Can text itself become music?:
Music-Text Relationships in
Luigi
Nono’s Compositions of the Early 1960s[1]
Angela Ida De Benedictis
The yellow patch
in the sky above
much less to provoke it; it is anguish and yellow sky in the same time.
Not sky of
anguish, nor anguished sky; it is anguish transformed into a yellow patch in
the sky [...].
J. -
P. Sartre
Since Il canto sospeso
the music - text relationship in Luigi Nono’s work has posed many aesthetic
and analytical challenges. From this composition on, the composer consciously
strove to develop his personal idiom towards a «new expressivity in the song.»[2]. In this and the works which follow a new
synergic interaction takes shape between text and music: on one hand between
the form and substance of the textual material, on the other, between the form
and substance of the musical material. It is no longer possible to analyze one
component at the expense of the other.[3] The theoretical responses to Nono’s new vocal idiom can be summarized in two apparently irreconcilable tendencies. One issue
of debate concerns the necessity of
distorting the features of the text
in such a way that it becomes
completely incomprehensible, especially when potential ethic and political contents are to be considered.[4] The other approach avoids any technical or analytical speculation in
the name of expressiveness which would justify any particular treatment of the
text, even though the existence of a clear link between pre-selected texts and
music is acknowledged.[5] We can overcome this text/music hiatus by analyzing the
creative process in an analytical-philological investigation, going through different
generative phases, proceeding from the sketches to the definitive work. By means of this method the present contribution aims to re-examine
the complexity and originality of Nono’s new vocal idiom in three of his
compositions of the early sixties: Sarà
dolce tacere (for 8 solo singers), «Ha
venido». Canciones para Silvia (for soprano and female chorus) and Canti di vita e d’amore (for soprano,
tenor and orchestra).[6]
From the second
half of 1950’s Nono’s compositional activity increasingly tended to
define different
materials and principles of organization for each individual piece. Between 1960 and 1963, the encounter and the
synthesis between past technical skills and new experimentations with sound
(among these, electronics and his first theatrical
work, Intolleranza 1960) lead to
relevant syntactic and morphological developments.[7] Yet, in extremely different
ways, the exploration of sound as a complex phenomenon with multiple
implications remains constant and central in Nono’s work. Like the word
in Sartre’s work, sound becomes action by which composer,
performer and listener are inextricably and ideally linked in an artistic
commitment which is lived openly as a necessity of
communication.[8] In the three works mentioned above, the stimuli and conditions from
which this kind of ‘sound’ originates are inseparably tied to the text and its
formal and semantic components. And if by the
word “composition” we mean the progressive adjustment of the whole through the
organization of single elements, we can posit that for Nono composition begins with
the reading of a text that provokes the subsequent «transformation into a new
signifying musical fact».[9]
In
Nono’s work sound image always precedes any musical writing. The manipulation of
the musical material - from the general sketches to the rough drafts on staff
paper, from the first graphic representations of the sound structures to the
definitive configuration of events - constantly searches for particular
sonorities, which are pursued after numerous steps in the drafts. Nono
often figured the
evolution of the sound phenomenon in his drafts visualizing their trajectory;
among the most used symbols, for example, we can find the following to indicate
groups of sounds beginning or ending simultaneously
with increasing or decreasing density:
The first step in understanding
how the creative process starts from the text is to consider the specific texts selected by the composer.[10] We should notice that Nono also chooses poems or prose extracts
independently from any proper compositional project: sometimes the selection is the
result of intense emotional involvement or the evocation of sounds in his
readings. The most cherished texts are kept together in a sort of “ideal
anthology” from which the composer draws, both for future commissions and
personal projects. In his vast library, in which are more than 9000 volumes, a
large number of poetry and prose texts - some of them never used in any
composition - show clear traces of selection and
glosses or musical annotations related to timbre, tempo, agogics and dynamics; this also allows a mapping of
the intricate routes among his unrealized projects. We can deduce
from the examination of these annotations that Nono already thinks in
musical terms while reading: the margin glosses (as shown in Figure 1) testify that even in the composer’s perception, as in his language,
«neither can sound be isolated from thought,
nor thought from sound.»[11]
The impression that a piece is musically alive prior to any real
graphic representation is also
confirmed by the
manipulation of the
text after its
definitive election. The first operation is always to make a typewritten
copy of the text; Nono’s main goal is to study carefully both formal and
semantic connections, and to find the key words which we can often see already
underlined on his printed source. The first copy is often followed by further
