Academia.eduAcademia.edu

Outline

Title
Abstract
References
All Topics
Art
Music

'SPAZIO SENTITO' - SPACE HEARD: FROM EDGARD VARÈSE TO LUIGI NONO

Profile image of HYUN HOCHSMANNHYUN HOCHSMANN

2021, Music and Space – Theoretical and Analytical Perspectives, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade

Abstract

Conceptions of musical space in Edgard Varèse and Luigi Nono have significant parallels and differences. By exploring sound as an acoustic event in space and the transformation, creation, and discovery of musical space, Varèse and Nono expanded the horizon of anticipation for emerging sonic possibilities. In Poème électronique Varèse created a sound and space installation to enable perceiving sound as it moves through space. Varèse described his compositions as "spatial music" and "sound objects, floating in space". In Prometeo. Tragedia dell'ascolto, Nono explored the idea of spazio sentito (space heard), emphasizing the necessity for contemporary music to "intervene in the sonic reality of our time". Nono strove to create "mobile sound which does not fill the space, but discovers it, unveils it". Nono conceived the sound complexes of the music and the texts to move and evolve in space in a continuum of transformation. A comparative study of Varèse's synthesis of science, painting, literature, and architecture, and Nono's integration of philosophy, poetry, and political thought and action provides an interdisciplinary approach for exploring the cognitive, aesthetic, and social dimensions of music. Varèse's and Nono's works and musical thought articulated the major concerns which have been acknowledged as central in musical practice and theory: the search for the expansion of musical language and sonic phenomena beyond the established conventions, the relations between music and social reality, the nature of musical material and representation, listening approaches, and musical time and space.

Related papers

Towards an aesthetics of the '(in)formel' : time, space and the dialectical image in the music of Varèse, Feldman and Xenakis
Joris De Henau

2015

This thesis addresses the issue of the modernist musical artwork, specifically in terms of the spatialization of musical time, in aesthetic and music-analytic terms. Firstly, it focuses on the notion of musique informelle as it was expounded in Adorno’s essay ‘Vers une musique informelle,’ (1961) and its place in Gianmario Borio’s elaboration of this in terms of an aesthetics of the informel. Secondly, it proposes a further expansion of these aesthetics via a double strategy: a comparative reading of Walter Benjamin’s critique of philosophies of time (including the work of Henri Bergson), language and objects, and furthermore a reconceptualization of both Adorno’s and Borio’s aesthetics in terms of a new theory of the object (as sound-object) in light of a new reading strategy. This reading is based on Walter Benjamin’s notion of the dialectical image, which proposes a new form of philosophical interpretation. The theorizations of the sound-object and the dialectical image furnish a...

View PDFchevron_right
THE ORGANIZATION OF SOUND-SPACE IN PAUSE DEL SILENZIO (SEVEN SYMPHONIC EXPRESSIONS) by GIAN FRANCESCO MALIPIERO
Francesco Molmenti

In his article The Organization of sound-space in Pause del silenzio (seven symphonic expressions) by Gian Francesco Malipiero, the Author explores the inherent questions raised when we look at harmonic content from both vertical and horizontal perspectives, using some of Gian Francesco Malipiero’s works as a model.

View PDFchevron_right
Espace sonore : l’esprit de notre temps / Sound Space: The Spirit of our Time
André-Louis Paré

2001

View PDFchevron_right
Juxtaposition and Non-Motion: Varese Bridges Modernism and Electroacoustic Music
Gary S. Kendall

Organised Sound, 2006

Edgard Vare`se’s Poe`me e ́lectronique can be viewed as a bridge between early twentieth-century modernism and electroacoustic music. This connection to early modernism is most clearly seen in its use of musical juxtaposition, a favoured technique of early modernist composers, especially those active in Paris. Juxtaposition and non-motion are considered here, particularly in relationship to Smalley’s exposition of spectromorphology (Smalley 1986), which in its preoccupation with motion omits any significant consideration of non-motion. Juxtaposition and non-motion have an important history within twentieth-century music, and as an early classic of electroacoustic music, Poe`me e ́lectronique is a particularly striking example of a composition that is rich in juxtapositions similar to those found in passages of early modernist music. Examining Poe`me e ́lectronique through the lens of juxtaposition and non-motion reveals how the organisation of its juxtaposed sounds encourages the experience of sound structure suspended time.

