PROMETEO by LUIGI NONO UK premiere at the Royal Festival Hall, London
PROMETEO by Luigi Nono (1924-1990)
If you know the works of Ligeti and Stockhausen, then you can imagine what Luigi Nono's (1824-1990) opera PROMETEO is like. The evening was fantastic and surely very like the premieres of Wagner's DAS RHEINGOLD or Mozart's DIE ZAUBERFLOTE although the Royal Festival Hall was almost half empty. (shame on you British music lovers, do you really exist at all?) However this didn't detract from the importance of this event, the UK premiere of PROMETEO by Luigi Nono. It's taken 20 or more years for this work to be premiered in the UK, which tells you something about how much Britain lags behind the continent in its appreciation of the artistic avante garde. In Germany alone there have been 56 performances of this work since then. The libretto is obviously derived from the well-known legend of Prometheus, but the text itself is incomprehensible to the ear, if not to the eye. I had the text before me, it was part of the programme, but that seems to have been hardly the point of the music, which sounds more like a Buddhist chant or some New Age meditation than music made in the classical tradition.
The work was hardly atonal, but had a conventional melody of sorts strung out between its sections, which had titles derived from the rules and conventions of Classical Tragedy (flashed up on a projected blackboard above the orchestra) or titles such as 'Hoelderlin'. Afterwards I asked the orchestra what a Hoelderlin was (for the audience was allowed to make written comments, meet and talk to the orchestra and singers. This was a really good idea from the event organisers and made me feel welcome, at home, indeed a participator rather than a passive receptor.). I came up with:
a sort of black-faced Bavarian sheep
a set of headphones
a kind of wind instrument
Turns out to be the name of a whore in Stuttgart. Generally I asked them if the work was accessible and they said no. I might have added, well what's the point of it then, but it was hardly appropriate. (because it isn't meant to address the common man, whoever that construct happens to be, but the elitest audience of posh twits gathered in the RFH. But really, Nono's work is neither elitest nor is it inaccessible. Nono clearly had the gravitas to work with Classical imagery, the work is hardly pretentious, nor was it at all boring.). Nono's opera PROMETEO stinks of the kind of pretension accepted in the era of High Modernism but now looking distinctly archaic, outlandish (but then the work is more than twenty years old). Unbelievably some audience members actually corrected me, telling me that Hoelderlin was a German poet and mad too. Really, I gagged! Unbelievable!
(In 1807, having become largely insane, he was brought into the home of Ernst Zimmer, a Tübingen carpenter with literary leanings, who was an admirer of his Hyperion. For the next 36 years, Hölderlin would live in Zimmer's house, in a tower room overlooking the beautiful Neckar valley, being cared for by the Zimmer family until his death in 1843. Wilhelm Waiblinger, a young poet and admirer, has left a poignant account of Hölderlin's day-to-day life during these long, empty years)
Is this the sound of music or the music of the madhouse? If its the latter, then I feel unbelievably privileged to have attended this permiere, since madness is such a terribly painful experience, so dumb and incommunicable. Any attempt then to depict the condition in literature or music seems worthwhile. I suppose the presence of the name Hoelderlin in the libretto suggests that this is a mad work of art concerning a mad poet and prophet, perhaps also indicating that Prometheus was also mad to dare to steal fire from the gods? However, I wasn't convinced that Hoelderlin (or Prometheus) needed to be there at all. The fashions of Nono's era might not sit easily in this era of Post-Modernism for, as Mozart says of contemporary Italian opera in 'Amadeus': 'people so lofty it sounds as if they shit marble'. (but Mozart also wrote many operas on Classical themes. These albeit early operas were written with his librettist da Ponte. After he had established his credentials, that he basically understands the Classics, but not just the Classics but also the conventions of contemporary Italian opera, does he undertake simpler or more contemporary themes - The Marriage of Figaro zb. Its clearly very important to Mozart to depict himself as a continuity, even though he's breaking the rules towards the latter part of his life, not simply as an eructation, the member of a rebellion as defunctive as that it opposes.)
Even though I had many doubts about Nono's work, there is no doubt that the performance was of a high standard. The orchestra was distributed around the hall, there were two conductors, this perhaps to emphasize the divergent acoustics at play in the work, all brought to life by sound specialists from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, a centre of avante-garde and experimental music.
Paul Murphy and Armin Steigenberger discuss PROMETEO
AS: I do not understand the connection between the opera which you describe and the passage about Hölderlin. Is Hölderlin a figure in this opera? I know Nono,
but I don't know this opera.
