Luigi Nono
1924: Born in Venice, son of Civil Engineer Mario Nono and Maria Manetti. He is given his grandfather's name, one of the most important painters of the nineteenth century Venetian school.
1941: Meets Gian Francesco Malipiero and attends his composition course at the Venice Conservatorio “Benedetto Marcello”, as an auditor.
1942: First meeting with Emilio Vedova. Begins Law Studies at the University of Padova. 1946: Graduates from the University of Padova with a Degree in Law. In Rome, he meets the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, Luigi Dallapiccola and Bruno Maderna, who is to become his mentor and friend.
1948: Together with Bruno Maderna he participates in a conducting course in Venice given by Hermann Scherchen, during which he meets the Brazilian pianist and composer Eunice Catunda. Catunda, a communist, introduces Nono to the poetry of Federico García Lorca. After the course ends Nono follows Scherchen to Zurich and to Rapallo for further studies.
1950: Attends the "Ferienkurse für neue Musik" in Darmstadt, where his first composition, the Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell'op.41 di Arnold Schoenberg, is premiered. In Darmstadt he meets Edgar Varèse, Karl Amadeus Hartmann and Rudolf Kolisch. He establishes a friendship with Wolfgang Steinecke, the director of the "Ferienkurse". Nono takes part in the "Ferienkurse" every year until 1960; seven of his compositions have their world premieres in Darmstadt.
1951: First meeting with Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Polifonica - Monodia - Ritmica
Composizione per orchestra n. 1
Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca n. 1: España en el corazón, (Texts by: F. García Lorca, P. Neruda)
1952: Nono joins the Italian Comunist Party. He makes contact with Erwin Piscator. Exchange of letters and subsequently meeting in Rome with Angelo Maria Ripellino. In Paris with Scherchen he meets Pierre Boulez and visits Pierre Schaeffer's electronic studio. Together with Maderna and Stockhausen he attends several electonic music lessons given by Werner Meyer-Eppler in Bonn (also during the next year).
Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca n. 2: Y su sangre ya viene cantando
1953: Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca n. 3: Memento. Romance de la Guardia civil epañola, (Text by: F. García Lorca)
Due espressioni per orchestra
1954: First trip to Turin; he meets the publisher Giulio Einaudi, Massimo Mila, Giulio Bollati and Italo Calvino. He travels to Hamburg to attend the world premiere of Schoenberg'sMoses und Aron and there meets Nuria Schoenberg.
Der rote Mantel
Musiche di scena per Come vi piace di William Shakespeare
La victoire de Guernica (Text by: P. Eluard)
Liebeslied, (Tesxt by: L. Nono)
1955: Marriage to Nuria Schoenberg.
Der rote Mantel, suite 1
Der rote Mantel, suite 2
Canti per 13
Incontri
1956: Moves to the Island of Giudecca (Venice). Takes part in a symposium on new compositional techniques at the "Elektroakustisches Experimentalstudio", founded by Scherchen at Gravesano in 1954. He and Maderna teach a composition course in Darmstadt. The first performance of Il canto sospeso in Cologne is a great success.
1957: Lectures on Schoenberg's compositional technique in Darmstadt during the "Ferienkurse". Nono engages in a discussion with Stockhausen about his technique of textual fragmentation used in compositions from Il canto sospeso on.
Varianti. La terra e la compagna (Texts by: Cesare Pavese)
1958: First trip to Prague. Nono attends the Warsaw Autumn Festival. Helmut Lachenmann becomes his pupil.
Piccola gala notturna veneziana in onore dei 60 anni di Heinrich Strobel
Cori di Didone, based on La terra promessa by Giuseppe Ungaretti
1959: Birth of Silvia, his first daughter. He teaches for the first time at the "Dartington Summer School of Music". At Darmstadt his lecture Presenza storica nella musica d’oggi provokes violent reactions and brings his ten-year friendship with Stockhausen to an end. Composizione per orchestra n. 2: Diario polacco '58
1960: At the "Ferienkurse" in Darmstadt he gives two lectures on the theme: Text-Music-Voice.
Nono composes his first electronic work, Omaggio a Vedova, in Milano at the Studio di Fonologia of the RAI. Sarà dolce tacere (Text: Cesare Pavese)
"Ha venido". Canciones para Silvia (Text: A. Machado)
1961: The first performance of Nono's Intolleranza 1960 (Texts by: H. Alleg, B. Brecht, A. Césaire, P. Eluard, J. Fucík, W. Majakovski, A. M. Ripellino, J.-P. Sartre) takes place at the Gran Teatro "La Fenice" in Venice during the Biennale Festival. This is the first world premiere in Italy of a work by Nono.