View PDFchevron_right
Juxtaposition and Non-motion: Varèse bridges early modernism to electroacoustic music
Gary S. Kendall

Organised Sound, 2006

Edgard Varèse's Poème électronique can be viewed as a bridge between early twentieth-century modernism and electroacoustic music. This connection to early modernism is most clearly seen in its use of musical juxtaposition, a favoured technique of early modernist composers, especially those active in Paris. Juxtaposition and non-motion are considered here, particularly in relationship to Smalley's exposition of spectromorphology (Smalley 1986), which in its preoccupation with motion omits any significant consideration of non-motion. Juxtaposition and non-motion have an important history within twentieth-century music, and as an early classic of electroacoustic music, Poème électronique is a particularly striking example of a composition that is rich in juxtapositions similar to those found in passages of early modernist music. Examining Poème électronique through the lens of juxtaposition and non-motion reveals how the organisation of its juxtaposed sounds encourages the expe...

View PDFchevron_right
The Emancipation of Referentiality through the Use of Microsounds and Electronics in the Music of Luigi Nono
Felipe de Almeida Ribeiro

Emille Journal – Proceedings of Korean Electro-Acoustic Music Society's 2014 Annual Conference (KEAMSAC2014), 2014

This paper focuses on the exploration of Luigi Nono’s electroacoustic music from the 1980s, represented in works such as A Pierre Dell'azzurro Silen- zio Inquietum (1985) and Post-Prae-Ludium per Donau (1987). Nono’s use of electronics was quite different from what other composers were doing, especially those from the musique concrète and elektronische musik scene. Nono’s music explores the possibility of the emancipation of perception by putting sound in a different perceptual perspective, that of microsounds (audibility limit, microtones, etc.). The use of live-electronics was crucial to the development of this music, as the microphone literally worked as a magnifying glass on sound capture: it transposed traditional instrumental sounds, such as woodwinds for example, into a different reality. Nono took advantage of this ‘collateral effect’ and made it a central compositional tool, in contrast to the electroacoustic music made in a contrapuntal manner, such as in Mario Davidovsky and his Synchronisms by using instru- ments versus tape. Nono selected sounds that were marginalized, such as aeolian and pppppp sounds, and putted them in the foreground. This change resulted in a music rarely heard before. It also reinforced a different kind of electroacoustic approach, that which the source is already com- plex enough, while the electronic apparatus displaces the sounds properties (spacialization, pitch shifting, filtering, etc.). This research aims to dif- fuse the music of Luigi Nono and to investigate his use of electronics. As mentioned before, Nono does not make live-electronic music with instru- ment versus tape. More precisely, he works with both forces in order to build a meta-instrument. This type of music was highly criticized, not only by performers that were asked to develop ‘abnormal’ playing techniques but also since it presented a simple electroacoustic profile.

View PDFchevron_right
The Parameter of Space: Can Instrumental and Acousmatic Music Share the Same Approach to Space?
Matthias Strassmüller

The attempt to arrive at common solutions to space in acousmatic and instrumental music may be beneficial in two ways: to generate approaches to spatialisation in mixed pieces, and to break up views that may seem incontestable within only one of the two domains. Building on the basis that the increased importance of spatial audio reflects a fundamental aesthetic evolution of contemporary art music, this paper presents a comparative study of approaches to space in electroacoustic and instrumental music. Compositional techniques are examined with reference to their deployment of space, both those that distinguish the acousmatic domain from the acoustic, and others that demonstrate the crossing over between the two domains. A discussion about space as a musical parameter explores resulting implications for electroacoustic and instrumental music.

