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L u ig i

and

P ro m eteo

L A C H E N M A N N

I S O Z A K I

N o no

He l mu t

A r a t a

A S A D A

A k i r a

C HO K I

S e i j i

T r a ns l a t i o n :

A l f e d

B IR N B A U M

A Dialectic of Progress and Regression

Helmut LACHENMANN: Between 1958 and
1960 I studied composition under Luigi NONO.
This coincided exactly with when Darmstadt [1] was
in the throes of searching for a "new music."
Three central figures dominated at Darmstadt
back then: BOULEZ, STOCKHAUSEN and
NONO. Around the time I began my studies
under NONO, while all three utilized the same
techniques, it was becoming clear that NONO
was taking a completely different path from the
other two. To the other composers, NONO
seemed stuck in a neo-Webernian [2]
expressionist mode. Yet in 1958, when
STOCKHAUSEN came out with Gruppen [3] and
BOULEZ with Improvisation sur Mallarm [4],
both highly ornamental virtuoso works, NONO
criticized them as recidivist backtracking to
status quo bourgeois music. Whereas NONO as
a composer really delved into the notion of music
as "punctual," which had its beginnings at
Darmstadt, BOULEZ and STOCKHAUSEN had
strayed from such thinking and become more
ornamental. Not only that, we might even say
that NONO differed from BOULEZ and from
STOCKHAUSEN in his philosophy, the ideology
behind the music; his concepts of freedom were
something radically apart. At the same time,
NONO once wrote me this in a letter: "Look out
for BOULEZ. His music is just like
STRAVINSKY's. He's trying to recreate the court
music of Louis XIV, who'd stay in the palace
listening to music instead of hunting."
On the other hand, NONO continued to use the
various affective forms of the traditionexposed
elements of pathos, for instance, such as in a
fanfarethings that BOULEZ and others had
rejected from their structuralist thinking. What
differed from music up until then, however, was

[1] International Summer Courses for New

Music (Internationale Fereinkurse fr Neue
Musik) in Darmstadt. Founded in 1946 by
musicologist Wolfgang STEINECKE (191061) for the dissemination of music by
SCHNBERG and others banned under the
Nazis. Particularly famous from 1951 on as a
mecca for avantgarde music centered on the
"total serialism" (a "total" expansion upon
SCHNBERG's twelve-note "serialism" by
means of rhythms and dynamics) expounded
by composers Pirre BOULEZ (1925- ),
Karlheinz STOCKHAUSEN (1928- ) and Luigi
NONO (1924-90).
[2] Anton (von) WEBERN (1883-1945).

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that these sounds appeared in forms broken

down by his own unique methods. NONO did not
employ such sonorities in any embellished or
virtuoso or ornamental way; rather his creativity
lay in dissecting closer and closer to the very
inner nature of the sounds, creating from within
the broken pieces. Works like Varianti or Il
canto sospeso [the suspended song] exemplify
this approach. We can discern a dialectic of
progress and regression in NONO's works from
that period. Trumpet parts, for instance, carry
associations with BEETHOVEN's fanfares, the
tympanies echo of military music. Even in the
vocal parts we hear something of traditional
European bel canto. Not that he uses them as-is;
they're twisted and bent into an expression that
is all his own. Nor does he take an exotic
museum-like perspective, merely giving us
another walk-through tour of instruments and
voices as they were used in other Western
music. Rather, his "scandalous" experiments at
the time, we might say, lay in breaking down the
old even as he maintained it. Fragmente-Stille,
an Diotima and Prometeo are often cited as
major turning points in NONO's ouevre, however,
I disagree. I can't help hearing Prometeo as
one gigantic madrigal. That is to say, even as he
uses the old categories, they are unbelievably
transformed, opening up new conduits to the act
of listening.
ISOZAKI Arata: Personally speaking, around
when I first met NONO, somehow I gathered that
this Akiyoshidai International Art Village Concert
Hall was to be built for the Japan premiere of
Prometeo.
In Paris there is a park called Parc de la Villette.
Originally fairly outlying, it now finds itself right
beside the prifrique loop road. In the early

Austrian composer. Studied under

SCHNBERG; together with SCHNBERG
and fellow disciple BERG, is said to belong to
the New Vienna School [Neue Wiener
Schule]. Created even more rigorously twelvenote works than SCHNBERG, while his
latter period works move toward a proto-total
serialism, making him a hero of the total
serialists.
[3] Gruppen. In this work the 109-chair
orchestra is divided into three groups of 36,
37 and 36 seated left, center and right, each
playing at a different tempo so as to create
shifting layers of auditory space. Premiered in
March 1958 with STOCKHAUSEN, BOULEZ

and Bruno MADERNA conducting.

STOCKHAUSEN also composed Carr
(1960) for four orchestra groups and four
choral groups surrounding the audience.
[4] Improvisations sur Mallarm. A work for
soprano and orchestra based upon the poetry
of MALLARM. Parts I (1957) and II (1957)
were premiered in January 1958, while Part III
(1959) was premiered in June 1959.
Thereafter, he consolidated these together
with the similarly MALLARM-based
Tombeau (1959) and Don (1962) under
the title Pli selon pli, portrait de Mallarm
(1962, revised 1983).

No.27 Winter 1999 InterCommunication

129

'80s, an international competition was held for

redoing the park as part of MITTRAND's
Grands Projets [5] . The brief for the competition
called for an arts center complete with a large
exhibition space, a music school and a concert
hall. An international jury was convened of
something under 20 persons from around the
world, myself as one of the judges from the
architect side, and in the jury representing the
artist-musicians was NONO. Several other
architects were also on the jury, including Renzo
PIANO [6], and even more landscape designers,
the chairman of the world's landscaping
associationthis was an all-out world effort to
create landscape design here. For a fact, the
architects and artists were relegated to the
adjunct role of creating the "receptacle"
structures. The idea being to make the park
international, in a word, a gift from Paris to the
next century. We reviewed and debated nearly
1,000 proposals sent in from all over the world,
but landscapers' proposals were just not
interesting. To the architects, they seemed stuck
in 19th century thinking. There were several
interesting proposals from architects, but the
general consensus was that they were
unfeasible. The two professional camps were on
a collision course and the whole thing became a
fighting match.
The French Ministry of Culture who sponsored
the competition began to think that if this kept up
the architects and landscapers of the world were
in danger of never speaking to one another
again. When all of a sudden NONO stood up and
said, "So far I've listened to the opinions of both
professions, but there's nothing worth
discussing, nothing to show the 21st century.
The landscapers are hopelessly 19th century,