1962 Travels to the USSR. Teaches at Dartington and at the University of Helsinki. Canti di vita e d'amore: Sul ponte di Hiroshima (Texts by: G. Anders, J. L. Pacheco, C. Pavese)
1963: Lecture at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice) Possibility and necessity of a new musical theater. Begins working with the poet Giuliano Scabia.
Canciones a Guiomar (Text by: A. Machado)
1964: Begins a long series of lecture-concerts with performances of his works in factories and for workers' and students' organizations, from Genova to Southern Italy. Birth of Serena Bastiana, Nono's second daughter.
Da un diario italiano (Texts compiled by: Giuliano Scabia)
La fabbrica illuminata (Text compiled by: G. Scabia, C. Pavese)
1965: First American performance of Intolleranza 1960 in Boston, conducted by Bruno Maderna. Erwin Piscator introduces Nono to Peter Weiss.
Musiche per Die Ermittlung di Peter Weiss
1966: Friendship with Giovanni Pirelli and collaboration with "The Living Theatre" in Milano.
Elected as a member of the "Akademie der Künste" in East Berlin.
Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz
A floresta é jovem e cheja de vida (Texts compiled by: G. Pirelli)
1967: First voyage to Latin America, lasting three months (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Panama, Mexico, Cuba),with Nuria and their two daughters. Teaches a month-long composition course in Buenos Aires at the Instituto Torcuato di Tella. In Peru, for having dedicated his lecture series at the University San Marcos to the memory of the Peruvian guerrillas "massacred by the guardia civil", he is arrested and deported the next day. In Cuba he meets Fidel Castro and Alejo Carpentier.
Per Bastiana - Tai-Yang Cheng
1968: Participates in the demonstrations against the Biennale Art Festival in Venice. Second trip to Latin America. In Cuba he meets the "revolutionary poet" Carlos Franqui. Contrappunto dialettico alla mente (Texts by: C. Sánchez, N. Balestrini and documentary texts)
1969: Musica- Manifesto n. 1: Un volto, del mare (Text by: C. Pavese) - Non consumiamo Marx (Texts: documents from the Paris demonstrations of May 1968)
Musiche per Manzù. Suite da concerto da Intolleranza 1960
1970: 25 lecture-concerts in different cities in Tuscany and Umbria.
Y entonces comprendió (Texts by: C. Franqui, E. "Che" Guevara).
Voci destroying muros (Texts by: R. Luxemburg, H. Schaft, R. Snel, H. Santamaría, C. Sánchez, documentary texts)
1971: Nono meets Luciano Cruz, the young leader of the MIR, and the Argentinian poet Julio Huasi in Santiago de Chile. Exchange of ideas and planning with Claudio Abbado, Maurizio Pollini and Luigi Pestalozza for a new festival in Reggio Emilia to be called "Musica/Realtà".
Ein Gespenst geht um in der Welt (Texts by: K. Marx, C. Sánchez, H. Santamaría, and from the songs Internazionale, Bandiera rossa, Marcia del 26 luglio and L’Oriente è rosso)
1972: Luciano Cruz dies.
Como una ola di fuerza y luz (Text by: J. Huasi).
1973: Begins work with the stage director Juri Ljubimov and the designer David Borovski of the Taganka Theater of Moscow on Al gran sole carico d'amore.
Siamo la gioventù del Vietnam (Texts: Decaration of Indepndance of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, G. Federici)
Per Paul Dessau
1975: First Performance of Al gran sole carico d'amore at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, conducted by Claudio Abbado. (Texts by: B. Brecht, T. Bunke, F. Castro, E. "Che" Guevara, E. Dimitrov, M. Gorki, A. Gramsci, Lenin, K. Marx, L. Michel, C. Pavese, A. Rimbaud, C. Sánchez, H. Santamaría, compiled by L. Nono)
1976: ..... sofferte onde serene...
Frammenti da “Al gran sole carico d’amore”
1978: Begins to work with Massimo Cacciari on the text for Prometeo.
1979: The first issue of the monthly Laboratorio Musica, of which Nono is the editor, is published in June. Con Luigi Dallapiccola
1980: In December Nono visits the "Experimentalstudio der Heinrich Strobel-Stiftung des Südwestfunks" in Freiburg, where he would realize his live electronics for the next eight years, spending long periods of time in the Hotel Halden in the Black Forest. Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima
1981: Das atmende Klarsein, (Texts by: R.M. Rilke and antique Orphic hymns, compiled by M. Cacciari)
Io, frammento dal Prometeo (Text: compiled by M. Cacciari)
1982: Quando stanno morendo. Diario polacco n. 2 (Texts by: E. Ady, A. Blok, V. Chlebnikov, C. Milosz, B. L. Pasternak, compiled by M. Cacciari)
¿Dónde estás, hermano? (Text: cry of the families of the “Desaparecidos”)
1983: Meets Marta e György Kurtág in Budapest.