View PDFchevron_right
Space, sound, and music: using embodied experiences of space to produce multiple and interconnecting experiences of space in acousmatic music
Cathy Lane

ACTES PROCEEDINGS, 2000

Many different spaces coexist and interconnect for any listener to music played over speakers or other means where there is no visible source of the sound. These spaces could include the physical space of the concert hall, a representation of space conceived in the perceived knowledge of the social practice of people getting together to listen to music in groups; the social space of the listeners; the virtual space of the piece of acousmatic music; the representation of perceived, conceived or lived space in the piece; as well as the representational space of the sound work and the mental space the individual listener inhabits while listening, a space that is possibly unique to sonic experience. In this paper I shall discuss how these spaces are produced and coexist; how our embodied experiences of space can be used to produce new means of representation and new forms of expression through the production of space in sound works; and investigate spatial mimesis as a new area of discourse in sonic art.

View PDFchevron_right
Recreating the real, realizing the imaginary—a composer’s preoccupation with acoustic space
Rob Godman

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2002

View PDFchevron_right
Organized Sound, Unbounded Space: Edgard Varèse, Poème Électronique, and the Wondrous Promise of Midcentury Soundscapes
Nicholas C Laudadio

In this paper, I briefly explore the construction, design, and execution of the Le Corbusier/Xenakis' Philips Pavilion’s installation as an optimistic, wondrously extrapolative gesture that brought into sharp relief the musical, political, and cultural possibilities for—and anxieties about—the changes that would come to define the production and consumption of music in the twentieth-century.

View PDFchevron_right

References (62)