[5] Les Grands Projets. Major public urban

redevelopment scheme initiated by former French
president Franois MITTRAND. Enlisted many
noted contemporary architects to design such
projects as the Muse du Louvre Pyramide (I.M.
PEI), Institut du Monde Arabe (Jean NOUVEL) and
Parc de la Villette (Bernard TSCHUMI).

the architects are hopelessly 20th century, and

no one's reading forward from here. I don't want
anything to do with this jury." So saying, he went
home. I was enthralled with this stand up play of
his. Because two years prior, when I was
designing the Museum of Contemporary Art in
Los Angeles, I ran into the same sort of deadlock
with the client, and just stood up and walked out.
Remembering that, I had to think, "Good show!"
It made me feel close to NONO as a person. Of
course, when it came time for the second jury, he
came back and judged together with everyone.
And that's when the decision went to the
proposal by Swiss-born architect Bernard
TSCHUMI [7] the landscapers lost. And the
proposal selected at next stage of competitions
for the Cit de la musique music facility in the
Park was by French architect Christian de
PORTZAMPARC [8] . The combination of these
two rounded out the Park and facilities. In the
midst of all these political circumstances, I
realized that when NONO stood up and walked
out, this was his way to break the stalemate wide
open, the posture he assumed to get things
moving. Now here's a man, I thought, who knows
how to operate. That's one of the first things
about him that earned my respect.
Then when he was invited to come to Suntory
Hall in Tokyo [9], I was able to spend more time
with him, and we came to a very personal
relationship, so much so that ultimately I ended
up designing his tomb for him where he was
buried on Isola San Michele. So when plans
were drawn up for the Hall at Akiyoshidai and
HOSOKAWA Toshio [10] was saying, "Let's do
Prometeo for the launch," I was overjoyed.
Actually, it was Renzo PIANO who'd served on
the same jury who created the staging for the

Manhattan Transcripts (Academy Editions) and

Architecture and Disjunction (MIT Press).

[8] Christian de PORTZAMPARC (1944- ).

Moroccan-born architect. Won the 1992 Grand Prix
d'Architecture of France and 1994 Pritzker Prize.

Preludio (1982), Tokyo 1985 (1985),

Utsurohi (1986), Hiroshima Requiem (1989)
and the opera King Lear (1998). Since 1989, as
Artistic Director of the Akiyoshidai International
Contemporary Music Seminar & Festival he has put
considerable efforts into cultivating a new
generation of young Japan composers.

[9] In autumn 1987, NONO was invited to Japan

[6] Renzo PIANO (1937- ). Italian-born architect.
(together with Richard ROGERS) and the Kansai
International Airport Terminal.

under the auspices of the Suntory Hall International

Program for Music Composition (Dir.: the late
TAKEMITSU Toru) and on 28 November he had
the world premiere of the commissioned work 2)

[7] Bernard TSCHUMI (1944- ). Swiss-born

No hay caminos, hay que caminar . . . Andrei

Tarkovsky performed at Suntory Hall, Tokyo.

architect. Major works include the Parc de la

Villette. At present, Dean of Columbia University
Graduate School of Architecture. Writings include

composer. Works include Jo-Ha-Kyu (1980),

Major works include the Centre Georges Pompidou

130

InterCommunication No.27 Winter 1999

[10] HOSOKAWA Toshio (1955- ). Japanese

[11] Andr RICHARD (1944- ). Swiss-born.

Studied composition at Geneva and Freiburg
before becoming Director of the Experimentalstudio
der Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung des Sudwestfunks
Freiburg. Worked as assistant to NONO toward the
end of his career, in charge of the electronic
sounds for Prometeo and many other of his
works.

Special Article

Luigi NONO (1924-90)

Italian composer. Together with BOULEZ and
STOCKHAUSEN, a central figure in the landscape
of post-WWII European avantgarde music. Noted for
his synthesis of radical political thought and new
musical techniques, he left behind a large repertory
of powerful and hauntingly beautiful musical works.

Variazioni canoniche (sulla serie dell' Op. 41 di

Arnold Schoenberg) 1950
Polifonica-Monodia-Ritmica 1951
Epitaph auf Federico Garca Lorca 1952-53
La victoire de Guernica 1954
Il canto sospeso 1956
Varianti 1957
Composizione per orchestra n.2: Diario polacco '58
1959
Omaggio a Emilio Vedova 1961
Intolleranza 1960 1961
La fabbrica illuminata 1964
A floresta jovem e cheja de vida 1966
Per BastianaTai-Yang Cheng 1967
Musica-Manifesto 1969
Y entonces comprendi 1970
Como una ola de fuerza y luz 1972
Al gran sole carico d'amore 1975
...sofferte onde serene... 1977
Fragmente-Stille,an Diotima 1980
Prometeo 1984
No hay caminos, hay que caminar...Andrej
Tarkowskij 1987
La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica-Futura 1988

photo: Grazia Lissi

original premiere in Venice in '84. The

competition I was just talking about took place
from the end of '82 to the beginning of '83, I think
it was, right around the time NONO was in the
throes of giving shape to Prometeo. That's
when I met him.
Well, I was thrilled with HOSOKAWA's idea for
the Japan premiere. Only there was one
problem: I can scarcely read music. I didn't have
a clue how to approach music as an architect. So
I was relieved to hear HOSOKAWA tell me, "No,
even if you could read normal scores, you
wouldn't be able to read the score for
Prometeo. This is no ordinary score." That
being the case, I decided I might as well work
from scratch. The one and only lead I had to go
on was Andr RICHARD [11], who told me

