Nono

Voices of Protest

LUIGI NONO

A Floresta è jovem e cheja de vida (40:29)
Donde estas Hermano (5:19)
Djamila Boupachà (4:53)

Carol Robinson-clarinet
Ensemble Vox Nova
Gerard Pape – sound design

Mode 97 (2000)
www.moderecords.com

Reviews

Richard Whitehouse
Gramophone
December 2000

Andrew Clements
The guardian
Friday July 21, 2000

Hugues Payen
Le Monde de La Musique

Rahma Khazam
The Wire
December 2000

Fono Forum
February 2001
NONO

Mario Gamba
Alias (Il Manifesto)
2 Settembre 2000

Benoit Favchet
Diapason
Octobre 2001

Andy Hamilton
Classic CD
September 2000

Richard Whitehouse
Gramophone, December 2000

‘Rewarding music from a key figure in post-war European modernism, its impact only enhanced by time’
The spirit of protest breaks through in the Vietnam-inspired ‘A floresta è jovem de cheja de vida’ (1965-66). Here, the urge to create music ‘as it happens’ led Nono to a collaborative approach, integrating the layers of activity – vocalists, clarinet and tape – in a process of ‘illuminating’ events and their consequences. In addition to using the published score, Voxnova have evolved their recording from source material and a descriptive outline of the work. The result is a gripping aural odyssey through vocal incantation, instrumental monologue and taped reportage: less a historical document than a timeless, passionate call for action. The previous (cut) studio recording (DG, 6/79, nla), is quite superseded by this powerful realisation.

Rahma Khazam
The Wire, December 2000

Few composers of the post-war generation have addressed political issues with such passion and commitment as Luigi Nono. In ‘La Fabbrica Illuminata’ (1964) he processed recordings of factory noises to convey the alienation and suffering of Italian workers, while ‘Musica Manifesto No 1’ (1968-69) expressed his support for the student uprising of May 1968. Beginning some ten years before his death in 1990, however, the confrontational gestures of his earlier works made way to a more meditative, introspective approach. The ‘Voices of Protest’ CD comprises pieces from both periods of Nono’s career.
It opens with ‘A Floresta e Jovem e Cheja de Vida’ (1965-66), an orally transmitted work with no completed score, which Nono subjected to the constant revisions resulting from the experiments he carried out on it with his performers. Dedicated to the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, it comprises texts by the likes of Fidel Castro and Franz Fanon, and a tape section featuring clarinettist William Smith, soprano Liliana Poli and the voices of actors from The Living Theatre. The result is a fascinating, ever changing interplay of music and text, of recorded and live performance, interspersed with dramatic shrieks, violent crashes and eerie, desolate tones. Together with clarinettist Carol Robinson, the Paris-based vocal ensemble Voxnova gives an arresting performance of this harrowing work.

Benoit Favchet
Diapason, Octobre 2000

Mode commence une publication de l’œuvre de Nono qui inclura les compositions écrites et les reconstitutions de ses dernières pièces. Son ouvrage, principalement celui du milieu des années soixante et incluant ‘A Floresta’, est constitué d’œuvres ‘intéractives’ transmises oralement sans partitions complètes pour la plupart d’entre elles. Il s’agit de musique créée, selon la préférence de Nono, avec la participation de musiciens et d’ingénieurs du son. Les œuvres vocales de ce programme proviennent de sa production scénique et sont résolument porteuses d’idées politiques. ‘A Floresta’ est la fusion de la version originale (avec Liliana Poli, William O. Smith et les voix du Living Theatre) avec les interprètes d’aujourd’hui. Le travail de Voxnova, ensemble français, est le résultat d’une étude approfondie des esquisses de Nono, et des notes, bandes préparatoires et témoignages des interprètes-créateurs de l’œuvre.

Andrew Clements
The Guardian, Friday July 21, 2000

[…] That change of emphasis is very well illustrated in this latest pair of discs. Mode’s collection, called ‘Voices of Protest’ and promisingly labelled as the first in a series devoted to Nono, concentrates on three of the political works, the most substantial of them being the spine-tingling ‘A Floresta e Jovem e Cheja de Vida’ (The Forest is Young and Full of Life, 1966), dedicated to the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam.
[…] ‘A Floresta e Jovem’ is a majestic, free-standing work, with an assemblage of texts that celebrate workers’ revolts and revolutionary movements. In it, a solo soprano and three reciters pitch their contributions into a musical maelstrom created by pre-recorded tape collages, a solo clarinet and copper plates. There are some volcanic eruptions, and some impassioned declamation; underneath it all, it seems a work of great seriousness and power.