PM: one of the opera's sections is called 'Hoelderlin'.
Of course its a non-question. What does it matter who or what Hoelderlin is? There is no reason for him to be in the opera. Its a question only of importance to posh twits with lots of money and time to spend talking about such matters. Luigi Nono may have been a fraud, attempting to portray himself as a profound intellect when he did nothing at all but churn out discordant noise. The same could be said of Stockhausen and Ligeti. There's a vast group of academics whose reputations, careers etc depend on the validation of these people. Otherwise no one would care at all, probably most people don't.
For all that, there's a core of work by these composers that I do think is valid. At the same time as they were writing a lot of fairly inaccessible, unpopular stuff, pop music, especially The Beatles, was forging into the gap they had vacated upon the advent of mass culture in the 1950s. Things really began to change markedly in the 50s, with the possibility of mass communication, television, radio, film had all developed and everyone, certainly in the developed part of the world, now had access to them.
The divergence between the masses, the elites and the possiblity of making lots of money by lowering the intellectual content, making songs both danceable and singable. One of the most important influences was the 'negro spiritual' which became the Blues, then rhythm 'n blues, then rock 'n roll and pop. The Beatles are special because they manage to synthesise pop and the classical tradition, to somehow bridge the gap between the two cultures (listen to Seargent Pepper).
AS: Ligeti, Stockhausem Nono et al:
I would not lean too far out of the window - as we say in German - because I think that Ligeti as well as Stockhausen have done really great art. As far as I am able to judge. I for my part admire Anton Webern very much. It is similar to poetry: it is not of the big mass accessibility, it is too complicated, too incomprehensible, a kind of cipher which is actually passed on only between intellectuals and insider of art which have some insights into art.
But it is not only for élites, there just aren't enough people who have time and leisure to argue really adequately with contemporary music. Yes, clearly, there also are always the posh Schnösel (snot-noses) who assault in such a thing then to become important themselves and to be able to talk intelligently. They will always exist, this is nothing new, they were there already with the Romans. A posh Schnösel is, in the end, no phenomenon of modern music.
modern greetings
Armin Steigenberger, Munich, Germany
Paul Murphy, Royal Festival Hall, London
If you know the works of Ligeti and Stockhausen, then you can imagine what Luigi Nono's (1824-1990) opera PROMETEO is like. The evening was fantastic and surely very like the premieres of Wagner's DAS RHEINGOLD or Mozart's DIE ZAUBERFLOTE although the Royal Festival Hall was almost half empty. (shame on you British music lovers, do you really exist at all?) However this didn't detract from the importance of this event, the UK premiere of PROMETEO by Luigi Nono. It's taken 20 or more years for this work to be premiered in the UK, which tells you something about how much Britain lags behind the continent in its appreciation of the artistic avante garde. In Germany alone there have been 56 performances of this work since then. The libretto is obviously derived from the well-known legend of Prometheus, but the text itself is incomprehensible to the ear, if not to the eye. I had the text before me, it was part of the programme, but that seems to have been hardly the point of the music, which sounds more like a Buddhist chant or some New Age meditation than music made in the classical tradition.
The work was hardly atonal, but had a conventional melody of sorts strung out between its sections, which had titles derived from the rules and conventions of Classical Tragedy (flashed up on a projected blackboard above the orchestra) or titles such as 'Hoelderlin'. Afterwards I asked the orchestra what a Hoelderlin was (for the audience was allowed to make written comments, meet and talk to the orchestra and singers. This was a really good idea from the event organisers and made me feel welcome, at home, indeed a participator rather than a passive receptor.). I came up with:
a sort of black-faced Bavarian sheep
a set of headphones
a kind of wind instrument
Turns out to be the name of a whore in Stuttgart. Generally I asked them if the work was accessible and they said no. I might have added, well what's the point of it then, but it was hardly appropriate. (because it isn't meant to address the common man, whoever that construct happens to be, but the elitest audience of posh twits gathered in the RFH. But really, Nono's work is neither elitest nor is it inaccessible. Nono clearly had the gravitas to work with Classical imagery, the work is hardly pretentious, nor was it at all boring.). Nono's opera PROMETEO stinks of the kind of pretension accepted in the era of High Modernism but now looking distinctly archaic, outlandish (but then the work is more than twenty years old). Unbelievably some audience members actually corrected me, telling me that Hoelderlin was a German poet and mad too. Really, I gagged! Unbelievable!
