2003 M.T.S.N.Y.S. Emerging Scholar Award: Multidimensional Counterpoint and Social Subversion in Luigi Nono's Choral Works
The political overtones of Luigi Nono's works often resonate more loudly than his music. One might be tempted to counteract the eclipse of musical issues by social issues through reversing the position i.e., discussing music to the exclusion of politics but such a reversal might not be any more fruitful for the study of socially engaged artworks such as Nono's. Rather than posit musical and social issues at opposite poles of a hypothetical spectrum, I shall attempt to present both side by side, as analogous realms that exhibit identifiably similar tendencies. In the same vein, I shall place Nono's music in analogous but not opposite musical contexts. Even though this essay was originally presented in a conference session devoted to so-called avant-garde music composed after the Second World War, I will orient my discussion around sacred music composed before the Thirty Years War.