Luigi Nono – Io, frammento dal Prometeo
Luigi Nono’s Io, frammento dal Prometeo (1981) is drawn from his monumental late work Prometeo – Tragedia dell’ascolto (Prometheus – The Tragedy of Listening), one of the most visionary achievements in twentieth-century music. In this fragment — Io, or “I” — Nono distils the vast philosophical and sonic scope of Prometeo into a concentrated meditation on voice, space, and human presence. The result is a work of extraordinary fragility and depth: a music that does not seek to speak loudly, but to invite the listener into an intimate encounter with the act of listening itself.
In Io, Nono continues his lifelong exploration of sound as a spatial and ethical phenomenon. The work unfolds in a world of suspended time, where voices and instruments hover at the threshold of audibility. Fragments of text and tone emerge from silence, flicker, and disappear again — not as narrative, but as traces of thought and breath. The electronic processing, developed at the Experimentalstudio SWR in Freiburg, transforms the acoustic space into a living instrument: sound moves through the room, circling the listener, multiplying and dissolving in a constantly shifting field.
For us as a group of performers, Io represents a convergence of many of the ensemble’s central ideas — sound as architecture, performance as shared awareness, and listening as a collective act. Our realisation places particular emphasis on the spatial and relational dimensions of the score. Musicians are positioned throughout the space rather than on a stage; light, electronics, and silence are treated as structural elements. The audience, often surrounded by sound, becomes part of the composition — a presence within the resonant field rather than observers of it.
This approach echoes Nono’s own vision of music as a social and ethical practice. In his later works, he sought not to create spectacle, but to awaken perception — to remind us that sound can be a form of resistance, reflection, and care. The title Prometeo invokes the mythic figure who gave fire, and thus knowledge, to humanity. Yet for Nono, the tragedy is not simply one of rebellion, but of listening itself: our struggle to hear one another and to remain attentive in a fragmented world. In Io, the “I” is not a solitary ego, but a fragile voice reaching toward connection.
Our interpretation integrates contemporary sound technologies and live spatialisation to reimagine how Io might speak in the 21st century. The electronics, handled in real time, allow sound to move organically through the space, creating the impression of shifting planes of memory and presence. The interplay of live performers — contrabass clarinet, bass flute, voices, and electronics — extends Nono’s notion of “tragedia dell’ascolto” into a shared listening experience that is at once intimate and expansive.
Light design plays an equally crucial role. Subtle gradations of illumination trace the transitions between sound and silence, presence and disappearance. The visual field, like the sonic one, is in constant flux: a theatre not of action, but of perception.
Io, frammento dal Prometeo is both music and philosophy — an invitation to dwell in uncertainty, to experience stillness as intensity, and to rediscover listening as a creative act. It embodies what lies at the heart of Klang Systematiek’s work: the belief that sound can articulate forms of thought and emotion beyond language, and that performance can become a space of shared consciousness.
Through Io, we continue our exploration of how historical works of the avant-garde can be renewed — not through spectacle or novelty, but through attention, care, and the courage to listen deeply.