Luigi Nono/Roberto Fabbriciani — Luigi Nono Volume 2: Works with Flute

Here’s a CD serving up three works for flute composed by Italian avant-garde/ modern classical composer Luigi Nono (1924- 1990), with a fourth by Nono collaborator Roberto Fabbriciani, who also plays flute/ piccolo here. The sound on offer here is a nice mix of moodily seared, eerily abstract, and tautly ambient, with a great use of compositional space.

Here from Mode is a CD presented in a jewel case. It comes with a twelve-page inlay booklet- this takes in write-ups about the pieces/ composers, photos of Nono & Fabbriciani, and photos of some of the scores.

We open with 1985’s “A Pierre. Dell’azzurro silenzio, inquietum” which is for contrabass flute in G, contrabass clarinet in B flat, and live electronics. The just over eight-minute track is all about steadily baying and searing wind instruments, with an undercurrent of subtly warping & uneasy electronics. It brought to mind a more ambient take on the material Wolf Eyes did with Anthony Braxton.

Next is 1980/87’s “Das atmende Klarsein, fragmente”, this is for bass flute, magnetic tape, and live electronics. Here we find a very taut and tensioned soundscape of stretched warbles, pulled out hisses, strangled piping’s, and grating flits. It runs at just over the seventeen-minute mark- keep its tight reining in your attention throughout, even when space & silence are used briefly.

Track three is the oldest composition here, “Musiche per Manzù”. It runs at just over the seventeen-and-a-half-minute mark and is for magnetic tape. Here we find a stark blend of ringing slabs of tone, cascading rattle ‘n’ bay, with moments of reverberating rounding, jarring/ loud bass darts, and what sounds like forlorn vocalising. I’m guessing flutes were involved at some point in the tracks' creation, but it doesn't really retain much of the instruments' sonic identity. There is certainly a proto noise feel to this track, especially in the more loud/ overloaded moments

Finally, we have “A Omaggio a Luigi Nono”, which is composed by Roberto Fabbriciani. It dates from 2006. It’s for Piccolo, tape, and live electronics. This comes in at dead on the twelve-minute mark. The piece is built around the steadily warbling and baying sound field, which is both sour, sometimes shrill, but always uneasy. You keep thinking that something large or big-sounding is going to suddenly appear, or the sound picture is going dense up-, but it never does.

If you enjoy where shrill & sear meet uneasy psycho ambient, I think this four-track collection will appeal.