Musical Analysis and Composition

This section contains Nono's reflections, dating from ca. 1948 to 1960, concerned with musical technique, many of them aimed at the international community of composers and referring to the Darmstadt courses. It includes one later text, written in 1976 (on Il canto sospeso), which, though preferring an approach that is more historical-documentary than analytical, presents a first-hand testimony regarding one of the most important compositions of the 1950s. It suggests that the particular practice in the choruses of Il canto sospeso, the use of the structure of a word requires a development in the chorus's own way of learning: because of laziness or habits, sufficient attention is often not paid to the need in these choral works to study the varied construction of the word itself. This habitual ease continues because people do not read what is indicated in the score.