some of the intervals in Sul ponte
di Hiroshima have specific meanings. The minimal distances of the quarter tone, semitone and
tone are associated with chaos, the tritone with the oxymoron hope-pain, the perfect fifth
with order.
[32]
These meta-instrumental voices are sometimes accompanied by complementary
timbres: winds, drums, bass drums and tamtam (as commentary and sustain), timpani (in
measures 190-197 as reinforcement of the turmoil).
[33]
Wozu dann berhaupt Text, und gerade diesen?. By asking this question
Stockhausen pointed out the impossibility of understanding why in Il canto sospeso Nono used
some texts written by prisoners condemned to death during the Resistance so as to make
them incomprehensible (K. Stockhausen, Luigi Nono. Sprache und Musik II, cit., p. 158).
[34]
The vocal line of measures 231-235 is the reprise, first retrograde (for Come
lacqua, as water) then linear (for nelle fontane, in the fountains), of the pitches C3, B2, A3, C#3,
E flat2, and F#2 used for cuore (heart, measures 226-227). In measure 235 the seventh pitch
F3 is inserted while ending the reprise.
[35]
In 2b the retrogradation is linear (measure axis 240, 2 on F4) and is taken up
exactly from the vocalise of the Soprano. Notice that for la voce (the voice), in structural
correspondence with the purple episode, no timbres are envisaged other than Tenor and
Soprano.
[36]
The terms interludio and ritornello (interlude and refrain) are taken right from the
sketches. These elements of formal articulation are clearly inspired by Monteverdi (ricorda
Monteverdi, remember Monteverdi, is written in a sketch). Far from a nostalgic and stylistic
imitation and easy echoing of strophic structure, these indications are translated into a
conscious critical re-elaboration of a technique of the past. It is developed specifically to gain
symmetry in form and, through the ritornello, to attain a refined device of mnemonic recall. The
idea of an instrumental interlude between the vocal parts was already in Ha
venido. Canciones para Silvia and is used again in Canciones a Guiomar (1963).
[37]
Le finestre sapranno / lodore della pietra e dellaria / mattutina (the windows will
know / the smell of stone and morning air).
[38]
Enunciated with same pitch, same tempo, same breath, and same dynamic
nuances of the Tenor line, the Sopranos vocalic spectrograph is then to be interpreted as: the
first a stands for sar and then, after the change in tempo and breath (measure 242), for
questa; the vocal o belongs to voce; then follows: the a of salir, the u of tue,
the a of scale. An important antecedent of this technique of vocalic reverberation is found
in Il canto sospeso. It is used in a varied way in sections # 2, 3 and 6b, where it serves as a
semantic thickening, and in section #7, where in the dramatic farewell of Luibka vowels
reverberation is suppressed, substituted by symbolic bocca chiusa, quasi chiusa, quasi
aperta and aperta (closed mouth, almost closed, almost open and open).
[39]
In this case one section follows the other but not without interruption as in the
previous case; between the two different lines (sung by the Tenor) more than two

measures intervene (from measures 242,3 to 245,2). The vocalic echo of the Soprano is meant
to be a semantic-expressive background for the new part by the Tenor.
[40]
By color of the of the text or word I mean a peculiar sonority dictated by the vocalic
or consonantal components, that is the pure sound of word (W. Kandinsky, ber das (W.
Kandinsky, ber das Geistige in der Kunst: insbesondere in der Malerei (1910); Italian
translation: Lo spirituale nellarte, edited by E. Pontiggia, Milano, SE, 1989, p. 33; for the
quotation mentioned, see p. 89; English translation:Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Dover, 2004,
p. 15 and p. 54).
[41]
The use of intervals for the creation of color surfaces seems to anticipate the
interests and studies on pitch/color relation in the 80s (see Unautobiografia dellautore
raccontata da Enzo Restagno, inLuigi Nono. Scritti e colloqui, cit., II, pp. 477-563: 560;
and Verso Prometeo, cit., ivi, p. 343).
[42]
Luigi Nono, [Per il 70esimo anniversario di Anton Webern] (1953), in Luigi
Nono. Scritti e colloqui, cit., I, p. 7. Even in 1987 the composer states: the text, besides
inspiration, is also an acoustic material: it must, it can also become pure music
(Unautobiografia dellautore raccontata da Enzo Restagno, in ivi, II, p. 505).
[43]
There is a singular correspondence with a poem by Pavese belonging to 1938 (La
voce, published only in 1962), where he affirms: If the voice would sound, the pain would
return. Writing about Canti di vita e damore, Nono warns that the text is written in the score.
Not primitive programme music, but continuity for a text while it becomes pure music, both
through the song and the orchestra alone (L. Nono,Scritti e colloqui, cit., I, p. 443). An
antecedent of this peculiar instrumental amplification of the text is found in the Epitaffio per
Garcia Lorca n. 2: Y su sangre ya viene cantando (1952).
[44]
Original: alternati - insieme - rovesciati, per cui lo strumento diviene la voce, e la voce
puro strumento. per cui parole scritte in partitura, ma non cantate dalla voce, ma suonate da
str[umenti]; continuit tra le 2 voci | tra gli str[umenti] | tra voce e str[umenti]; sketch held by the
Archivio Luigi Nono in Venice.
[45]
Originally in German in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 3.12.1980.
[46]
N. Ruwet, Fonction de la parole dans la musique vocale (1961), in Language,
Musique, Posie, Paris, Ed. du Seuil, 1972, pp. 41-68 (Italian version: Funzione della parola
nella musica vocale, inLinguaggio, musica, poesia, translation by M. Bortolotto, L. Geroldi ed E.
De Angelis, Torino, Einaudi, 1983; quotation at p. 40).
[47]
See among others M. Zurletti, Le opere corali, in Nono, cit., p. 121; A. Gentilucci, La
tecnica corale di Luigi Nono, cit., pp. 116 and 129; J. Stenzl, Gli anni ottanta, in Nono, cit., p.
220.
[48]
L. Nono, Testo-Musica-Canto, in Scritti e colloqui, cit., vol. I, pp. 57-83: 58
(original: Nuovo e autonomo tutto).
[49]
The concept of transformation, though emphasizing an objective change of state
(from linguistic/graphic to graphic/musical), does not involve the semantic domain which
remains untouched. The concept of transmutation is misleading, as it implies a change of
substance of the object. By using the verb compenetrare, interpenetration (see Testo-MusicaCanto, cit., p. 58), Nono means that the two elements are not subordinated one to the other; but
if the verb is meant as transitive, there should be a logical precedence of one to the other (one
thing actually penetrates the other before the fusion in a totality). Regarding the use of Boulezs
terminology, the attempt to cast the ideas of one composer over the poetics or procedures of
another is methodologically and conceptually wrong. The term pretext is inappropriate for
Nonos aesthetic, since its original meaning is deliberately ambiguous: it could be intended as a
set of words that come before music (pre-text) or as the opportunity for composing. The
same holds for center (standing between an inspiring idea and a sense transposed in music)
and absence (removing or twisting of comprehension?)
[50]