Omaggio a György Kurtág (Text: Phonemes of the name György Kurtág)
Guai ai gelidi mostri (Texts by: G. Benn, Lucrezio, F. Nietzsche, E. Pound, R.M. Rilke, compiled by M. Cacciari)
1984: World premiere of Prometeo. Tragedia dell'ascolto (Texts compiled by M. Cacciari), during the Music Festival of the Venice Biennale. Renzo Piano designs the "musical space" for the performance. A Carlo Scarpa, architetto, ai suoi infiniti possibili
1985: Lecture at theFondazione Giorgio Cini Other listening possiblities. Travels in Spain. On the wall of a monastery in San Francesco di Toledo he sees the graffiti „Caminantes, no hay caminos, hay que caminar”. A Pierre. Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum
1986: Guest of the DAAD in Berlin (until 1987). In August, travels to the Arctic Sea.
Risonanze erranti. Liederzyklus a Massimo Cacciari (Texts by: H. Melville, I. Bachmann)
1987: Trip to the USSR, where he meets Gidon Kremer. In Paris he meets Edmond Jabès. Travels to Japan for the world premiere of: No hay caminos, hay que caminar... Andrej Tarkowskij
Caminantes... Ayacucho (Text by: Giordano. Bruno)
Découvrir la subversion. Hommage à Edmond Jabès (Text by: E. Jabès) (unfinished composition)
Post-prae-ludium n. 1 “per Donau”
1988: Fellow of the "Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin". Guest professor at the "Hochschule der Künste" in Berlin (Nono soon gives up this position in protest over the organization of the course). Composition course in Granada. La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura. Post-prae- ludium n. 3 “BAAB-ARR”, (unfinished composition)
1989: Travels to Moscow, Leningrad and Budapest. Takes part in the Festival of the "Centre Acanthes" in Avignon, dedicated to him, with concerts, lectures and courses. "Hay que caminar" soñando
1990 Receives the "Berliner Kunstpreis". Dies in Venice on the 8th of May.
1941: Meets Gian Francesco Malipiero and attends his composition course at the Venice Conservatorio “Benedetto Marcello”, as an auditor.
1942: First meeting with Emilio Vedova. Begins Law Studies at the University of Padova. 1946: Graduates from the University of Padova with a Degree in Law. In Rome, he meets the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, Luigi Dallapiccola and Bruno Maderna, who is to become his mentor and friend.
1948: Together with Bruno Maderna he participates in a conducting course in Venice given by Hermann Scherchen, during which he meets the Brazilian pianist and composer Eunice Catunda. Catunda, a communist, introduces Nono to the poetry of Federico García Lorca. After the course ends Nono follows Scherchen to Zurich and to Rapallo for further studies.
1950: Attends the "Ferienkurse für neue Musik" in Darmstadt, where his first composition, the Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell'op.41 di Arnold Schoenberg, is premiered. In Darmstadt he meets Edgar Varèse, Karl Amadeus Hartmann and Rudolf Kolisch. He establishes a friendship with Wolfgang Steinecke, the director of the "Ferienkurse". Nono takes part in the "Ferienkurse" every year until 1960; seven of his compositions have their world premieres in Darmstadt.
1951: First meeting with Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Polifonica - Monodia - Ritmica
Composizione per orchestra n. 1
Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca n. 1: España en el corazón, (Texts by: F. García Lorca, P. Neruda)
1952: Nono joins the Italian Comunist Party. He makes contact with Erwin Piscator. Exchange of letters and subsequently meeting in Rome with Angelo Maria Ripellino. In Paris with Scherchen he meets Pierre Boulez and visits Pierre Schaeffer's electronic studio. Together with Maderna and Stockhausen he attends several electonic music lessons given by Werner Meyer-Eppler in Bonn (also during the next year).
Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca n. 2: Y su sangre ya viene cantando
1953: Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca n. 3: Memento. Romance de la Guardia civil epañola, (Text by: F. García Lorca)
Due espressioni per orchestra
1954: First trip to Turin; he meets the publisher Giulio Einaudi, Massimo Mila, Giulio Bollati and Italo Calvino. He travels to Hamburg to attend the world premiere of Schoenberg'sMoses und Aron and there meets Nuria Schoenberg.