typescripts in which new changes in the formal disposition can be found,
together with internal modifications concerning words or sentences. In the end
the composer arrives at a new ‘textual archetype’. Sometimes this is no
longer identifiable with the original.[12]
Figure 1: Anche tu sei
collina by Cesare Pavese, source of Sarà dolce tacere with Nono’s
handwritten glosses and annotations. Taken from the cycle “La terra e la morte,” in Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi,
After highlighting with colored
pencils or pens all the connections between form, meaning, expressivity,
characters, Nono makes his decisions regarding the particular parametric
materials and the overall shape of the piece. In this new phase, all
links in the typescript are marked in the same
colors. Is not unusual that the composer
arrives at detailed desiderata of expression by
arranging key-words in a succession, either taken from the text or
intimately recalled together with emotions. This ‘array’ still reflects
personal and secret ‘paths’ and cannot be related to any «primitive programme
music».[13] Even in the ‘silence of the page’ this material should instead be
considered as the ideal sonorous development of the eventual composition in its
meaningful essence. The music embodying these emotional interpretations of the
text will not describe or imitate those impressions but will be those
emotions. In the sketches, even in some written before the draft phase, the
composer arranges the text, or parts of it, within imaginary sonorous
evolutions that find parallels in eventual musical structures. Between the
‘language system’ and the ‘music system’ a loop is created in which text and
music play both roles of means and end. The network structure of the
employed musical parameters is predetermined by the text itself.
These
features were already evident in the
two vocal compositions of 1960 (Sarà
dolce tacere, and «Ha venido».
Canciones para Silvia) and they become even more evident in the genesis of
the triptych Canti di vita e d’amore,
composed in 1962 upon the commission by the
Edinburgh International Festival (where it was performed on August 22 of the same year
and conducted by the composer himself). Along with this work, which is a
synthesis of at least two different compositional
projects,[14] Nono defines and systematizes
an original creative procedure that can be termed ‘a pannelli.’[15] This is based on the juxtaposition of different sound episodes which
are directly organized during the
writing process using previously selected material. In this process of
permutation and interpolation, the pre-arranged homogeneity of the musical
parameters guarantees coherence between the different sound ‘panels.’ These
‘block sections’ are meant to be the single units in the
construction of a unitary and logical form,[16] quite different from the “jetzt”
in
Stockhausen’s ‘moment-form’.
Although the idea of dividing the composition into three distinct parts is
evident from the first drafts, the definitive selection of the text appears to
be less easy. After some modifications in the
original project, the text of the first piece (Sul ponte di Hiroshima) is made up of selected and revisited prose
extracts taken from Essere o non essere
(To be or not to be), written by the German philosopher
Günther Anders.[17] The central monody Djamila Boupachá - written in memory
of an Algerian combatant tortured by French
paratroopers - is
based on the tones of hope of the poem Hesta noche, by the Spanish Jesús López Pacheco.[18] For the final elegiac piece, Tu, Nono picks from his ‘textual
anthology’ Passerò per Piazza di Spagna by Cesare Pavese, which is a
poem he finally set to music after at least four
years of waiting.[19] All the definitive textual choices of this piece follow the
principal subjects of Nono’s art at this time: political conflicts, the myth of
love and, above all, hope, which is unseparated from the other two poles and
ties the “songs of life” to the “songs of love”. Without any gap these three different shades of emotion follow in a
thematic collection that could be seen as a modern collection of Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi. The
selections from Anders and Pacheco for this composition remain unique among Nono’s textual choices. The reason of these selections can be retraced to a sudden
emotional involvement in the reading of Anders’ text and to Nono’s direct acquaintance
with Pacheco. Pavese, on the
contrary, had been among Nono’s selected texts for almost twenty years.[20] For him, the musical potential of Pavese’s lyrics are many, both
referring to their content (the observation of reality through myth and symbols;
the illustration of the contradictions of archetypical values of
existence, etc.) or to their morphologic-syntactic structure (frequent
repetition of words; alliterating and vocalic sonorities, etc.). Both
possibilities can be found in Passerò per Piazza di Spagna, a song of jubilation [«canto allelujatico»] chosen to celebrate «una
possibilità e nuova necessità amorosa» [a possibility and a new necessity of
love].[21]
From
his printed copy to the definitive version, Nono re-types Pavese’s poetry
in four different phases. The first indications of grouping verses and
highlighting keywords are already visible on the printed source. But only in
the first typed transcription
(see Table 1 in Appendix A) does the composer mark the different phrases with symbols,
numbers from 1 to 3 and using four distinct colors (black, red, green and
purple). As will be seen, these colors relate back to the characters proposed
cyclically in the poetic development.