Fono Forum
Februar 2001

Immer wieder verblüffend festzustellen, wie Luigi Nono politisches Engagement und eine kompromisslos avantgardistische Asthetik unter einen Hut brachte. ‘A floresta è jovem e cheja de vida’ (1965/66) ist der Nationalen Befreiungsfront von Vietnam gewidmet und gewährt einen faszinierenden Einblick in seine Werkstatt der 60er Jahre, als er unter verstärkter Einbeziehung von Tonbändern und elektronischen Manipulationen konkrete Lebenswirklichkeit in avancierte Klang-prozesse verlötete. Die hoch experimentelle Solidarkundgebung verschmilzt in ‘gelenkter Improvisation’ Musik, politische Textfragmente und Realgeräusche zur sozialrevolutionär gestimmten Mélange.

Andy Hamilton
Classic CD, September 2000

Verdict: Superb new realisation of a marvellous piece of 1960s avantgardism
Of the three leading 1960s avantgardists Stockhausen, Boulez and Nono, the Italian composer remains by far the least known. But then Luigi Nono’s denunciations of the capitalist culture industry weren’t exactly career enhancing. His unlikely synthesis of total serialism and revolutionary Marxism involved performances in factories and workplaces. A floresta… (‘The Forest is Young and Full of Life’) is dedicated to the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, and features settings of brief texts by Castro, Fanon, Lumumba and ordinary workers.
The voices of Voxnova interact with clarinet, bell plates and tape in a strident, dramatic piece with dazzling effects. Nono worked experimentally with the sound engineer and interpreters and no completed appeared; editors at Ricordi, Nono’s publishers, have referred to his notebooks and the recollections of the original performers. Carol Robinson draws on a range of musical traditions in her outstanding clarinet playing, and despite period references the piece emerges as a classic. The disc is completed by two shorter pieces, ‘Donde estas hermano?’ from 1982 dedicated to Argentina’s Disappeared.

Hugues Payen
Le Monde de La Musique, Novembre 2000

Alors que l’Europe ploie sous les guerres de décolonisation, le socialisme gagne nombre de pays déstabilisés. C’est à cette période – les années 1960 – que Luigi Nono fait ‘entrer la musique dans les usines’ en utilisant des textes d’ouvriers et de révolutionnaires. Le compositeur y cherche une liberté nouvelle équivalente de celle réclamée par les pays en guerre. Il se place alors à l’avant-garde et, à ce titre, a très souvent recours à l’électronique.

De cette époque datent ‘A Floresta jovem…’ (1962) et les ‘Canti di vita’ à ‘amore’ ( 1965), dont est tiré Djamila Boupacha. La première œuvre, une fresque de quarante minutes, a pour support textuel des déclarations d’ouvriers américains, de Fidel Castro ou de Patrice Lumumba; la deuxième, longue mélopée sur un poème de Djamila Boupacha, est un message de paix et d’espoir. Les six chanteurs de l’ensemble français Voxnova réussissent, en enregistrant ces œuvres dix ans après la mort de Nono, à fixer un matériau music; que le compositeur lui-même condamnait à n’exister que par tradition orale, avec une transcription possible sur papier. C’est ainsi qu’un double travail sur partition et, essentiellement, sur bande a été nécessaire pour réaliser cet enregistrement. Le résultat, fruit d’une collaboration avec les créateurs de l’œuvre, est surprenant d’homogénéité et d’expressivité, et l’on se prend à revivre ces angoisses, mais aussi ces espoirs révolutionnaires.

Mario Gamba
Alias (Il Manifesto) 2 Settembre 2000

Una casa discografica americana presenta una scelta di opere esplicitamente ‘civili’ del compositore veneziano. È in qualche modo una notizia. Proprio perché il cd copertina rossa, una bella foto di Nono giovane (bellissimo), titolo stampato con i caratteri delle scritte di protesta sui muri ha una curiosa aria da pubblicazione ‘militante’, un genere che da noi non usa più. Ci troviamo ‘A Floresta è Jovem e Cheja de Vida’ (1965-’66), dedicata ai Vietcong, e due estratti: ‘¿Donde Estas Hermano?’ dal coro finale ‘di Quando stanno morendo, Diario polacco n. 2’ (1982) e ‘Djamila Boupachà da Canti di vita e d’amore: sul ponte di Hiroshima’ (1962). I due estratti sono ispirati dalle storie dei desaparecidos argentini e dalla storia di una donna algerina impegnata nella guerra di liberazione contro i francesi, torturata sadicamente, divenuta un simbolo per la sinistra dell’epoca. Musica apocalittica e di purissimo lirismo, musica dove si esalta la continua ‘scoperta della voce’ che Luigi Nono operò per tutta la sua vita. Splendidi interpreti i solisti dell’ensemble Voxnova.

French