Search - Nono, Luz, Hirsch :: Polifonica-Monodia-Ritmica Canti per 13 Canciones a Guiomar

Early Nono reveals his affinity for "Canti" evocative Song

04/10/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Luigi Nono died in May 1990,and since that time the interest in his music particularly the hauntingly beautiful music the last ten years of his life seems to have no end in recordings and primary performances in Europe.His Marxist affinities have kept neglect high here reducing performances in the United States to zero.This CD is an accounting of the young Nono,where he ascribed to the structural purity of Anton Webern as those of his generation did except Nono never abandoned his deep-rooted affinity for an engaged humanism,one reflecting a social-political reality. This was exhibited in the idea of "Song" or "Canti" as a frame for this early engagement. The "Polifonica. . ." from 1951 now sounds,dated , measured and clumsy although perhaps Webern was not out of his sensibility yet. In "Canti per 13" we finally see the budding Nono with a fascination now for the pure power of the sustained sound, the suspended song, two concepts which carried his aesthetic well toward today. "Canciones a Guiomar" is a mature work now with a profound sensuality in the focus on female voice. The poetry of Antonio Machado almost writes itself with its evocativeness"Only your face Like a flash of white light In my dark night" and Nono not afraid now of subverting a Webernesque frame, allows the voice extended unaccompanied moments. Angelika Luz is wonderful at making seamless vocal leaps through high-low registers,while maintaining this sensual beauty. Nono was never good at percussion, it always sounds arbitrary, as here with bells and crotales,seem to be just noise-makers not adding to the evocative flow here.Lastly "Hay que caminar sonando" from 1989 exploits the sonoric sculptural relief of two violins. The title loosely means "Sleep-walking" and here violinists Andreas Braeutigam and Stephan Kalbe engage in a sensitive dialogue knowing full the emotive scope of each others gestures. At times both violins seem to merge seamlessly,creating hightened confusion. This is late Nono so we have a refined sense of extended sonorities, high pencil-thin harmonics and slow torture-like drawn bows very dry yet evocative."