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concretely how to best interpret the spatial

structures in Prometeo. As I understood it, the
movements of Prometeo called "isolas"
"Isola Prima," "Isola Seconda," etc.were
apparently suggested to the scenario by
Massimo CACCIARI's [12] unique contribution to
contemporary philosophy, the "archipelago"
thesis, so that the time-space arrangement of
these "islands" forms the composition of
Prometeo. That is how I understood it. So
what I had to do, then, was create "islands" in
space. Islands in both the volumetric and floating
sense. They could be in the audience seating or
they could be on stage. Whatever was present
could be scattered free-floating through space. I
communicated [by fax] with RICHARD, and later
with him directly when he came to Japan, about

No.27 Winter 1999 InterCommunication

131

these physical arrangements and established the

placement and size of the orchestra pit. It was
my idea to try to create a spatial parallel between
our view of the world as "archipelagos" and the
concretization of the performing space in
"archipelagos."
Another thing, the image of this hall had to do
with its being here in Akiyoshidai. Now
Akiyoshidai is a cartesian tableland with stalactic
cavities. That is, with caverns. So, during the
design process I hit upon the idea, what if I
overlap the cave image with that of the islands. A
glass-walled court filled with water brought up
front and centerthis would be one of the
floating islands. Actually, all the various lodges of
the Village are floating like islands. So this idea
of putting together a collective body of islands
each with its own function referred not only the
Hall but extended to the overall layout concepts.
That is, the spatial configuration of this entire Art
Village came to manifest the vision NONO and
CACCIARI imagined in Prometeo as
reassembled within the conditions of Akiyoshidai
here in Japan. Yesterday, listening to the Japan
premiere of Prometeo, the flow of the sound in
this space created here was exceptional.
Intensive Space
ASADA Akira: We have just heard Mr.
LACHENMANN's comments based on his long
relationship as a composer with NONO since the
'50s, as well as Mr. ISOZAKI's comments based
on his relationship as an architect with NONO
since the '80s, so what I would like to do now is
somehow link these two through a consideration
of NONO and space.
Actually, in '87 when NONO came to Japan for
the performance of his new work at Suntory Hall,

I had the pleasure of guiding him around Kyoto,

going to temples and different parts of town
together and talking. One special memory that
lingers is of Daitokuji temple, with its many subtemples each with its own rock garden or moss
garden. It's a diverse little microcosm all packed
compactly into one temple. How was I to
describe all those spaces? Well, categorizing
very roughly, I started by saying there are
extensive spaces and intensive spaces, spaces
that spread outward and spaces that fold in on
themselves. For example, a city like Paris laid
out on the grand axes of baroque city planning
displays truly expansive spaces. Kyoto, on the
other hand, is a simple grid, not a particularly
striking city when viewed from outside, but here
and there are small but dense pockets such as
the temple I just mentioned folded into the fabric,
and these are intensive spaces. I don't know if
NONO accepted my explanation or not.
However, pursuing these thoughts further, it
strikes me that NONO's music is possessed of a
deep spatial sense, and that spatiality is if
anything intensive rather than extensive.
This seems to have something to do with the
difference at Darmstadt since the '50s, as Mr.
LACHENMANN pointed out, between BOULEZ
and STOCKHAUSEN on the one hand and
NONO on the other. A problem that arose at
Darmstadt in the '50s was that as the various
musical parameterspitch, duration, dynamics,
timbre, etc.were serialized and summarily
structured, it got to where everything merely
sounded like dots of scattered sound. How to
overcome this was the issue. STOCKHAUSEN
and BOULEZ's solution was that of extensive
spatial enhancement, creating great fields and
rich constellations of these points in a sort of

[12] Massimo CACCIARI (1944- ). Italian

(two pianos, a cymbalon, a vibraphone, a harp and

philosopher. Collaborator with NONO from the latter

half of the '70s on such works as Das atmende
Klarsein (1981) and Prometeo. At present,
Mayor of Venice. Writings include Architecture and
Nihilism: On the Philosophy of Modern Architecture

a glockenspielincluding real-time electronic

audiotransforms) and chamber orchestra.
Incorporated a full panoply of technologies
developed for the Institut Recherche et Coordination
Acoustic/Musique (IRCAM) where BOULEZ served

(translated by Stephen Sartarelli, Yale University

Press, 1993), DRAN (1992), L'Angelo necessario
[The Necessary Angel] (Milan, 1986) and Icone della
legge [Icons of Law] (Milan, 1985).

as Director.

[13] STOCKHAUSEN's major work-in-progress

Licht is to incorporate a "Helicopter Quartet" in
which members of a string quartet are to be airborne
in helicopters. Sirius (1976) is another work by
STOCKHAUSEN.

electronic acoustics at the Akiyoshidai International

Art Village Concert Hall.

[14] Rpons (1981). Work for six solo instruments

[15] In the morning of this same day prior to the

Symposium, Andr RICHARD gave a lecture on
"Electronic Music of Luigi Nono" demonstrating live

[16] Halaphon. An apparatus conceived by German

audiotechnician Hans Peter Haller, allowing sounds
to move freely through a space. Utilized in
Prometeo.

Massimo CACCIARI

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InterCommunication No.27 Winter 1999

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planar or volumetric expansion. But not NONO;

as Mr. LACHENMANN has said, he adhered
strictly to points-as-points. Peering inside each
point of sound, each is seen to be skewed ever
so slightly, to possess a completely distinct
quality depending on where it resonates from. Or
else there will be some subtle interplay with the
silence surrounding it. In such a way, by
rigorously listening to each single sound in
depth, he was rediscovering the intensive space
that opens within a point of sound. Thus,
whereas BOULEZ and STOCKHAUSEN
expanded extensively outward, we can say that
NONO looked intensively inward to discover an
extremely deep inner space.
Such were the differences that arose when these
composers sought to create literally spatial
musics. In STOCKHAUSEN's Gruppen, for
example, the three orchestras in triangular
configuration, when the brass sections hit the
same bold harmonic at the climaxnot to call it
germanic megalomaniahe creates a
spectacular spatial experience backed with a
certain brand of authority, an utterly extensive
spatial experience. But STOCKHAUSEN's not
one to be satisfied with that; he has to put string
quartets on helicopters, he wants to play music
in outer space, he has to go all the way to Sirius!
(Laughs) [13] This goes back a bit further, but in
the '80s BOULEZ turned out a robust
development by placing the orchestra and solo
instruments around the audience in Rpons
[14] , then modulated the orchestra and soloists
or the crosstalk (rpons) between the soloists
with live electronics. Actually, when you listen to
it, you can distinctly hear the contrapuntal
reverberations sound-to-sound. Nonetheless,
these are strictly extensive experiments. All in all,
when you listen to this work, you cannot help feel
you are being feasted on a banquet of
sumptuous yet somehow sterile sound
painstakingly rendered with consummate skill.
Though quite frankly, given my own decadent
bourgeois tastes, I certainly have nothing against
such sterile scintillation. (Laughs)
Still, with Rpons, it must be said that this yet
sterile product has been realized by the most
highly polished technologies and massive budget
that afforded an artist who stands at the very
forefront of French national cultural policy.
Whereas Prometeo, even with its same spatial