  1. Abbado, Claudio. 1999. "My Silent Friend: Remembering Luigi Nono." Contemporary Music Review Vol. 18, Part 1: 3-5.
  2. Adorno, Theodor W. 1984. Aesthetic Theory. Translated by C. Lenhardt. London: Routledge.
  3. ---. 2002. "Aging of the New Music." In Theodor W. Adorno -Essays on Music. Edited by Richard Leppert, translated by Susan H. Gillespie, 182-200. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
  4. Alberti, Leon Battista. 1987 [1485]. Ten Books of Architecture. New York: Dover.
  5. Bachelard, Gaston. 1994. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press.
  6. Badiou, Alain. 1988. L'Être et l'Événement. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
  7. Berg, Alban. 1924. "Warum ist Schönbergs Musik so schwer verständlich?" Sonderheft der Musikblätter des Anbruch, Jg. 6 (August/September): 329-341.
  8. Bernard, Jonathan W. 1981. "Pitch/Register in the Music of Edgard Varèse." Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 3: 1-25.
  9. Bergson, Henri. 2005. Creative Evolution (L'Évolution créatrice, 1907).Translated by Arthur Mitchell. New York: Cosimo.
  10. Bloch, Ernst. 1988. The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays. Boston: MIT Press.
  11. Bohm, David. 1980. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge.
  12. ---. 2005. On Creativity. London/New York: Routledge.
  13. Busoni, Ferruccio. 1911. Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music. Translated by Theodore Baker. New York: Schirmer.
  14. Carvalho, Mário Vieira de. 1999. "Towards Dialectic Listening: Quotation and Montage in the Work of Luigi Nono." Contemporary Music Review Vol. 18/2: 37-85.
  15. Cecchetto, Stefano and Giorgio Mastinu, eds. 2005. Nono Vedova, Diario di bordo. Torino: Allemandi.
  16. Chou, Wen-chung, 1966. "Varèse: A Sketch of the Man and His Music." The Musical Quarterly Vol. 52/2: 151-170.
  17. Covell, Grant Chu. 2004. "Nono's Shrug at Immortality: La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura." La Folia Review, March. https://www.lafolia.com/nonos-shrug-at-immortality-la-lontananza- nostalgica-utopica-futura/.
  18. De Assis, Paulo. 2014. "Revisiting Luigi Nono's Suffered, Serene Waves." In Artistic Experimentation in Music -An Anthology, edited by Darla Crispin and Bob Gilmore, 203-213. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
  19. Deliége, Célestin. 2003. Cinquante ans de modernité musicale: de Darmstadt à l'IRCAM, Contribution historiographique à une musicologie critique. Bruxelles: Editions Mardaga.
  20. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 1980. Mille Plateaux. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Drees, Stefan. 2003. "Renaissance-Musik als Inspirationsquelle für das Komponieren Bruno Madernas und Luigi Nonos." 545-558. The Past in the Present: Papers Read at the IMS Intercongressional Symposium and the 10th Meeting of the Cantus Planus, Volume 1 Budapest & Visegrad: Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music.
  21. Döbereiner, Luc. 2014. "The Virtuality of the Compositional Model: Varèse with Deleuze." Acta Musicologica Vol. 86/2: 267-285.
  22. Guck, Marion A. 1987. "Varèse Bound." Perspectives of New Music Vol. 30/2: 244-273.
  23. Haller, Hans Peter. 1999. "Nono in the Studio -Nono in Concert -Nono and the Interpreters." Contemporary Music Review Vol. 18/2: 11-18.
  24. Helmholtz, Hermann von. 1998 [1895]. On the Sensations of Tone as the Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music. Translated by Alexander J. Ellis. New York: Dover.
  25. Höchsmann, Hyun. 2017. "Prometeo. Tragedia dell'ascolto -'A New Way of Thinking Music' in 1966a Luigi Nono." Paper presented at 9 th European Music Analysis Conference -EuroMAC 9, 2017, Strasbourg.
  26. ---. 2019. "Essence and Context: Process of Becoming and Dialectical Temporality in Adorno and Nono." In Of Essence and Context: Between Music and Philosophy, edited by Rūta Stanevičiūtė, Nick Zangwill and Rima Povilionienė, 281-296. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
  27. Iddon, Martin. 2013. New Music at Darmstadt: Nono, Stockhausen, Cage, and Boulez. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  28. Impett, Jonathan. 2004. "The Tragedy of Listening: Nono, Cacciari, Critical Thought and Compositional Practice." Radical Philosophy 125: 29-36.
  29. Machado, Antonio. 2003. Proverbios y cantares. Madrid: El Pais.
  30. Maderna, Bruno and Christof Bitter. 1985. "Conversazione Maderna-Bitter." In Bruno Maderna documenti, edited by Mario Baroni and Rossana Dalmonte, 106-110. Milan: Zerbon.