From this moment on, the four colors
identify their respective textual segments in all further decisions. In this
case the choice of a trisected division is also immediate: the numbers from 1
to 3 refer to the macro-sections of the piece. By the
second typescript Nono has already reached an almost definitive textual
structure thanks to the first substantial deviation from the original: the
elimination of the fourth phrase («I fiori spruzzati / di colore alle fontane /
occhieggeranno come donne divertite», The flowers sprayed / with color at the fountains / will make eyes like
amused women). This erasure was already imagined by the composer in his first
typescript (see Table 1, Appendix A)
and is presumably due to the expressive and phonetic difference of this phrase if compared with the
four identified textual segments.
In the third
typescript stage the previous selection of short extracts or
whole sentences translates into the creation of “grouping panels”: four small,
separate sheets (about the size of an A8) in which the composer transcribes
different sections of the text, making groups of ‘colors’. This is aimed at
extrapolating the sections from their context and verifying their corresponding
meanings (see Figure 2).
After this phase Nono begins to work on the proper musical structure of the piece. As mentioned, the particular parametrical materials had been selected in the first creative phases as in a “repertoire of possibilities.” At this level in the process the composer draws on this repertoire to find the material concerning intervals, tempo and timbres. This material is then to be organized through the various sound episodes.[22] As will be seen later on, all decisions are definitely conditioned by the personal musical interpretation of Pavese’s poetry. The first decision concerns the interval developments and the timbres. In the definitive sketch related to these parameters (see Figure 3) and in the several others before it, Nono always implicitly recalls the ‘portions’ of text with their colored numbers. Moreover, he always follows the same order of the previous “panels.” The intervals sizes in this sketch («4 T» stands for the interval of perfect fourth and tritone; «T 2 + 4» stands for the intervals of the perfect fourth and tritone; «T 2 + 4» stands for the intervals of the tritone, major second and perfect fourth etc.) are successively transcribed on a proper musical sheet in which the different sections are always identified by the colored numbers.
Immediately afterwards, Nono determines the temporal
dimension, establishing its qualitative and quantitative organization of rhythm
and duration. The single units of duration and the time fields that will
characterize the different sections are now
involved (Figure 4).[23]
Figure 2: Facsimile of the Third Typescript Stage (Luigi Nono
Archive, with kind permission). For ease of reproduction, the four distinct
typewritten “panels” are juxtaposed. The numbers are colored according to the
following order: black = «sarà un cielo chiaro»
panel; red = «s’apriranno
le strade» panel; green = «il
tumulto delle strade»; purple = «le
scale».
Figure 3: Facsimile: Sketch of the final Interval and Timbre Selections; Luigi Nono Archive, with kind
permission (The order of the colored numbers follows the one indicated in
Figure 2). To the right of each group the indications concerning sound articulation («bacchette ferro +
piatti», «lasciar vibrare», «tenere archi perco[ssi]» etc.: iron
drumsticks + cymbals; cymbals; go on vibrating; keep hitting the strings), as also instrumentation and
dynamics, belong to a subsequent decision phase. This is revealed by the different
quality of the ink and the measure indications «come 166-173» (as in 166-173). We should notice in this
sketch and in the following one (Figure 4) that the composer connects
(respectively with an arrow and with a curly bracket) the parts marked in black and red.