(In 1807, having become largely insane, he was brought into the home of Ernst Zimmer, a Tübingen carpenter with literary leanings, who was an admirer of his Hyperion. For the next 36 years, Hölderlin would live in Zimmer's house, in a tower room overlooking the beautiful Neckar valley, being cared for by the Zimmer family until his death in 1843. Wilhelm Waiblinger, a young poet and admirer, has left a poignant account of Hölderlin's day-to-day life during these long, empty years)
Is this the sound of music or the music of the madhouse? If its the latter, then I feel unbelievably privileged to have attended this permiere, since madness is such a terribly painful experience, so dumb and incommunicable. Any attempt then to depict the condition in literature or music seems worthwhile. I suppose the presence of the name Hoelderlin in the libretto suggests that this is a mad work of art concerning a mad poet and prophet, perhaps also indicating that Prometheus was also mad to dare to steal fire from the gods? However, I wasn't convinced that Hoelderlin (or Prometheus) needed to be there at all. The fashions of Nono's era might not sit easily in this era of Post-Modernism for, as Mozart says of contemporary Italian opera in 'Amadeus': 'people so lofty it sounds as if they shit marble'. (but Mozart also wrote many operas on Classical themes. These albeit early operas were written with his librettist da Ponte. After he had established his credentials, that he basically understands the Classics, but not just the Classics but also the conventions of contemporary Italian opera, does he undertake simpler or more contemporary themes - The Marriage of Figaro zb. Its clearly very important to Mozart to depict himself as a continuity, even though he's breaking the rules towards the latter part of his life, not simply as an eructation, the member of a rebellion as defunctive as that it opposes.)
Even though I had many doubts about Nono's work, there is no doubt that the performance was of a high standard. The orchestra was distributed around the hall, there were two conductors, this perhaps to emphasize the divergent acoustics at play in the work, all brought to life by sound specialists from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, a centre of avante-garde and experimental music.
Paul Murphy and Armin Steigenberger discuss PROMETEO
AS: I do not understand the connection between the opera which you describe and the passage about Hölderlin. Is Hölderlin a figure in this opera? I know Nono,
but I don't know this opera.
PM: one of the opera's sections is called 'Hoelderlin'.
Of course its a non-question. What does it matter who or what Hoelderlin is? There is no reason for him to be in the opera. Its a question only of importance to posh twits with lots of money and time to spend talking about such matters. Luigi Nono may have been a fraud, attempting to portray himself as a profound intellect when he did nothing at all but churn out discordant noise. The same could be said of Stockhausen and Ligeti. There's a vast group of academics whose reputations, careers etc depend on the validation of these people. Otherwise no one would care at all, probably most people don't.
For all that, there's a core of work by these composers that I do think is valid. At the same time as they were writing a lot of fairly inaccessible, unpopular stuff, pop music, especially The Beatles, was forging into the gap they had vacated upon the advent of mass culture in the 1950s. Things really began to change markedly in the 50s, with the possibility of mass communication, television, radio, film had all developed and everyone, certainly in the developed part of the world, now had access to them.
The divergence between the masses, the elites and the possiblity of making lots of money by lowering the intellectual content, making songs both danceable and singable. One of the most important influences was the 'negro spiritual' which became the Blues, then rhythm 'n blues, then rock 'n roll and pop. The Beatles are special because they manage to synthesise pop and the classical tradition, to somehow bridge the gap between the two cultures (listen to Seargent Pepper).
AS: Ligeti, Stockhausem Nono et al:
I would not lean too far out of the window - as we say in German - because I think that Ligeti as well as Stockhausen have done really great art. As far as I am able to judge. I for my part admire Anton Webern very much. It is similar to poetry: it is not of the big mass accessibility, it is too complicated, too incomprehensible, a kind of cipher which is actually passed on only between intellectuals and insider of art which have some insights into art.
But it is not only for élites, there just aren't enough people who have time and leisure to argue really adequately with contemporary music. Yes, clearly, there also are always the posh Schnösel (snot-noses) who assault in such a thing then to become important themselves and to be able to talk intelligently. They will always exist, this is nothing new, they were there already with the Romans. A posh Schnösel is, in the end, no phenomenon of modern music.
modern greetings
Armin Steigenberger, Munich, Germany
Paul Murphy, Royal Festival Hall, London
Comments