Der rote Mantel
Musiche di scena per Come vi piace di William Shakespeare
La victoire de Guernica (Text by: P. Eluard)
Liebeslied, (Tesxt by: L. Nono)
1955: Marriage to Nuria Schoenberg.
Der rote Mantel, suite 1
Der rote Mantel, suite 2
Canti per 13
Incontri
1956: Moves to the Island of Giudecca (Venice). Takes part in a symposium on new compositional techniques at the "Elektroakustisches Experimentalstudio", founded by Scherchen at Gravesano in 1954. He and Maderna teach a composition course in Darmstadt. The first performance of Il canto sospeso in Cologne is a great success.
1957: Lectures on Schoenberg's compositional technique in Darmstadt during the "Ferienkurse". Nono engages in a discussion with Stockhausen about his technique of textual fragmentation used in compositions from Il canto sospeso on.
Varianti. La terra e la compagna (Texts by: Cesare Pavese)
1958: First trip to Prague. Nono attends the Warsaw Autumn Festival. Helmut Lachenmann becomes his pupil.
Piccola gala notturna veneziana in onore dei 60 anni di Heinrich Strobel
Cori di Didone, based on La terra promessa by Giuseppe Ungaretti
1959: Birth of Silvia, his first daughter. He teaches for the first time at the "Dartington Summer School of Music". At Darmstadt his lecture Presenza storica nella musica d’oggi provokes violent reactions and brings his ten-year friendship with Stockhausen to an end. Composizione per orchestra n. 2: Diario polacco '58
1960: At the "Ferienkurse" in Darmstadt he gives two lectures on the theme: Text-Music-Voice.
Nono composes his first electronic work, Omaggio a Vedova, in Milano at the Studio di Fonologia of the RAI. Sarà dolce tacere (Text: Cesare Pavese)
"Ha venido". Canciones para Silvia (Text: A. Machado)
1961: The first performance of Nono's Intolleranza 1960 (Texts by: H. Alleg, B. Brecht, A. Césaire, P. Eluard, J. Fucík, W. Majakovski, A. M. Ripellino, J.-P. Sartre) takes place at the Gran Teatro "La Fenice" in Venice during the Biennale Festival. This is the first world premiere in Italy of a work by Nono.
1962 Travels to the USSR. Teaches at Dartington and at the University of Helsinki. Canti di vita e d'amore: Sul ponte di Hiroshima (Texts by: G. Anders, J. L. Pacheco, C. Pavese)
1963: Lecture at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice) Possibility and necessity of a new musical theater. Begins working with the poet Giuliano Scabia.
Canciones a Guiomar (Text by: A. Machado)
1964: Begins a long series of lecture-concerts with performances of his works in factories and for workers' and students' organizations, from Genova to Southern Italy. Birth of Serena Bastiana, Nono's second daughter.
Da un diario italiano (Texts compiled by: Giuliano Scabia)
La fabbrica illuminata (Text compiled by: G. Scabia, C. Pavese)
1965: First American performance of Intolleranza 1960 in Boston, conducted by Bruno Maderna. Erwin Piscator introduces Nono to Peter Weiss.
Musiche per Die Ermittlung di Peter Weiss
1966: Friendship with Giovanni Pirelli and collaboration with "The Living Theatre" in Milano.
Elected as a member of the "Akademie der Künste" in East Berlin.
Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz
A floresta é jovem e cheja de vida (Texts compiled by: G. Pirelli)
1967: First voyage to Latin America, lasting three months (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Panama, Mexico, Cuba),with Nuria and their two daughters. Teaches a month-long composition course in Buenos Aires at the Instituto Torcuato di Tella. In Peru, for having dedicated his lecture series at the University San Marcos to the memory of the Peruvian guerrillas "massacred by the guardia civil", he is arrested and deported the next day. In Cuba he meets Fidel Castro and Alejo Carpentier.
Per Bastiana - Tai-Yang Cheng
1968: Participates in the demonstrations against the Biennale Art Festival in Venice. Second trip to Latin America. In Cuba he meets the "revolutionary poet" Carlos Franqui. Contrappunto dialettico alla mente (Texts by: C. Sánchez, N. Balestrini and documentary texts)
1969: Musica- Manifesto n. 1: Un volto, del mare (Text by: C. Pavese) - Non consumiamo Marx (Texts: documents from the Paris demonstrations of May 1968)
Musiche per Manzù. Suite da concerto da Intolleranza 1960
1970: 25 lecture-concerts in different cities in Tuscany and Umbria.