Figure 4: Facsimile: Final Sketch of Temporal Choices; Luigi Nono Archive, with kind
permission (The colored numbers in the upper part are: 1) = black, 2) = red, 3) = green, 4) = purple).
Up to this point the musical revisitation of the text has led to the effective transcription
into a new semiotic guise. Each text segment has found a counterpart in the
musical lexicon and will characterize each musical
event. At this point the textual material can be finally ‘re-composed’ in its
definitive version (see Table 2 in Appendix B).[24] This version becomes a semantic, formal, expressive and phonetic
guide for the draft in progress.
The new connotation of the colors allows both verbal
and musical decoding of the text without leaving any doubt about the path of
expressive and semantic correspondences followed by the composer. The first
nucleus, indicated by the color black, leads back to the certainty of a happy
future, which is assimilated with the light and the clear
(«chiaro») element of sky and air. This is meant to be the space symbolizing
the epiphany of sentiment (the evoked «aria mattutina», morning air). The action of opening symbolic doors or roads («porte»,
«strade») - behind these allegorical nouns we see the
reunion with the woman - characterize the short phrases marked in red.
The complementarity and
the connection between the two texts – as stressed by the composer in the
drafts involving parametric choices[25] - are underlined by strong
temporal and intervallic similarities (with major and minor seconds,
perfect fourths and tritones). The text marked in green is
more extended than the previous one and is connected with the “noise”
evocations of the whole text: the agitated turmoil («tumulto») of the first verse
corresponds with the troubled voice of the heart («cuore») in the central
episode, then finally comes the revealed synthesis of the two beating in one
entity («il
tumulto delle strade / sarà il tumulto del cuore», The turmoil of the streets / will be the turmoil of the heart). The rhythm and the frenzy of
these textual sections are expressed in music by the shortest time field (20
units) and by a larger division of the harmonic surface through the
introduction of the intervals of the major and minor third. The key-element of
the fourth and final text section final text section (purple group) is the singing (“canto”). Upon this “singing”
dwell the happy
moments of the delicate encounter with nature, and through and beyond it, with
the woman, to whom this hymn is dedicated at last.[26] Symbolically, no instrument is required for this fourth “character”; only the voices of
the man and his companion (tenor and soprano) sing purely, musically structured
in a complete and emblematic fusion of musical
parameters.[27]
The
three macro-sections of the piece take shape over this total synergy between expressive
and structural needs: the different vocal or vocalic-instrumental episodes -
which are strongly characterized in their temporal, timbre, rhythm and
intervallic features - alternate with orchestral inserts, functioning sometimes
as a caesura and sometimes as a connection (see
Figure 5).[28]
As
the solo Tenor becomes the vocal protagonist of the final act, the timbre of his voice regains
its function of carrying the verbal
message.[29] Only in the textual sections which
are related to the ‘singing’ or to
the ‘voice’ (number 1 and 2
purple, 2b green in Appendix A) the Soprano voice («libero!», free!, as the composer allegorically
writes in one of the
sketches), replies to his hymn of love as a ‘presence’ (declaimed text)
or as an ‘idea’ (vocalized text). The vocal lines are developed independently of any motivic or thematic
implication and according to a particular generative technique based on ‘basic’
intervals which is completely autonomous from
the instrumental layer.[30]
In
the selection of intervals and in their use Nono attains a personal mediation
between the symbolic possibilities of the past and the structural values of the
twentieth century. Here the perfect fourth is particularly significant,
associated with ‘purity’ and brightness. The
word «chiaro» [bright, clear]
occurs in almost
every possible and meaning.[31] The
several interventions of percussions and strings -
always used in a rhythmic function and with ever-changing
dynamics - are meant to create symbolic effects. As the author recalls them in
one sketch they should
represent the «rumori di Pavese» (Pavese’s
noises). Along with its own evocative sonorities, ideal or real, the
text suggests timbral associations: Nono assigns the role of the
heart («il cuore»), which is the ‘mute protagonist’, to the dreamlike sounds of bells and cymbals; noise and turmoil («tumulto») are instead
articulated by strings.[32] The semantic
and emotional amplification of the text is accomplished through alternation or
simultaneity between these instrumental timbres, through which Nono creates truly ‘self-referential scenarios.’
