UNKNOWN 709
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Luigi Nono
Magazine Review Date: 3/1986
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 415 513-1GH
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(La) Lontananza nostalgica utopica futura |
Luigi Nono, Composer
LaSalle Quartet Luigi Nono, Composer |
Composer or Director: Luigi Nono
Magazine Review Date: 3/1986
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 415 513-2GH
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(La) Lontananza nostalgica utopica futura |
Luigi Nono, Composer
LaSalle Quartet Luigi Nono, Composer |
Author:
In fact this may not be the best approach to listening after all, for Nono has apparently set himself quite specific and limited tasks in this work, chiefly the exploration of silence and fragmentary gestures. Haven't we been here before? Unfortunately, yes, because Nono does not break through to the kind of new consciousness of a Cage or a Feldman; rather he seems content to refashion the cliches of the Viennese Expressionist tradition, and once the shades of Webern and Berg are invoked the paleness of Nono's invention is apparent. For a while it is fascinating to listen in to the Webernesque models of attack and thirdless harmony, but this is a lengthy piece—two movements of around 19 minutes each, and after a while the need for effective contrast or evolution of ideas becomes pressing. Since the material sets up so little resistance the actual progression from point to point seems to lack motivation, and instead of using silence creatively the music comes to depend on it as the only way of keeping the listener's attention. There is more urgency about the second movement (Diotima is the lady expert in the metaphysics of love referred to in the poem Diotima by Holderlin); but this too seems no more than a sketch for a piece—a pale and very elongated shadow of the Second Viennese School.
The performance sounds well-focused and confident. The acoustic is dry and the recording, certainly on CD, so lifelike and close you can virtually hear the players swallow—indeed, the very audible note-finding in some of the 'silences' is distracting.'
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