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Grave of Nono in the San Michele Cemetery, Venice

Luigi Nono (born January 29, 1924 in Venice; died May 8, 1990 in Venice) was an Italian composer of 20th century classical contemporary music.

Luigi Nono studied composition from 1943 to 1945 with Gian Francesco Malipiero at the Venice Conservatory where he became acquainted with serialism. (He married Schönberg's daughter Nuria in 1955). He became a leading composer of vocal, instrumental, and electronic music.

In 1950, he attended the "Ferienkurse für neue Musik" in Darmstadt, where he met composers such as Edgard Varèse and (in later years) Karlheinz Stockhausen. Works from this first period include: Polifonica-Monodica-Ritmica (1951), Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca (1952-1953), La victoire de Guernica (1954) and Liebeslied (1954). He increasingly rejected the analytical approach of punctual serialism, as evidenced by the following serial compositions: Incontri (1955), Il canto sospeso, (1955-1956), et Cori di Didone (1958).

Nono was committed to socialism. In 1952, he joined the Italian Communist Party. His avant-garde music was also a revolt against bourgeois culture. As such, he avoided most normal concert genres in favor of opera and electronic music, and sought to bring music to factories. He made frequent recourse to political texts in his work. Many of his works are overtly political: Il canto sospeso (1956), based on the letters of victims of wartime oppression, which brought him international fame; Diario polacco (1958), Intolleranza (1960), La fabbrica illuminata (1964), Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto ad Auschwitz (1966), Non consumiamo Marx (1969), Ein Gespenst geht um in der Welt (1971), Canto per il Vietnam (1973), and Al gran sole carico d'amore (1975). From 1956 onward, he was increasingly interested in electronic music, first at the "Elektroakustische Experimentalstudio" at Gravesano (Scherchen). Electronic music is involved in works like Como una ola de fuerza y luz pour soprano, piano, orchestra and tape (1971-1972), ...sofferte onde serene... for piano and tape (1974-1977) and especially Al gran sole carico d'amore (1972-1975).

After 1980 he worked in the "Experimentalstudio der Heinrich Strobel-Stiftung des Südwestfunks" in Freiburg, where he resolutely turned to live electronics. He became increasingly interested in the properties of sound as such. The new approach became apparent in works such as Quando Stanno Morendeo Diario polacco n° 2 (1982), Guai ai gelidi mostri (1983) and Omaggio a Kurtág (1983), but above all in his last opera Prometeo (1984). In the same spirit he wrote Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima (1980), No hay caminos, hay que caminar... Andrei Tarkovski pour 7 groupes instrumentaux (1987), La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura for violin, live electronics and tape (1988).

• Assis, Paulo de. 2006. Luigi Nonos Wende: zwischen Como una ola fuerza y luz und sofferte onde serene. 2 vols. Hofheim: Wolke. ISBN 3-936000-62-X
• Borio, Gianmario. 2001. "Tempo e ritmo nelle composizioni seriali di Luigi Nono." Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft/Annales suisses de musicologie/Annuario svizzero di musicologia no. 21:79–136.
• Davismoon, Stephen (ed.). 1999a. Luigi Nono (1924-1990): The Suspended Song. Contemporary Music Review 18, part 1. [Netherlands] : Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-5755-112-8
• Davismoon, Stephen (ed.). 1999b. Luigi Nono (1924–1990): Fragments and Silence. Contemporary Music Review 18, part 2. [Netherlands] : Harwood Academic Publishers.
• Feneyrou, Laurent. 2002. Il canto sospeso de Luigi Nono: musique & analyse . [Paris?]: M. de Maule. ISBN 2-87623-106-9
• Feneyrou, Laurent. 2003. "Vers l'incertain: Une introduction au Prometeo de Luigi Nono." Analyse musicale no. 46 (February): 13–28.
• Frobenius, Wolf. 1997. "Luigi Nonos Streichquartett Fragmente—Stille, An Diotima." Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 54, no. 3:177-193.
• Hopkins, Bill. 1978. "Luigi Nono: The Individuation of Power and Light." Musical Times 99, no. 1623 (May): 406–09.
• Kolleritsch, Otto (ed.). 1990. Die Musik Luigi Nonos. Studien zur Wertungsforschung 24. Vienna: Universal Edition. ISBN 3-7024-0198-9
• Licata, Thomas. 2002. "Luigi Nono’s Omaggio a Emilio Vedova". In Electroacoustic Music: Analytical Perspectives, edited by Thomas Licata, 73–89. Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance 63. Westport, Connecticut & London: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31420-9.
• Metzger, Heinz-Klaus, and Rainer Riehn, eds. 1981. Luigi Nono. Musik-Konzepte 20. Munich: Edition Text+Kritik. ISBN 3-88377-072-8.
• Nielinger, Carola. 2006. "The Song Unsung: Luigi Nono's Il canto sospeso." Journal of the Royal Musical Association 131, no. 1:83-150.
• Nono, Luigi. 1975. Texte, Studien zu seiner Musik, edited by Jürg Stenzl.Zürich: Atlantis. ISBN 3-7611-0456-1.
• Pon, Gundaris. 1972. "Webern and Luigi Nono: The Genesis of a New Compositional Morphology and Syntax." Perspectives of New Music, 10, no. 2 (Spring-Summer): 111–19.
• Schaller, Erika. 1997. Klang und Zahl: Luigi Nono: serielles Komponieren zwischen 1955 und 1959. Saarbrücken: PFAU.ISBN 3-930735-62-8
• Spangemacher, Friedrich. 1983. Luigi Nono, die elektronische Musik: historischer Kontext, Entwicklung, Kompositionstechnik. Forschungsbeiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 29. Regensburg: G. Bosse. ISBN 3-7649-2260-5
• Spree, Hermann. 1992. Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima : ein analytischer Versuch zu Luigi Nonos Streichquartett . Saarbrücken : PFAU. ISBN 3-928654-06-3
• Stenzl, Jürg. 1998. Luigi Nono Rowohlts Monographien 50582. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1998. ISBN 3-499-50582-7

• Luigi Nono archive, including list of dated works
• MusicWeb.uk.net: Nono
• http://www.sospeso.com/contents/composers_artists/nono.html
• Nono's il prometeo: a revolutionary's swansong
• Nono's 'Quando stanno morendo': cries, whispers and voices celestial'