  31. Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen. 2006a. Kritische Theorie der Musik. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft.
  32. ---, ed. 2006b. Critical Composition Today. Hofheim: Wolke Verlag. Nanz, Dieter A. 2003. Varese: Die Orchesterwerke. Berlin: Lukas Verlag.
  33. Nelson, Wayne A. 1979. "Edgard Varèse and the Electronic Medium." M.A. thesis, University of Montana. Nielinger-Vakil, Carola. 2016. Luigi Nono: A Composer in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  34. Nono, Luigi. "Diario polacco '58" (1959). In Luigi Nono. Texte -Studien zu seiner Musik, edited by Jürg Stenzl, 1975a. 123 -125. Zürich: Atlantis.
  35. ---. 1993. Ecrits. Translated by L. Feneyrou. Paris: Christian Bourgois.
  36. ---. 2001a [1957]. "Lo Sviluppo della Tecnica Seriale". In Luigi Nono Scritti e Colloqui, edited by Angela Ida de Benedictis and Veniero Rizzardi, Vol. I: 19-42. Milan: Ricordi.
  37. ---. 2001b [1987]. "Un autobiografica dell'autore raccontata da Enzo Restagno." In Luigi Nono: Scritti e colloqui, edited by Angela Ida De Benedictis and Veniero Rizzardi, Vol. II: 477-568. Milan: Ricordi.
  38. Nono, Luigi and Massimo Cacciari. 1984. Verso Prometeo. Venice: Ricordi.
  39. Ouellette, Fernand. 1959. Visages d'Edgar Varèse. Montreal: Editions de l'Hexagone.
  40. Pape, Gerard. 1999. "Luigi Nono and His Fellow Travellers." Contemporary Music Review Vol. 1: 57-65.
  41. Phillips, Wesley. 2009. "Waiting in Vain? Metaphysics, Modernity and Music in the Work of T. W. Adorno, Martin Heidegger and Luigi Nono." Ph. D. diss., Middlesex University.
  42. Rancière, Jacques. 2004 [2000, Le partage du sensible: Esthétique et politique, Paris: La Fabrique].
  43. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum.
  44. Richard, André. 2017. "Nono: Prometeo in Parma. Interview with André Richard." http://www.ricordi.com/en-US/News/2017/05/Prometeo-Richard-new-edition.aspx.
  45. Richardson, Colleen. 2005. "Edgard Varèse and the Visual Avant-Garde: A Comparative Study of Intégrales and Works of Art by Marcel Duchamp." PhD diss., University of Cincinnati.
  46. Riede, Bernd. 1986. Luigi Nonos Komposition mit Tonband. Ästhetik des musikalischen Materials- Werkanalysen-Werkverzeichnis. Munich/Salzburg: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler.
  47. Schiltz, Katelijne. 2010. "An Avant-Garde Look at Early Music: Luigi Nono's Thoughts on Sixteenth Century Polyphony." Ars Lyrica 18: 1-17.
  48. Schuller, Gunther and Edgard Varèse. 1965. "Conversation with Varèse." Perspectives of New Music Vol. 3/2: 32-37.
  49. Steinhauer, Jakovs. 2008. Musikalischer Raum und kompositorischer Gegenstand bei Edgard Varèse. Tutzing: Hans Schneider.
  50. Stenzl, Jürg. 2013 [1996].
  51. Luigi Nono. Werkverzeichnis, Bibliographie seiner Schriften und der Sekundärliteratur, Diskographie, Filmographie, Bandarchiv. 3. Auflage. Salzburg/Wien. https://www.plus.ac.at/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/NonoWerkverzeichnis.pdf.
  52. ---. 1998. Luigi Nono. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.
  53. ---. 1966. "Freedom for music." In The American Composer Speaks Out: Historical Anthology, 1770-1965, edited by Gilbert Chase, 184-92. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
  54. ---. ed. 1975b. Luigi Nono: Texte. Studien zu Seiner Musik. Venice: Ricordi.
  55. Varèse, Edgard. 1983. Écrits. Edited by Louise Hirbour, translated by Christiane Léaud. Paris: C. Bourgois.
  56. Varèse, Edgard and Chou Wen-chung. 1966. "The Liberation of Sound." Perspectives of New Music Vol. 5/1: 11-19.
  57. ---. "The Liberation of Sound and Spatial Music." Typewritten manuscript, catalog no. d64/53, Internationales Musik-institut Darmstadt.
  58. ---. 1967. "The Liberation of Sound". In Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music, edited by Elliot Schwartz and Barney Childs, 196-2018. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
  59. Varèse, Edgard and Alcopley. 1968. "Edgard Varese on Music and Art: A Conversation between Varèse and Alcopley." Leonardo Vol. 1/2: 187-195.
  60. Vernant, Jean-Pierre. 1965. Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs. Paris: Librairie Maspero. Whittall, Arnold. 2004. "Problems of Reference: Celebrating 2004." The Musical Times Vol. 145/1888: 25-39.
  61. Williams, James. 2003. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  62. Zhuangzi. 2006. Translated by Hyun Höchsmann and Yang Guorong. New York: Routledge.

