{"id":1374,"date":"2019-04-01T15:10:48","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T15:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/mhs123_spring2019\/?p=1374"},"modified":"2019-04-02T10:45:16","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T10:45:16","slug":"a-return-to-dialectic-luigi-nonos-sofferte-onde-serene-suffered-serene-waves-1976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/mhs123_spring2019\/assignments\/music-power-politics\/a-return-to-dialectic-luigi-nonos-sofferte-onde-serene-suffered-serene-waves-1976\/","title":{"rendered":"A Return to Dialectic: Luigi Nono\u2019s \u2026..sofferte onde serene\u2026 (suffered, serene waves), 1976"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the last few months of 2017, as I was being spiritually pulverized by the ennui of part-making, I found some catharsis in listening to Daniel Vezza\u2019s remarkable 2012-2013 podcast series Composer Conversations<\/em>, the most memorable episode of which was his interview with his former mentor Martin Bresnick<\/a>\u2013in which the Yale composition Professor diplomatically recounts his colorful 1970 encounter with Luigi Nono. Bresnick gave a more detailed written account in a New York Times opinion piece<\/a> some time earlier. To summarize, Bresnick, a moderate socialist, had presented a short film score as part of a Prague conference; Nono, then already recognized as one of the great representatives of the Darmstadt diaspora and Marxist-composer par excellence<\/em>, was the next presenter. Nono proceeded to give what Alex Ross so vividly describes as<\/a> \u201ca withering Marxist critique\u201d of this modest work; this Adorno-flavored roast was followed by a presentation of Nono\u2019s own electronic work Non Consumiamo Marx<\/em>, which, as Bresnick writes, consisted of \u201csurging masses of sound\u201d in which he \u201ccould just barely make out the Italian partisan song \u2018O Bella Ciao,\u2019 people chanting \u2018Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Min,\u2019 and later \u2018Mao, Mao, Mao Tse-Tung.\u2019\u201d Apparently, Bresnick was one of three listeners\u2014together with Nono himself and his sound engineer\u2014who managed to sit through this \u201cdeafening\u201d collage of socialist fervor; the audience proper had fled, either to construct their counterrevolutionary barricades or to protect their fading hearing.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

           1970 probably marked the height of what commentators call Nono\u2019s \u201csecond style\u201d (which, according to De Assis<\/a>, spans his output from 1960-1975)\u2014a style derided by critics as one that hits \u201caudiences over the head with superficial sloganism<\/a>\u201d but hailed by advocates as one that, at least in its best manifestations, produced work of incredibly visceral emotional impact and defiant political solidarity. Six years after Bresnick\u2019s fateful encounter with Nono, however, this second period, which saw Nono the master composer as political activist, came to an abrupt end with \u2026..sofferte onde serene\u2026<\/em>. (1976), for piano and tape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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