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motion of sound and resonance sound-to-sound,

is of a completely different nature. Granted
sounds do travel through space. But his was not
the pursuit of spectacular effects such as sounds
revolving or responding back and forth across an
extensive space. Rather, his is more, as Mr.
ISOZAKI has said, an enclosed cavern-like
space, a dark space both acoustically and
visually. Yet the closer we listen, we tune in on
the most subtle, seemingly impossible echoes,
and moreover coming from places skewed
slightly from the sound sources. And as we train
our ears, before we know it we find ourselves
lost among these islands in a cave. What gives
this work this unassuming character is, I believe,
the way he uses acoustic technologies.
This has been demonstrated and explained to us
by NONO's longtime collaborator Andr
RICHARD [15] . Take, for example, the
"Halaphon," [16] which enables the sound to
revolve spatially. But it does not merely spin the
sound; that would be like a production at a
world's fair pavilion, just some spectacular thrust
of sound in extensive space. Whereas with
NONO, he might have the sounds rotate right
and left at the same time so that you wouldn't
even know which way they were turning. For
sure the sounds are moving, but not on any clear
vector through extensive space; the various
movements cancel each other out, unsettle any
sense of direction, or else they dissipate in
multiple directions, making for a mazelike sound
journey within an intensive space.
For the original premiere of Prometeo, Renzo
PIANO designed a boatlike structure inside San
Lorenzo in Florence, and just before that NONO
said, "My head feels just like San Lorenzo."
Meaning, he was imagining how sounds might
travel around the church interior of his own skull.
Conversely put, whether San Lorenzo or
Akiyoshidai Concert Hall, the whole is a skull
NONO's or again of any of our ownwhose
interior is the site of a sound pilgrimage that are
we following, an extremely deep intensive space
experience. That very probably was NONO's
thinking. Which I believe was realized in an ideal
form for this Japan premiere at Akiyoshidai.
NONO himself is no longer with us, but this
deeper intent was brilliantly realized by those
who knew and understood him well. As a lover of
NONO's music, I was thrilled at this opportunity
to be on hand for this achievement.

No.27 Winter 1999 InterCommunication

133

CHOKI Seiji: With this Japan premiere, I

conducted with my students a study of NONO's
oeuvre centered on Prometeo. And what
struck me was, how virtually nil awareness of
NONO there was in Japan. First of all, there's
almost no literature on NONO in Japanese. Not
that this is a uniquely Japanese problem; no
collected works of NONO have come out in Italy
whereas they have in Germany in German.
Almost all of NONO's early works premiered in
Germany. It was the 1960s before NONO's
works began to premiere in Italy, from
Intolleranza 1960. NONO had a difficult time
working in Italy, so much so that he and
MADERNA made a studio in Darmstadt, so
NONO himself was something of a traveler or
expatriate.
Someone with such a background is probably
too difficult to pin down to a single concept in
Japan. My own doctoral thesis was a study of the
composer BUSONI [17] who likewise was born
in Italy but lived practically his whole life in Berlin.
Japan has a hard time absorbing information
about composers like these, who resist localizing
to some one source of output. With NONO, he
was already active in Darmstadt by the time he
began seriously composing, and in his later
years he based himself in Freiburg. His musics
are just barely there in German; we here,
however, can scarcely piece together a coherent
picture of the composer. Was he a German
composer? Was he an Italian composer?
Without establishing such a framework, I fear, we
Japanese would never come to grips with the
likes of him.
And another thing, much of his vocal music is
written in Italian, and there was little opportunity
to perform it here up to now. It's hard to find out if

even his early masterpiece Il canto sospeso

was ever performed in Japan. For sure, two of
his most important operatic works Intolleranza
1960 and Al gran sole carico d'amore [the
great sun of blooming love] have yet to be
staged here. That Prometeo should be the first
of his major works to be put on here is something
of a paradox timewise. But as always, Japan
sticks mainly to 19th century operas, and we just
cannot seem to break out of the mold. On many
levels, there would seem to be no chance of
staging NONO's operas in Japan. Conversely
put, an "opera for listening" like Prometeo
probably stood more of a chance of being
performed.
This is still a question in my own mind, but what
made him call Prometeo an "opera"? Perhaps
it's all a big mistake on our part? (Laughs) If we
call it an opera, if we consider it within an
operatic framework, then it's a gigantic
revolution. To have created an opera that
eschews any kind of operatic staging or script
makes Prometeo a unique work, if nothing
else, in the history of opera. When we watch a
19th century-type opera, we sit in our seats
passively taking in the spaces that unfold before
us. The post-War operas of POUSSEUR [18]
and KAGEL [19] do move toward liberating
opera, but NONO has broken down open in
wholly another way.
While this is definitely a "tragedy of listening,"
this work shows us that we do not listen with our
hearing alone. Rare is the work that shows us so
keenly just where we are situated in the concert
hall. By the 19th century conception of opera,
each individual listener is hearing the songs in an
ideal space. Surely no one could possibly listen
under these same conditions with even the most

[17] Ferruccio BUSONI (1866-1924). Italian

progress.

