In April 1961 Venice’s august Fenice opera house witnessed the explosive premiere of Luigi Nono’s ‘azione scenica’ Intolleranza 1960. What from the textual subject-matter alone appears a crudely simplistic piece of Marxist special pleading, about an oppressed migrant worker who attempts to rebel and is casually destroyed by the failure of industrial might in the form of an overflowing reservoir, gains conviction from music of urgent eloquence and genuine dramatic force. There is little of the attenuated sonic refinement that serves the philosophical and political complexities of Nono’s later work.

What Intolleranza 1960 desperately needs is a production specifically designed for DVD. Instead, this CD offers a conflation from two performances recorded in Bremen in February 2001. This has some purely musical virtues. As he explains in the booklet, conductor Gabriel Feltz worked long and hard with the chorus, who bear the brunt of the musical action and sound committed, eloquent and accurate throughout. The solo voices also impress, even if tenor Wolfgang Neumann inevitably strains at some of the many high notes. Nor is the use of a German version of the text a serious drawback. But not only does the booklet not include a word of that text, whose multiple sources doubtless create horrendous copyright permission problems, but there is no attempt at a scene-by-scene synopsis, the extended booklet essay concentrating more on the fraught genesis of Nono’s work than on its actual content. As music, Intolleranza 1960 bears comparison with such mighty precursors as Wozzeck and Il prigioniero. Even if it is more of a period-piece than either of these, an adequate representation on disc is still an urgent necessity.