Figure 5: Tu: General Scheme of the Formal,
Timbral, Textual and Parametric Articulation
To
understand the reasons for such a choice and combination of materials in the musical structure of the episodes, we need only reverse the famous
question asked by Stockhausen[33], and ask: «Why a structure then, and why this one?». The answer provided by studies of the genesis of this work show
that formal articulation during the composition is always guided by a
previous arrangement of the whole text, and that the morphology of the
sonorous events is organized according to the exact syntax of the single
text to which it refers. This is done by carefully controlling the relationship
between form and substance.
Therefore, the text works as a(n):
Semantic basis: One
paradigmatic case is provided by the organization of episodes 2a and 2b green (measures
226-235 and 238-247). The two episodes are developed with mirror harmonic
structures. These mirrors arise from the need
for textual signification: «il cuore», the
heart, subject of the whole strophe,
becomes the first formative element. In the first
couplet, after composing the vocal line of the first verse («il cuore batterà
sussultando», the heart will beat shaking), Nono develops from
the harmonic cell of heart -
through a double germination of its six pitches - the
entire vocal line of the second
verse. Its subject is always the heart.[34] Also the
mirror of the second couplet (measures 238-247,1), in the pitches of «le tue
scale» (your stairs) that retrograde
the ones of «la voce» (the voice),[35] implies the
genitive case (of the ‘generative’ heart).
Formal basis: As shown in
the facsimili (Tables 1 and 2 of the
Appendix, and Figure 2), Nono carefully recopies the punctuation in the different typewritten phases, making a few
choices and minimal variants to the original one of Pavese’s text. The
punctuation marks are translated into precise syntactic caesurae within the macro-sections of the composition. These are
the orchestral inserts that clearly point out the different sections. In Tu such
‘musical punctuations’ belong to two different types: the ‘interlude’
connection and the ‘refrain’. The latter normally works as a caesura and
recalls the sonorities of the orchestra introduction.[36] One clear
example where the composer faithfully follows his textual scheme as pre-ordered
basis for composing is the elimination of Pavese’s comma between «s’aprirà
quella strada» (that street will open; episode 2 Red) and «le pietre
canteranno» (the stones will sing;
episode 2 Purple), as
is evident comparing Tables 1 and 2 (see Appendix A and B). The omission
of the pause mark implies a syntactic connection between the two sentences, a sort of
asyndeton. Likewise, regarding the formal development of the music, for the first and last time in
the whole work two segments belonging to different ‘characters’ follow one
after the other. This happens without a break (measures 214-216
and 216-221), by the overlapping of the Soprano on the last pitch of the Tenor
(F#3, measure 216,3). The elimination of
the comma is thus explained in musical terms.
Expressive and phonetic basis: One of the most eloquent examples is the anticipation of
the third red clause («s’aprirà una porta», a
door will open) at the
end of the second macro-section (this second macro-section (see
Figure 5), and the following omission of the second black phrase (this decision
is made definitively in the final drafting phase, as is confirmed by the clear deletion marks on the final typescript;
see Appendix B, Table 2). Nono
appears to
realize the semantic coherence between the voice of the heart
that climbs the stairs (episode 2b
green) and the door that opens (third
red segment). The omission of the second black phrase[37] would then be
explained by his
willingness to make this correspondence stronger. The analysis of musical
structure confirms this: the segment «sarà questa la voce /
che salirà le tue scale» (this will be
the voice / that will climb your stairs) enunciated by the Tenor (measure 238-242)
is echoed on the same harmonic line
by the Soprano exclusively in its vowel essence.[38] From this echo
(and directly on the pitches used for the possessive «tue», your, referring to the woman), Nono generates the musical line for «s’aprirà una porta» (a door will open). A structural enjambement
consequently comes after the new semantic relationship
created by the textual omission. The
semantic superimposition between the vowels of the Soprano and the subsequent
textual fragment of the Tenor appears to express the desired encounter between the two in the realm of pure sound.[39] New
considerations can now arise about the reasons why Nono confers the following
green textual segment (n. 3) to the instruments. These considerations lead us
to a clear case of ,,,
Synthesis of
the possibilities of the text: As a matter of fact, the ellipsis resulting
from the instrumental and not phonetic “sound-tracking” of the
text creates a connection between the two following verses given to the Tenor: «s’aprirà una
porta» (a door will open) and
beyond it «sarai tu - ferma e chiara» (there will be you - still and bright), as slowly syllabified and
declared in maximum intelligibility. By assigning the text to the instruments
in section 3 green, the effective semantic independence of the two main
instrumental voices (percussion and strings, as already laid out in the
orchestral introduction) is completed. The layout of this section is a
structure comprising two distinct levels in density, rhythm and time. The first
is connected with percussion and the second with strings: in this section the
text (transcribed in the score) is ‘sung’ exclusively by instrumental voices.