(now disbanded). Specialized in WEBERN and

composer-pianist. His best-known work is

Piano Concerto (1904). From 1894 on, he

[19] Mauricio KAGEL (1931- ). Argentine-born

other contemporary composers. Friends with

composer, has resided in Germany since 1957.

NONO ever since the '50s Darmstadt's Summer

spent most of his life in Berlin. Remembered as

the author of Sketch of A New Esthetic of Music
(1907) in which he sets forth theories of atonal

Has worked in a wide variety of genres,

including musical theater, radio drama and film.

School days, they commissioned and premiered

his Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima.

His representative work is the absurdist opera

and microtonal music, and as an annotator of

BACH's works.

Staatstheater (1971) in which the singers and

orchestra members go out of kilter while setting
up the stage props and ballet dancers go

[22] Arditti Sting Quartet. English string quartet

[18] Henri POUSSEUR (1929- ). Belgian

composer. In his opera Votre Faust (1967), a

through their exercises.

clarity of performance, highly acclaimed for their

renditions of contemporary music for strings.

collaboration with French writer Michel BUTOR,

a composer named Henri is commissioned to

[20] fermata. One type of rest notation in

write an opera on the Faust legend, and the

audience can participate by "voting" for any of
several prepared paths by which the story can

length.

134

InterCommunication No.27 Winter 1999

led by violinist Irvine ARDITTI (1953- ). Was

noted for their astonishing skill and polished

classical music. Indicates notes and rests of free

[21] LaSalle Quartet. American string quartet

Special Article

advanced CD or record technologies; certainly

no other work differs so greatly depending on
where in the space you're listening to it or keeps
you casting about for where the sound is coming
from. This disorientation is not felt listening to
BOULEZ's Rpons. In BOULEZ's works, the
best place to hear it is where BOULEZ is
conducting. Which is why he has to conduct his
own works. For though physically Rpons
differs according to the listening position, that is
not, it would seem, essentially BOULEZ.
Nonetheless, as to NONO's acceptance in
Japan, the fact that Prometeo should premiere
here ahead of other more conventional operas
like Intolleranza 1960 or Al gran sole carico
d'amore does have the advantage of better
acquainting us with the essence of NONO the
composer. While listening to a composer's works
in chronological order is one way of
understanding him, the perspective from
culmination back toward the past is perhaps, in a
sense, more in accord with the Benjaminian
vision that underlies NONO and CACCIARI's
texts. Which makes this premiere very thoughtprovoking indeed.
Prometeo as Non-Opera
LACHENMANN: There are three things I want to
say. First, what Mr. ASADA said about
STOCKHAUSEN's Gruppen concerns a mere
19 seconds, but we shouldn't forget that
Gruppen is all of 25 minutes long. Granted
there is a moment where the brass hit harmonics
from three directions, but that moment is one of
the more prosaic sounds in the work. At the
same time, there are complex spatial
phenomena that constitute some of the most
readily comprehensible moments. Relations
between NONO and STOCKHAUSEN were
ambivalent. If I may transpose it to an image:
there was a period for STOCKHAUSEN where
he was like a child set down in front of toy train
set and he enjoyed playing God, moving the
locomotives around at will, which was just the
period when he wrote the piece Mr. ASADA was
discussing. Now if you say NONO did not have
such a period, I'd have to say that he had his
child's hour at the computers and machines
freely manipulating sounds maybe 20 years later
than STOCKHAUSEN. I am a composer who
studied under NONO and as such am certainly

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closer to NONO, so I can assure you that this

discussion of the composers in terms of an
opposition between BOULEZ and
STOCKHAUSEN is problematic.
STOCKHAUSEN's spatial concepts are also
entirely new temporal concepts. It would take a
long time to explain, and I'd rather not.
I am totally in agreement with Mr. ASADA's
observations that whereas BOULEZ and
STOCKHAUSEN pushed ever outward, NONO's
impetus was inward, always inward. The greatest
problem with this view, however, is the tendency
to mystify NONO's works or NONO himself. For
a fact, the structure of his works is unbelievably
simple. However, more than implementing this
and that to unfold the structure, you could say his
efforts were dedicated to the perception of
structure itself or to making previously-unheardof structures possible. In Fragmente-Stille, an
Diotima he wrote heaps of fermata [20] , all
annotated to 23 seconds or whatever very
precisely. The LaSalle Quartette [21] debuted it.
And at that debut, the LaSalle moved their bows
ever so slowly trying somehow to hold on for 23
seconds, but in the end the bowing just can't
hold out. Just like at the end of a very slow
SCHUMANN piece, they bowed little by little ever
so economically until the sound finally died out,
and still it didn't last 23 seconds. After that, when
NONO learned that the Arditti String Quartet [22]
was to perform this piece, he said, "They won't
be able to play this piece, they can't even
understand it." And yet when we heard the
Freiburg performance, NONO came to me
extremely enervated. "Arditti didn't interpret the
piece, they realized the music I intended." Even
so, Irvine ARDITTI told me, "We have to sustain
the sound for 23 seconds. The length of the bow
is about 87 cm. So it's simple division: if you
scarcely move the bow about 3.2 cm per second,
it'll last for 23 seconds." (Laughs) ARDITTI
looked at the bow precisely and determined that
he had to play it 3.2 cm per second, and as a
result all sorts of new broken, shakey sounds
came out. NONO told me. "At last we've been
able to intercede in the very structure of sound
put forth here. LaSalle played this piece as if it
were WEBERN. But Arditti laid bare the
structures within the sound and expanded them."
This drive to penetrate ever inward into the
sound, this dissection of sound, so as to

No.27 Winter 1999 InterCommunication

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experience one part of the essence of music is

