LUIGI NONO – Io, frammento dal Prometeo
NICOLA SANI – AchaB

Klang Systematiek

Marco Angius – conductor
Livia Rado – soprano solo
Federica Livi – soprano solo
Canticum Ostrava – choir
Gareth Davis – contrabass clarinet and artistic direction
Daniel Havel – flute
Alvise Vidolin – live electronics
Mikuláš Mrva – assistant of live electronics
Juraj Mišejka – sound

Luigi Nono was one of the most significant composers of the twentieth century. Born in 1924 in Venice, he graduated in law in Padova and attended summer courses in Darmstadt, through which he became acquainted with other important figures of post-war new music. He turned
away from the serialist emphasis on instrumental music with his focus on vocal compositions
using texts reflecting contemporary political themes. He sought a synthesis of the abstract
musical language of the fifties avant-garde with a clear emotional, ethical, and often left-wing
and anti-fascist message. In the late seventies, his style changed significantly and compositions
became quieter and slower. Nono became increasingly interested in exploring new sonic
possibilities offered by extended techniques and real-time electronic sound processing at the
WDR (West German Radio) studio in Freiburg, working with a stable core group of instrumentalists. The musical language of the last decade of the composer’s life can be summarised as virtuosity of unstable and barely audible sounds, amplified and often transformed by electronic means.
Io, Frammento dal Prometeo, a composition for a choir with vocal and instrumental soloists was written at the beginning of this period, specifically in 1981. As the title suggests, this is a fragment of the monumental opera Prometeo (Czech premiere at the Days of New Opera in Ostrava in 2022), which Nono completed three years later, and which was described by Belgian critic Stefan Beyst as one of the greatest compositions of 20th century music.
Io, Frammento dal Prometeo is a compact glimpse into the vast sonic world of Prometeo.
Solo parts will be performed by sopranos Livia Rado and Federica Livi under the baton of Marco
Angius. Choral parts will be filled by members of the Canticum Ostrava choir. Daniel Havel will
play bass flute and Gareth Davis will play contrabass clarinet. The realization of the electronic
component will be handled by Alvise Vidolin, a master of electroacoustic music, who has
worked with some of the most prominent Italian composers of 20th and 21st century, including
Luciano Berio and Luigi Nono.
This will be preceded by the AchaB cycle for bass/contrabass clarinet, live electronics and 8 channel sound by contemporary Italian composer Nicola Sani . In AchaB, a composition written in 2011, the bass clarinet becomes Captain Ahab, the protagonist of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. Captain Ahab is both titanic and biblical, as Conrad said. In Sani’s creation, the solitary voice acts as a guide into the scenes of the novel, echoing an electronic soundscape that paints the infinity of the ocean, storms, whirlpools, gales and threatening waves that bring the forces of nature to the fore along with the captain’s determination.
Sani is a prominent figure in Italian contemporary music. He has served as the artistic director of Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, chaired Fondazione Isabella Scelsi, is a board member of Fondazione Archivio Luigi Nono di Venezia and has been leading Accademia Chigiana di Siena for the past ten years. He studied composition with Domenico Guaccero, Giorgio Nottoli, and later Karlheinz Stockhausen. His compositional work aims to create a pluralistic sound that interacts with other art forms, such as video art, painting, and architecture. His output includes instrumental works for musical theater and dance, installations, mixed media compositions, and electroacoustic pieces. He views electroacoustics as an expansion of instrumental sound, as theorized in his book Musica espansa (“Expanded Music”).