By now these voices are so laden with independent meanings that their timbres are now used to represent «Il tumulto
delle strade», (the turmoil of the streets, strings with support of winds), finally
revealed to be the «tumulto del
cuore» (turmoil of heart, percussions).
The
correspondences between verbal and musical material could be extended
both to the other two pieces from Canti di vita e d’amore (Djamila
Boupachá and Sul ponte di
Furthermore,
a lucid sonic imagination is involved in the articulated
procedures that determine the material use of the text. In its new musical guise the perception of the
text varies according to pre-selected techniques. Thus, in Sarà dolce tacere and
«Ha venido.» Canciones para
Silvia the textual
comprehension is rather difficult, whereas in Canti di vita e d’amore one
can find both discrete
comprehensibility (especially for the most intense warnings and emotional appeals)
and the opposite, a complete negation of the verbal element, attained when
words are ‘enunciated’ only by orchestral voices. The latter procedure, which
would appear to contradict the importance of the text, must be interpreted
instead as an ultimate confirmation of the centrality of ‘sound’ in the
composer’s mind. This sound is able to carry within itself the entire scope of
the meaning. Its sense, its essence, its dramatization takes place in the
articulation of the material, «in the mere acoustic phenomenon and in the sound experience of
music».[42] Here the search for a “new vocality”,
ongoing since Il canto sospeso, is applied to instruments with the
creation of a specific language which is self-sufficient and functional for the semantic propagation of the
text. It is not by chance that Nono, while defining the
technical and timbral aspects of Canti di vita e d’amore, assimilates
the instrumental to the vocal technique. In the creative process of these of these ‘verbally mute’ sections an intense
attempt is evident to musically
model that very meaning, or better, the presumed ‘sonority’ - harmonic, rhythmic and temporal - of that
meaning. The “un-saying” of the text has an intense dramatic power: the voice
is not permitted in the most significant episodes, while the instruments become
the only way to “explain” the tones of pain, tragedy (Sul ponte di
One note
in a sketch, dating back probably between 1960 and 1961, is illuminating on this
matter. While sketching some ideas for an unrealized work -
ideas which migrated into Canti di vita e d’amore - the composer
writes that voice and instruments can sound «alternating - together - reversed,
so that the
instrument becomes voice, and the voice a mere instrument. /and so words are
written on the score, but not sung by the voice, rather
played by instruments». And he adds: «continuity between the
2 voices / between instruments / between voice and instruments».[44] The communication of the message is denied to the voice, sublimating the
real course of emotions in the sonic essence. This must be considered as a
premonition of the “sung silence” in the later string quartet Fragmente-Stille,
an Diotima, where the fragments extracted from Hölderlin’s text, still
present in the score, have been silenced in order to
«obtain the maximum from its message of rebellion with minimum means».[45] In some ways this ‘transgressing’ of the text could be compared with the syllabic
fragmentation begun in Il canto sospeso. Both techniques pose problems
in the comprehension of the work and in the use of the text; paradoxically,
both start from a communicative verbal input translated into sounds.
_______________
Even
though these observations on the links existing between form and content
(textual and musical) shed light on the composer’s poetics and aesthetics, they
don’t appear to accurately define the relation between the two systems,
that is, language and music. The question is to try to define the process by
which the music becomes an organized whole if we also consider its meaning,
that is, how the work relates effectively to its textual “provocation.” Having
previously considered the equivalence between the phonic and
semantic levels and between sound and sense,
and, starting with the a priori belief that the composer
has no desire to play ‘games of translation,’ where do we place the essential
contact between the two systems? Is the semantic autonomy of these three
compositions absolute or is it always
subordinated to their poetic texts?