For selection and combination in Linguistics see R. Jakobson, Essais de

linguistique gnrale (1963), rimpression ed. by N. Ruwet, Paris, Les Editions de Minuit, 2003
(Italian version: Saggi di linguistica generale, ed. by L. Heilmann, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1994, p.
24).
[51]
See R. Jackobson Linguistics and Poetics, in Style in Language, ed. by T.A. Sebeok,
Cambridge, MIT Press, 1960, pp. 350-377.

[52]
That is the ultimate definition considering the message in itself (R.
Jakobson, Linguistic and Poetics, cit.).
[53]
I borrow the definition of semantic invariant, extracting it from its original
context, from R. Jakobson, Results of a Joint Conference of Anthropologists and Linguists,
in Id., Word and Language. Selected Writing, II, The Hague-Paris, Mouton 1971, pp. 554-567.
[54]
Roman Jakobson, while describing the code changes occurring in a translation,
defines this shift as code switching (see R. Jakobson, Results of a Joint Conference of
Anthropologists and Linguists, cit.; and Linguistique et thorie de la communication (1952), in R.
Jakobson, Essais de linguistique gnrale, cit., pp. 87-99). He also defines inter-semiotic
translation or transmutation as the interpretation of the linguistic signs through non-linguistic
sign systems, as opposed to inter-linguistic translation which uses

two linguistic sign bases (see Results of a Joint Conference of Anthropologists and Linguists, cit.).
In the concrete case of the encounter between text and music in Nono, these interpretative
cues cannot be applied, since one should reduce the terms in question to translation and
interpretation only, whereas here there is no interpretation: this music is the content of the
textual message.
[55]
See the principle of funzione segnica (sign function) in U. Eco,Trattato di
semiotica generale, Milano, Bompiani, 1991, p. 73.
[56]
I freely take the tripartition framework - code - message from the rapport de
transformation (relationship of transformation) of C. Lvi-Strauss (see Le Cru et le cuit, Paris,
Plon 1964; English version: The raw and the cooked, translation by J.D. Weightman, Chicago,
The University of Chicago Press 1992).
[57]
Nono himself wrote, while referring to the treatment of the text in La terra e la
compagna: Comprehension and intelligibility of the text mean comprehension and intelligibility
of the music with all the questions regarding the capacity of acoustic perception [] the capacity
of understanding the new musical fact in its technical-expressive specificity (in Luigi
Nono. Composizione per orchestra n. 2 - Diario Polacco 58, ibid., pp. 433-436: 434).
[58]

The disarticulation of the text on the musical level does not compromise the system
of linguistic relations within the text (morphological, syntactic, semantic), which are inseparable
from its semiotic essence and from the integrity (see N. Ruwet, Fonction de la parole dans la
musique vocale, cit.). For all these reasons, and in my opinion, Nonos vocal music does not
suffer from the dichotomy between semantic, phonetic, concept and acoustic image
(introduction by L. Feneyrou in L. Nono, crits, Christian Bourgois, Paris 1993, pp. 10-11), and
far less from the cancellation of the linguistic meaning or from the pluralization of its
meanings [] which allows a multiplication of the possible readings (I. Stoianova, Testomusica-senso, cit., p. 128). The comparison done by Stoianova is misleading because it
compares Nonos vocal technique with the ones used by Berio and Boulez, which are different
even in their application and poetics (I. Stoianova, Testo-musica-senso, cit., p. 128).
[59]
E. Varse Il suono organizzato, ed. by L. Hirbour, translation by U. Fiori and L.
Mennuti-Morello, Milano, Unicopli-Ricordi, 1985, p. 136.
[60]
Original: non c nessuna ricetta!!!!!! Oggi come sempre. [] le vere e proprie
soluzioni e le tecniche sono in cammino! Possono soltanto divenire (Letter to Karlheinz
Stockhausen dating 26th of November, 1955; unpublished, Archivio Nono in Venice, with kind
permission).