Beyond heroism and tragedy, a deeper level of subversion
R. Hutchinson | a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds | 07/08/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Nono's only string quartet, "Fragments and Silence," ushered in Nono's "late period," when he moved toward a more subdued form of subversion, forcing listeners to listen intently, taking nothing for granted. As performed by the Arditti Quartet, the piece is startling -- sounds you have never heard before. Fragmented sounds regularly negated by silence, negated in turn by new sounds, reforming, turning, creating something new out of nothing, out of chaos...
In turning away from more overt politics, Nono can be seen as retreating, but he saw the works of his late period as more deeply radical, challenging the basic perceptions and assumptions of the commodified society. He effected a rapprochement with Boulez -- I wonder to what extent he realized that his '80s work moves toward the aesthetic position of his Darmstadt collaborators of the '50s who he had previously denounced for their apolitical stance?
"Hay que caminar" for two violins is also available on the recently re-released DG 20/21 Echo disc, performed by Gidon Kremer and Tatiana Gridenko. I prefer this original recording -- as I said in my review of the DG disc: "The Arditti/Alberman version has more silence, more extreme dynamics, and conveys a sense of being utterly, existentially lost. You might say it emphasizes that there is "no path," while [the Kremer/Gridenko version] emphasizes that nonetheless "we must walk."
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A turning point.
Francisco Yanez Calvino | Santiago de Compostela, GALIZA, Spain. | 10/19/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"A turning point.
Luigi Nono's only quartet "Fragmente-Stille, An Diotima" is a turning point in the italian composer's career, that changed deeply after this notes, right in the limit of what we can hear, of what we can feel, of what we can think about.
Luigi Nono's thinking in the last decade of his life was very concerned about the silence, the perception of the music and the deep dialogue between composer, performers and the listeners as a central part of the musical fact. "Ascoltare", "to listen" was the key of Nono's musical philosophy in the eighties and Fragmente-Stille is the beginning of this period. Nono asks for an active listener who can makes interpretations of the music and who can make sense of the silences, a listener that take part in the construction of the meanings, a very dialogical way of understanding art and culture that create a very open works. It's not the concept of "Opera aperta", by Umberto Eco, but it's truth this works have meanings that can be very different in every listener's mind, specially if the attention and listening is "ears-open".
From the point of view of the technique, this Fragmente-Stille marks a new level of complexity in quite all the parameters of the music playing. The dynamics descends to unknown possibilities, the tonality goes into microtonality, the union of the work reach the "impossible", the silence is present explicit and implicit all the time in the work, the coordination between the players is exceptionally complex... All the new ways Fragmente-Stille shows will be developed in the next years in many of Nono's late works, like Prometeo, Hay que caminar, soñando, No hay caminos... even with the systematic use of computers for the sound's treatment. Anyway, we're not talking about a rupture in his career or a breaking point in western music, just a development of many of his ideas realized before, in works from the `60s and the `70s much more concerned about political questions. In those works many of the techniques here listened were present but in a different way, what we have here is a turning point, but not a new road. The own Nono in many of his texts talks about the very important necessity of listening the masters from the past, and the necessity of continuing a way which come from the very old tradition, in his case even from the medieval venetian masses, that have ideas really present in the own Prometeo, like the multifocused attention to diverse origin of music, another of Nono's central thinking, trying to create new ways of listening music apart from a very conservative direction orchestra to public.
"Hay que caminar, soñando" is Nono's last work, very close in style and conception to Fragmente-Stille, the work we saw opens a period. The violins playing and quite not audible in some moments and the work ask for an exemplar recording, that it's not exactly the case of this Montaigne recording, and I'm talking abaout technical aspects.
The performing is outstanding; I have Fragmente-Stille by the LaSalle String Quartet (DG) and I've listening the work live, and I can say it's quite impossible to make it better than the Arditti, as they control absolutely the technical playing and the presence of the notes and the silences. LaSalle's version is more pale and plane, not so modern like this; I know some people who think that this one by the Arditti it's too much modern, like a kind of Nono seen by Lachenmann, but I really enjoy it much more than any other version I know, over all if you listen it with no noises in the house, with a good Hi-Fi system and on the night if it could be.
Arditti and Alberman gave the world premiere of Hay que caminar, soñando, under Nono's supervision, and you can feel it in the very precise and correct understanding of the work. There is another very good version, played by Kremer and Grindenko (DG), but I really prefer this one.
The recording could be better, it's not the strong point of this CD, but it's enough to understand the work and to enjoy it, specially with no other noises when you go into this very personal and deep ways of the better human thinking.
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The pinnacle of 20th century chamber works.
Lord Chimp | Monkey World | 08/18/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"agonizing silences, explosive gestures, phantasmagoric sonic qualities ... the abstract reconciliation of tragedy and triumph, conveyed in the arch-modernistic language of one of the 20th century's greatest avant-garde composers. Nono's only string quartet is a masterpiece."