NONO's vision. And that vision of NONO's can
be heard in Prometeo.
Then also, Mr. CHOKI questioned whether it
were not perhaps wrong to call this an opera,
and indeed this is not an opera. Conversely, I
think the work would be all the more easier for
the Japanese audience to take in because it is a
non-opera. I am very fond of the ideas of the
Japanese philosopher NISHITANI Keiji [23] , the
notion that within the self is an identical part that
is nonself. I think we can hear something very
close to that in this piece. When I said that
Prometeo was a non-opera, I meant that it
leaps out of the existing space called "opera," it's
that sort of opera. Earlier I referred to it as a
gigantic madrigal, but it's so gigantic, so very
distorted, the question becomes, can it even be
called music any more? If the work is a nonopera, can it not at the same time be called nonmusic? The reason being, music has rhythm,
music has harmony, it has conventional musical
elements, but here is a work that eschews all of
that, does it not? Listening to the piece, we have
something close to a primal sound experience. It
is nowhere for the concept of music proper to
arise; it is the existential site of hearing. Day in,
day out, we composers are surrounded to
excess by all kinds of sounds, we live listening to
all kinds of music. And because we're
surrounded by so very much music, we
sometimes find ourselves even resenting music,
but the fact that this is non-music leads us jaded
composers to new vistas in soundit's that kind
of work. Not only are we in the space made
possible by Mr. ISOZAKI, we are within the
interior of the fragmented sound. Those
amorphous clarinets, and more, the ineffably
noble songs, it all shapes entirely new contexts.

ASADA: I am in near-total agreement with the

first two points made by Mr. LACHENMANN. As I
said before, dividing extensive spaces on the
one hand and intensive spaces on the other is a
little too harsh a distinction. Really it calls for a
more sensitive discussion. After all, things that
are said about one person tend to become
critical to somehow strike a contrast. Now, as we
happen to be discussing NONO, I admit I
oversimplified comparisons with BOULEZ and
STOCKHAUSEN. We must recognize the
astonishingly high degree of perfection in
BOULEZ's works, and those works using
electronic modulation such as . . . explosantefixe . . . [24] are truly beautiful.
STOCKHAUSEN is also a great composer; his
early Kontra-Punkte [25] , which is to be
performed soon at Akiyoshidai, is full of such
exactingly fresh beauty you would think it were
composed just yesterdayall the more reason
the later megalomanic excesses are such a
disappointment. That much said, if one had to
compare them and NONO on their spatial
concepts, I do believe you could say what I said
before . . . was the nuance I hope got across.
Now, this second point is extremely important.
That is, we must not confuse NONO's peering
into the interior of sound with mysticism. NONO
is easily typecast. In the past he made political
music as a militant communist, which came to a
peak with Al gran sole carico d'amore, then
from the latter half of the '70s he turns more and
more toward melancholic reflection, arriving at
Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima and Prometeo.
In other words, an about-face from things
political. Certainly that node of change is not
entirely absent. Rather, however, as Mr.
LACHENMANN has said, we should emphasize
the underlying continuity. For instance, in his

[23] NISHITANI Keiji (1900-90). Philosopher.

Studied under NISHIDA Kitaro, preeminent
philosopher of the Kyoto school (see [27]).
Participated in the "Transcending the Modern"
debates published in Bungakukai magazine.
Writings include Kongenteki Shutaisei no
Tetsugaku [The Philosophy of Fundamental
Subjectivism] and Sekaikan to Kokkakan
[Worldview and Stateview].

[25] Kontra-Punkte. Work for piano, flute,

clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, trumpet,
trombone, harp, violin and cello. All instruments
except for the piano drop out one after another as
the piece progresses. Premiered in 1953, it is
acclaimed as an early masterpiece of total
serialism.

[24] . . . explosante-fixe . . .. Work for three flutes

(with live electronics) and chamber orchestra.
Originally composed in memory of STRAVINSKY,
the present version was produced in 1991-93 in
collaboration with IRCAM.

Romancero gitano and El cante jondo, plays

include Bodas de Sangre and La casa da Bernada
Alba. Shot by Franco's troops soon after the
outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

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InterCommunication No.27 Winter 1999

[26] Frederico Garca LORCA (1898-1936).

Spanish poet-playwright. Poetry collections include

[27] NISHIDA Kitaro (1870-1945). Philosopher.

Professor at Kyoto University (1913-28).
Established his own brand of "Nishida philosophy"
extolling the Japanese negative-value of mu
[nothingness], and together with TANABE Hajime
formed the "Kyoto school." Writings include Zen no
Kenkyu [The Study of Good], Jikaku niokeru
Chokkan to Hansei [Insight and Reflection in SelfAwareness] and Hataraku Mono kara Miru Mono e
[From Working to Seeing].

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very early period NONO is writing pieces based

on the poetry of Federico Garca LORCA [26] .
Of course the key thing here is that LORCA was
a poet murdered by the Fascists, and the content
of the poems is also important. Only in '87 when
NONO came to Japan and lectured on "The
Poetry and Though of Contemporary Music"
(Gendai Ongaku no Politikusu [The Politics of
Contemporary Music], Suiseisha: Tokyo), he
cited the word "verde" in LORCA's poetry, noting
how the poet emphasized the "r" sound in the
word to make a break. And then jumping ahead
a little, he states that even Fidel CASTRO uses
the severing power of "r" in his speeches. NONO
finds a certain politic in LORCA "r" or CASTRO
"r." So he is not putting revolutionary texts to
music as mere propaganda. If we call NONO's
music political, then, we must think on that level
of politics from the very outset.
Conversely, we should not consider his works
from the latter half of the '70s on simply as a
reversal from politics to reflection. Nor moreover,
should we mystify this reflexivity. This is an
extremely important point. In Prometeo, there
appear texts from HESIOD's Theogonia and
many other different myths. Yet this is no mere
ricorso to mythic sources. Straightaway he gives
us mythological texts alongside texts from
BENJAMIN. BENJAMIN's Ursprung does not
refer to any single "source" recovered by tracing
back along linear history. Amidst of the rise of
Fascism in the '30s he said that Salvation
depends on tiny fissures in the continuum of
catastrophe. What BENJAMIN calls Ursprungen
[origins] are seen in strata in cross-section. The
"micro-messianic power" from his final work On
the Concept of History is one of the basic
concepts underlying Prometeo, which again
has to be understood in context as something
quite different from the absolute messianic power
expected of the Apocalypse to come.
To put the thing from a slightly different angle, it
is decisive that NONO and CACCIARI chose
BENJAMIN, and not HEIDEGGER. Mr.
LACHENMANN referred to Japanese philosophy
and to the ideas of NISHITANI Keiji in particular.
Now NISHITANI was a pupil of NISHIDA Kitaro
[27] , whose writings are so fraught with riddles
that NISHITANI had to explicate and annotate
them for us; that was his standing. Whereas
NISHIDA himself corresponds in the German