Y entonces comprendió (Texts by: C. Franqui, E. "Che" Guevara).
Voci destroying muros (Texts by: R. Luxemburg, H. Schaft, R. Snel, H. Santamaría, C. Sánchez, documentary texts)
1971: Nono meets Luciano Cruz, the young leader of the MIR, and the Argentinian poet Julio Huasi in Santiago de Chile. Exchange of ideas and planning with Claudio Abbado, Maurizio Pollini and Luigi Pestalozza for a new festival in Reggio Emilia to be called "Musica/Realtà".
Ein Gespenst geht um in der Welt (Texts by: K. Marx, C. Sánchez, H. Santamaría, and from the songs Internazionale, Bandiera rossa, Marcia del 26 luglio and L’Oriente è rosso)
1972: Luciano Cruz dies.
Como una ola di fuerza y luz (Text by: J. Huasi).
1973: Begins work with the stage director Juri Ljubimov and the designer David Borovski of the Taganka Theater of Moscow on Al gran sole carico d'amore.
Siamo la gioventù del Vietnam (Texts: Decaration of Indepndance of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, G. Federici)
Per Paul Dessau
1975: First Performance of Al gran sole carico d'amore at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, conducted by Claudio Abbado. (Texts by: B. Brecht, T. Bunke, F. Castro, E. "Che" Guevara, E. Dimitrov, M. Gorki, A. Gramsci, Lenin, K. Marx, L. Michel, C. Pavese, A. Rimbaud, C. Sánchez, H. Santamaría, compiled by L. Nono)
1976: ..... sofferte onde serene...
Frammenti da “Al gran sole carico d’amore”
1978: Begins to work with Massimo Cacciari on the text for Prometeo.
1979: The first issue of the monthly Laboratorio Musica, of which Nono is the editor, is published in June. Con Luigi Dallapiccola
1980: In December Nono visits the "Experimentalstudio der Heinrich Strobel-Stiftung des Südwestfunks" in Freiburg, where he would realize his live electronics for the next eight years, spending long periods of time in the Hotel Halden in the Black Forest. Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima
1981: Das atmende Klarsein, (Texts by: R.M. Rilke and antique Orphic hymns, compiled by M. Cacciari)
Io, frammento dal Prometeo (Text: compiled by M. Cacciari)
1982: Quando stanno morendo. Diario polacco n. 2 (Texts by: E. Ady, A. Blok, V. Chlebnikov, C. Milosz, B. L. Pasternak, compiled by M. Cacciari)
¿Dónde estás, hermano? (Text: cry of the families of the “Desaparecidos”)
1983: Meets Marta e György Kurtág in Budapest.
Omaggio a György Kurtág (Text: Phonemes of the name György Kurtág)
Guai ai gelidi mostri (Texts by: G. Benn, Lucrezio, F. Nietzsche, E. Pound, R.M. Rilke, compiled by M. Cacciari)
1984: World premiere of Prometeo. Tragedia dell'ascolto (Texts compiled by M. Cacciari), during the Music Festival of the Venice Biennale. Renzo Piano designs the "musical space" for the performance. A Carlo Scarpa, architetto, ai suoi infiniti possibili
1985: Lecture at theFondazione Giorgio Cini Other listening possiblities. Travels in Spain. On the wall of a monastery in San Francesco di Toledo he sees the graffiti „Caminantes, no hay caminos, hay que caminar”. A Pierre. Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum
1986: Guest of the DAAD in Berlin (until 1987). In August, travels to the Arctic Sea.
Risonanze erranti. Liederzyklus a Massimo Cacciari (Texts by: H. Melville, I. Bachmann)
1987: Trip to the USSR, where he meets Gidon Kremer. In Paris he meets Edmond Jabès. Travels to Japan for the world premiere of: No hay caminos, hay que caminar... Andrej Tarkowskij
Caminantes... Ayacucho (Text by: Giordano. Bruno)
Découvrir la subversion. Hommage à Edmond Jabès (Text by: E. Jabès) (unfinished composition)
Post-prae-ludium n. 1 “per Donau”
1988: Fellow of the "Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin". Guest professor at the "Hochschule der Künste" in Berlin (Nono soon gives up this position in protest over the organization of the course). Composition course in Granada. La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura. Post-prae- ludium n. 3 “BAAB-ARR”, (unfinished composition)
1989: Travels to Moscow, Leningrad and Budapest. Takes part in the Festival of the "Centre Acanthes" in Avignon, dedicated to him, with concerts, lectures and courses. "Hay que caminar" soñando
1990 Receives the "Berliner Kunstpreis". Dies in Venice on the 8th of May.