The Presence of Hindemith in Nono's Sketches: A New Context for Nono's Music

Abstract

Approximately two hundred leaves of Luigi Nono's sketches from 1946 to 1951 demonstrate that he was well schooled in the teachings of Paul Hindemith, a theorist and composer whose outlook and musical inclinations would seem to be altogether different from those of the younger musician. To be sure, Nono never pointed to Hindemith as a direct influence; and the aesthetic climate at Darmstadt would surely have encouraged Nono to remain quiet on this subject. Furthermore, commentators on Nono's earliest music have tended to focus on comparisons with Webern's twelve-tone technique. While such comparisons reveal much about the reception of Webern, they obscure Nono's antipointillist concern for expression and musical tension. The sketches suggest a means to reassess Nono's music by showing how Hindemith's building stones furnished a foundation for Nono's artistic diversity. In Nono's sketches, Hindemith emerges as a progressive theorist to whose teachings the younger composer would return for many years.