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context to HEIDEGGERcorresponds both in

theory and politics. NISHIDA's mu [nothingness]
to HEIDEGGER's Sein [being] as distinct from
individual beings. Problems occur, however,
when we start to mystify their "place of mu" (mu
no basho) or "site of Sein" as some longforgotten place beyond the world we live in as
actual entities to which we have but to return.
That is not only reactionary in theory, politically
that line of thinking served indirectly to justify to
the militarists in Japan and the Nazis in
Germany. It is in that sense I'm saying it's crucial
that NONO and CACCIARI chose BENJAMIN
and not HEIDEGGER. Their "origins" are not
some facile reclaiming of the meta-historical;
they plant themselves squarely in actual
historical process and try to get at the immediate
strata exposed where that timeflow ruptures
momentarily. Which naturally cancels any
operatic narrative developing linearly in
extensive space. They call it a reverse opera, a
false opera, and that is precisely how we have to
think of Prometeo.
The Significance of "A Tragedy of Listening"
Andr RICHARD (from the floor): Personally, I
think it's a mistake just to say Prometeo is a
non-opera. The work is sub-titled "A Tragedy of
Listening" after all. The role played by text in the
work is extremely important. Not that the music is
added to follow along with the text, of course, but
we cannot speak of the work without the text.
In the original premiere program CACCIARI
wrote that through Prometeo NONO wanted to
liberate music from the governing circumstances
of dynamics and sight. So as to offer up space to
music alone.
Of course, in Prometeo we do see performers
on stage. And in that sense, it is not entirely
devoid of any visual element, but the movements
on stage do not affect the auditory complexities.
Taking only the harmonies, for example, the
movement of soundfirst one group with one
sound connecting next which group and what
soundis incredibly complex. To give an
example, I previously conducted chorus, and
NONO asked me to bring together more voices
with the exact same tonal qualities as the first
soprano. And so a female chorus was formed, all
with the same tonal quality as the first soprano.
This chorus had two roles: to recite ancient

No.27 Winter 1999 InterCommunication

137

myths, and to recite BENJAMIN texts as

arranged by CACCIARI. The soloist only sings
BENJAMIN texts. And the same goes for the alto
voices. There is an alto chorus all with the vocal
qualities as the alto soloist. And with the tenors,
too, except for the role of Prometheus, there is
again the soloist and chorus with the same vocal
qualities, the soloist singing BENJAMIN texts
only and the chorus reciting both ancient
mythology and BENJAMIN texts at the same
time. Just listening by ear you gradually lose
track where's the soloist and where the chorus.
That is, although there are two sound sources,
because those sound sources have the same
qualities they start to sound alike. It's an
extremely curious experiment. For example, at
the very beginning where a chorus sings the
words, "Gaeia gave birth to the land," the
"mythology" section that follows is sung in many
different harmonics. An internal continuity of
sound winds its way around between the various
soloists and the various choruses and the
orchestra group.
Because it is all so musically complex, the work
is rescued from visual elements and constraints,
indeed freed from them. In that sense, as to why
I do not agree with the proposition that the work

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is a non-opera, while granted the work has no

visual dramaturgy, it does have a dramaturgy of
sound. And within that sound, text is extremely
significant. Because there exists this auditory
dramaturgy, I think it's problematic to call it a
non-opera.
ISOZAKI: Well then, I wonder if I might pose a
question? Prior to the performance here,
Prometeo was performed in Brussels [28] , I
believe it was staged by Robert WILSON [29] . After
which I happened to meet WILSON, and when I
asked him how it went, he hardly said a word. He
just went on drinking until finally when it seemed
he'd reached his limit, he said something to the
effect that it should never have been put on
stage. (Laughs) So I wanted to hear about it from
someone who was involved. Now Robert
WILSON is someone whose own expression is in
the visual, so having him stage a work that so
rejects the visual should have made for, it seems
to me, a very interesting production. What was
the result?
RICHARD: A very delicate question. There are
some things in life you have to take on, like it or
not. (Laughs) In this case, we were just lucky to

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CACCIARI's libretto (page left, top) and NONO's score (above). III. Isola 2, b) Hlderlin (Mitologia).
Two sopranos sing, "Doch / uns ist gegeben / auf keiner Sttte / zu ruhn . . . ."

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No.27 Winter 1999 InterCommunication

139

Diagram of Halaphon invented by Hans Peter HALLER.

Slow leftward rotation (outer line), quick rightward rotation (inner line), intermittent diagonal movement (dotted line).

be able to stage Prometeo eight times in

Brussels, the condition being that we had to do it
at the Opera House, not a concert hall. Actually,
NONO himself once tried to stage the piece
together with Jrgen FLIMM[30], but as talks
went on, they came to see the impossibility of the
endeavor, and eventually the project was
shelved. I told WILSON this any number of
times, but ultimately the decision was not mine.
In the end we put on Prometeo and it was a
flop. We just have to be on our toes from now on
never to let flop like that happen again. Though,
honestly speaking, neither the performances nor
the production was any good. The whole show
was a failure. The visual direction interfered with
the performances; for a fact, the performers told
me it ruined their performances.
LACHENMANN: I'd like to say that Prometeo

[28] Performed as part of the Ars Musica Festival at

Brussels' Halles de Schaerbeek on 4-6, 8-9,11-13
March 1997.
[29] Robert WILSON (1941- ). American
avantgarde dramatist. Numerous collaborations
with musicians such as the opera Einstein on the

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InterCommunication No.27 Winter 1999

is a non-opera, not an anti-opera. As a nonopera, we can see a positive point of departure

just now Andr spoke of a "dramaturgy of
sound"and this exists not only in NONO, but
also in MAHLER and BEETHOVEN. In that
sense, this dramaturgy of sound is not something
specific to Prometeo proper. That and, we've
spoken of the importance of the text, well I've
seen Prometeo already seven or eight times,
and frankly speaking, the text is unintelligible just
listening to the sound alone. Given the difficulty
of the core text, indications are there will be
major problems for those who come to hear
Prometeo for the first time to make sense of it.
Short of which, as Mr. ASADA has said, I
suppose it's only natural that the audience make
the most of a kind of sound-tripping. It would be
unreasonable to expect someone listening to this
music for the first time to grasp the extremely

Beach (1976) co-written with Philip GLASS. Has

staged a number of operas.
[30] Jrgen FLIMM (1941- ). German dramatist.
Also staged many operas. Staged the Frankfurt
production of NONO's Al gran sole carico

[31] Moses und Aron. Opera by SCHNBERG

based on the Old Testament story of Moses and
Aaron. SCHNBERG wrote a script for three acts,
but only completed music for the first two acts.

d'amore in 1979.