Related papers

Music and Space: Past Experiences, Future Perspectives (Musica e spazio: esperienze passate, prospettive future).
Amy Bauer, Candida Felici

2021

The Conservatory of Parma, together with the University of Parma, Parma Municipality - Casa della Musica and the Italian Musicological Society, has organized the international Conference Musica e spazio: esperienze passate, prospettive future (Music and Space: Past Experiences, Future Perspectives) as part of the research project Labirinti Sonori. The conference has aimed to explore the relation between music and space in its aesthetic, historical, technical and technological dimensions, according to the following lines of research: space as an essential element of musical creation; the relation between music and architecture; the creation of virtual reality and the simulation of space through sound; the spatial dimension in performance practice; the use of technology in order to build sound space.

View PDFchevron_right
Luigi Nono's transformation, creation, and discovery of musical space
HYUN HOCHSMANN

It is the inaudible, the unheard that does not fill the space but discovers the space, uncovers the space as if we too have become part of sound and we were sounding ourselves (Luigi Nono). Emphasising the necessity for contemporary music to 'intervene in the sonic reality of our time', Nono strove to expand the conception of musical space in three directions: the transformation of non-musical space with the performance of his music in factories and prisons, the creation of a new musical space for the opera, Prometeo, and the discovery of the inner musical space of sound and silence, 'the inaudible, the unheard', in which we 'become part of sound' and we are 'sounding ourselves'. Nono aimed at 'the composition of music that wants to restore infinite possibilities in listening today, by use of non-geometrical space'. With the conception of opera as 'azione scenica' (stage activity) and a 'theatre of consciousness', Nono's 'musical space' for the performance of Prometeo was realised within a colossal wooden structure (by Renzo Piano) combining the stage, the set, and the orchestra pit into a single element. With the conviction that it is the composer's and the listener's responsibility to recognise how every sound is politically charged by its historical associations, Nono affirmed the simultaneity of musical invention and moral commitment and political action for justice and freedom. To wake up the ear, the eyes, human thinking, intelligence, the most exposed inwardness. This is now what is crucial (Nono [1983] 2001, 1:522).

View PDFchevron_right
Multiplicity–Fragmentation–Simultaneity: Sound-Space as a Conveyor of Meaning, and Theatrical Roots in Luigi Nono's Early Spatial Practice
Andrea Santini

Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 2012

View PDFchevron_right
“Three representations of the perception of space in musical composition: Gérard Grisey, Luigi Nono and Peter Ablinger.”
Carlos Bermejo Martín, Antonio Baraybar

This article points to two main objectives: first to demonstrate the ways in which Gérard Grisey, Luigi Nono and Peter Ablinger approach the representation of space in present-day composition. The second is to provide some keys to the essential elements conditioning the meanings and sensations listeners perceive in these composers’ works. The interaction arising from the possibilities of the inner space of sound and the place where a concert takes place originates new forms of acoustic and temporal processes in Gérard Grisey, different types of symbiosis with architectonic space in Luigi Nono and an active union with the surroundings in Peter Ablinger. These concepts are dealt with through some of their most representative works. A substantial part of the contributions of the three has a single purpose: to renew perception of music on the basis of an on-going interrelation between listening possibilities, the configuration of sound in time and the need to redefine the meaning of the musical space.

View PDFchevron_right
Di Bona, E., 2018. “The Spatial Experience of Musical Sources: Two Case Studies”, Phenomenlogy and Mind, 14, 180-187.
Elvira Di Bona

When listening to specific musical compositions in which physical space is employed with an aesthetic role, we can hear sound sources` spatial properties in the same way as we do it in the case of environmental sound sources. In this essay, I will expand the application of a model for the spatial experience of sound sources to the experience of listening to the musical sound sources of two musical compositions by the Italian composer Luigi Nono. In order to do that, I will briefly summarize how we experience sound sources` spatial properties in the case of environmental sounds; I will then mention the different kinds of physical space which we might be able to hear in the case of musical listening, and I will finally analyze Luigi Nono's "Hay que caminar" soñando (1989) for two violins and La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura (1988) for solo violin and 8-track tape to show how the model of the experience of environmental sound sources applies also to these musical cases. keywords musical sound, environmental sound, spatial perception, music, aesthetic experience, sound

View PDFchevron_right

Related topics

  • Musical space
  • Edgard Varèse
    • 580 California St., Suite 400
    San Francisco, CA, 94104
    © 2025 Academia. All rights reserved