Is language assimilated, overcome, or
does it retain primacy in the musical structure? It is also necessary to ask the decisive
question about realization: does the un-intelligibility or even the total
removal of the text modify the semantic-syntactic dimension of the work? Studying not only the genesis of the three compositions of 1960-62 but also of the previous and following
works including Il
canto sospeso), I think it is possible to achieve a critical interpretation
beyond what Nicolas Ruwet formulated in 1961:
... obviously, is very hard to set free the peculiar relations
between word and music in a given work, and that is for a very simple
reason: as far as in every signifying system one particular signifier is
defined only through its relation with all the others, in a given system it
is not possible to go immediately from the signified of one word, a group of
words, ore even of an entire poem, to the signified of one signifier in another
system - melody, series of chords, musical phrase.[46]
In focusing the point of
interaction between text and music in Nono’s creative process, one first step
could be asking if this music would make sense without these words. The
present philological analysis proves without any doubt
that these musical structures
are born with and for a particular text, forged upon
its content and modeled to reflect it in sound. Total changes (of entire
extracts from the text) or partial changes (of single words) would then
correspond neither to substitution nor to destruction of the text, rather to arbitrary variation. It is in a
certain way as if a sculptor molded a statue, not necessarily resembling the
original features of its model. The material of the
object-statue is not the same of the object-model, and after its creation
anyone is able to inflict changes or lacerations, even against the
artist’s will; yet that statue retains in its intimate essence that very
model, even when no longer recognizable or called by another name. With or
without their respective text, the musical works originating from it
continue to make sense, since not only text and its intelligibility are
important but also its deepest meaning, transposed in the musical structure.
It has
been already noticed that structural procedures, far from being functional only
to ‘construction,’ are part of expression, and when dealing with the text they
transmit its content. This was usually described as ‘fusion’ between semantic
and musical content, and also as ‘enhancement’ of the textual meaning through
the sound structure.[47] This peculiar mutual relationship, synthesis of a «new and
autonomous whole»,[48] has been defined as ‘transformation,’ ‘transmutation,’
‘transposition,’ ‘interpenetration’ or, to follow Boulez’s words, “text
centre-absence” or text “pretext.” Under close examination however, these
expressions don’t satisfy the range of this process; [49] I believe that this could be defined instead as ‘transcodification’.
It is necessary to point out
that my personal use of linguistic terminology serves the purpose of
exemplification, with no intention of transposing the corpus of its
rules into music. Confrontations between linguistic and musical norms will be
developed to ease comprehension, to explain the peculiar use of the material (musical and textual) and
oppose one system to the other, searching for analogies at most, but without
assimilating one to the other.
As
language, also music is a system of signs which manifests itself in structures.
Once given the
sign as the graphic association of a signified with a signifier (inseparable
elements), its phonic realization shows itself acoustically as a ‘signal’ that
translates the signified-signifier dyad into a new one: ‘sense’ and ‘sound’ (“fonìa”).
In music, ‘sign’ refers to pure and non-conceptual sound, but in any case, such
acoustic translation, though non-conceptual, is able to recall a definite
content if sounds are structured in ‘signifying systems.’ The articulation of
linguistic signs exists on two distinguishable levels. The first level is
composed by units which don’t carry meaning (phonemes), the second by
the carrier units (monemes).
Based on this starting point we can state the possibility of shaping signifying
sound structures even through the connection of units which have no meaning,
but may contribute to creating it (that is: single sounds). In Nono’s case it is evident how
musical composition is based - like the linguistic act - on the selection of
specific entities (the parametric materials) and on their combination in complex units.[50] This involves the phonological (the single sound), the morphological
(its internal structure) and the
syntactic level (rules for sound combination). Structure will give the ‘signified’ to
music, especially if the latter is conceived so as to organize and
‘communicate’ prior or implicit references and
meanings of the text, as in the case of the three compositions under
examination. And directly through the explanation of the functions of
communication it is possible to try to solve the question of ‘musical
sense’, that is what should be understood here by ‘signified’ or in which
system (musical or linguistic) it should be
placed.