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photo: Karin Rocholl

complicated concepts behind the texts.

ASADA: The question of opera or non-opera
depends on the definition of opera, which gets to
be all very academic. But at least I believe we
can say this. Regarding the possibility or
impossibility of visual staging, we are reminded
via the issue of the forbidding the worship of
idolatry of SCHNBERG's opera Moses und
Aron[31] . From that perspective, might not
NONO's Prometeo offer an answer to the
question, is opera possible after the incomplete
end of Moses und Aron at Act II? In Moses
und Aron, Moses is trying faithfully to obey
commandments from God, particularly the
forbidding of idolatry. Accordingly, he does not
sing, but expresses himself in Sprachgesang,
that is, in speech. Whereas Aaron fashions a
golden calf-like idol, saying he must appeal to
the visual in order for the masses to understand,
which he expresses quite brilliantly in song. The
conflict between these two continues for two acts
until Moses happens upon an orgy around the
golden calf that Aaron has bestowed upon the
masses, and he breaks down saying, "Words, o
words, what I lack art thou." So ends Act II; Act

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III and after remained unscored, SCHNBERG's

taking asylum in America notwithstanding.
Accordingly, while plenty of operas were written
after that, in the larger sense the history of opera
can be said to have been left hanging at the
abrupt ending of Act II of Moses und Aron.
Which poses the question, is opera possible any
more? Here NONO, in very radical form,
provides an answer how, while banning idolatry,
that is, while utterly rejecting the visual, we might
still be made to experience profound drama
through sound.
But perhaps this is making too much of Jewish
subtexts. Of course, NONOespecially in his
later yearsshowed great interest in Judica,
though I think it was unrelated to what is called
Jewish mysticism. In other words, whereas the
essence of the Catholic experience ultimately
reduces to the word "credo" [I believe], the
Jewish experience is in essence "Listen, o
Israel!" Did he not, then, take this commandment
concentrated in the word "ascolta" [listen] and
universalize it? By this commandment "listen,"
people are exposed to a diversity of "other
voices," to the multifarious differences born of
frequent contradictions and hostilities distributed

No.27 Winter 1999 InterCommunication

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Prometeo Tragedia dell'ascolto

Masterwork of Luigi NONO's later
years, drawing on motifs from the
Greek myth of Prometheus, with a
libretto by philosopher Massimo
CACCIARI composed from texts by
HESIOD, AESCHYLUS, HLDERLIN
and BENJAMIN, and spatial acoustics
by the Experimentalstudio der

framework is structured in five

movements called "isolas" [islands].
Premiered at the 1984 Venice
Biennale in a giant boat-shaped space
(design: Renzo PIANO) installed within
San Lorenzo in Florence. Amended in
1985.

Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung des
Sudwestfunks Freiburg. Initially
conceived in a form closer to a
traditional opera, it ultimately
eschewed the visual to become a
"Tragedy of Listening." The overall

archipelago-like through space. That is nothing

less than tragedy. In spite of which, it is that
tragedy that makes possible our first profound
experience. In this sense, the "Tragedy of
Listening" emerges as the fundamental concept
of Prometeo. Actually, even without hearing
the whole of the text, the commandment ascolta
is repeated here and there impressionistically.
Through the course of this we ourselves open up
toward sometimes cruel, yet simultaneously
subtle distinctions. That, I believe is the essence
of this work.

vocal soloists: soprano2, alto2, tenor

instrumental soloists: flute (bass flute,
piccolo), clarinet (E clarinet, bass clarinet,
contrabass clarinet), tuba (trombone,
euphonium), string trio (viola, cello,
contrabass), glass3, speaker2, chorus,
4 orchestras (flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn,
trumpet, trombone, violin 4, viola, cello,
contrabass)
electronic realisation staff
conductor2

CHOKI Seiji
Born 1958 in Fukuoka. Musicologist; Associate Professor at
Tokyo University. Known for his multifaceted studies on 20th
century music. Writings include Ferruccio Busoni (Misuzu
Shobo: Tokyo) and Daisan Teikoku to Ongakuka-tachi
[Musicians and the Third Reich] (Ongaku-no-Tomo-sha:
Tokyo).

Special thanks to:

Akiyoshidai International Art Village
Archivio Luigi Nono

[This symposium took place on 27 August 1998, Akiyoshidai

Kokusai Geijutu-mura (International Art Village).]

Helmut LACHENMANN
Born 1935 in Stuttgart. Composer. Studied composition
under Luigi NONO. Works include temA, Salut fr
Caudwell and the opera Matchstick Girl.
ISOZAKI Arata
Born 1931 in Oita. Architect. Many internationally recognized
works, such as the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary
Art (MOCA) and Barcelona Olympic Sports Hall. Writings
include ISOZAKI Arata no Shigoto-jutsu [The Workstyles of
ISOZAKI Arata] (Okokusha: Tokyo).
ASADA Akira
Born 1957 in Kobe. Economist and social philosopher;
Associate Professor at Kyoto University. Writings include

Kozo to Chikara [Structure and Power] (Keiso Shobo:

Tokyo) and Rekishi no Owari to Seikimatsu no Sekai [The
End of History and the World at Fin de Sicle] (Shogakukan:
Tokyo).
Background Visual: Handwritings of prometeo by Luigi NONO
Luigi Nono, Verso Prometeo (RICORDI, 1984)

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