Six main
linguistic functions are assumed for every act of communication: code, message,
sender, receiver, channel and context (or
reference).[51] In the musical system, the more or less certain functions are: the sender-receiver dyad that connects a single element, the author, to
a probable multitude, the public; the code, that is the system of
musical signs chosen by the author; the message, which becomes the whole
work as a reproduceable entity structured according to precise poetics;[52] and finally the channel, meaning the acoustic space of sound propagation. In the
specific case of Nono’s music it is necessary to dwell longer upon the
informative content of the message (physical state) and
its content (information) depends upon the code which is a system
of signs, symbols and signals through which it is possible to transmit or
receive information. Although the linguistic and
musical communication don’t share the
same code they might have a common message
content or reference. In the case of the three compositions in question written in 1960-62, and more generally for all Nono’s works involving texts, it should be clear
from the preceding discussion that the linguistic sign and the musical one both recall the same
sense. This sense must be seen as a ‘semantic invariant’ even if the graphic
representations of the message are different.[53] And directly through this shift of sign a transcodification is
realized, by which the content of the text and that of the musical work become concurrent.[54] This can be seen as a type of synonymy (one signified for many
signifiers) reached through a semiotic bi-morphism: if the signifier usually
structures the signified, in this case the same signified, as is no longer identifiable with the form of its original sign, is
structured by a new signifier. The music-code, ‘conveying system’, becomes the expression
of the text-code, which reverts to a ‘conveyed
system’ by becoming the content of the music-code.[55] Given the composer’s typescript as the framework of the whole text (that
is, a set of formal properties in which is hidden a content structured by words
predisposed for the new semiotic order), when transcodification is complete:
1) the framework, with its formal relations, is
preserved;
2) the
code changes;
3) the
content remains unchanged in the new musical configuration of the message.[56]
Comprehension
follows the change of code; for this reason the intelligibility of a given
text cannot be assimilated to the intelligibility of the same text when set to music. The system of signs through which the text has been
coded, is decoded by the composer and re-coded into another system of musical
signs, creating a shift between two systems. The new decoding (the reception in
sound of the new musical work) now occurs on a different axis of comprehension,
involving a new system of communication, no longer based on linguistic
signs but on musical signs. If the message is structured in the
music-code, the listener must refer to the coordinates of the music-code at his
or her disposal.[57] The comprehension of that music will then depend on the degree of
complexity of the composer’s idiom, and also on the encounter between the
listener’s capacity of musical decoding and
the creative horizon of the
composer. Any possible incomprehension of the text does not
undermine the semantic coherence of the inner structures of the
musical work; the inseparability between signified and signifier is not
compromised by the non-perceptibility of the phonetic material caused by
discontinuity, syllabic de-composition or complete removal of the text.
If while standing in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s Cenacolo one were to
refuse or were unable to enjoy the iconic-objective reality of this
masterpiece, its symbolic meaning surely wouldn’t cease to exist!
At this level, the straightforward comprehension of the text is no longer important since one
should pay attention to the text in its sonic guise; it is the same
meaningful essence achieved through the articulation of another code.[58] The references implied in this music, with all the emotional and
ideal implications of the composer, reach the listener anyways. On one hand, as receiver, he or she will ‘be’ in that sound, involved in
the message even without intending to be; on the other,
as addressee, he or she will stand in front of that sound and the reality that it represents.
If «the form of a work is the result of the density of
its contents»,[59] as maintained by Varèse, the meaningful and structural densities of works like Canti
di vita e d’amore Sarà
dolce tacere and «Ha venido».
Canciones para Silvia will be then the mirror image - or transcoded image -
of the syntactic and semantic density of the text. This deduction, however,
feeds, as in Nono’s words, on the
awareness that «there isn’t any formula!!!!!! Today as always. [...] the real
‘solutions’ and the techniques are on their way. They can only become». [60]
APPENDIX A, Table 1:
First Typescript (facsimile; Archivio Luigi Nono in
APPENDIX B, Table 2:
Final Typescript (facsimile; Archivio Luigi Nono in Venice, with kind permission)
