Il Canto sospeso. Für Sopran-, Alt-, &Tenor-Solo, gemischten Chor &Orchester by Luigi NonoReview by: George RochbergNotes, Second Series, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Sep., 1958), p. 654Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/893493 .

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that the six pieces which comprise it architecturally are typical of Webern's epigrammatic brevity ("a world in a grain of sand"), that they reveal utter refinement in the use of the orchestra and an abandonment of orchestral vul- garity and grossness, the fact still re- mains we have not yet said the most important thing to be said about the work; for it is a profoundly tragic ex- pression which builds inexorably from piece to piece forming ultimately a hexagonal unity of dark, daemonic power, terribly contained. I cannot refrain from commenting that it compresses into its brooding strength a feeling akin to that evoked by some of the best sections of Berg's later Lulu orchestral suite. It breathes the same poisoned air which we have learned to know as our very own in the twentieth century and it reminds us overpoweringly that man is still a tragic creature whatever his source- whether divine or not-but above all tragic. In other words, Webern's Opus 6 speaks truth. Luigi Dallapiccola: Tartiniana sec- onda, divertimento per violino e pianoforte. Milano: Suvini Zerboni; U. S. A.: Associated Music Publish- ers, New York, 1957. [Score, 17 p., & pt., 7-p., $2.50]

Luigi Dallapiccola is one of today's most gifted living composers in Europe and America. One of the signs of the extent of his gift is his exquisite crafts- manship; you can almost feel the love and care he expends on his work. In his Tartiniana Seconda, Divertimento per Violino e Pianoforte, which is a version of the same work for orchestra, Dallapic- cola skillfully evolves about Tartini's ideas delicate structures whose free imita- tions and strict canons are completely inventive, non-academic, and full of sur- prises. This is tonal music but liberated from the clich6s of contemporary aca- demic tonality. The fourth movement is a model of mastery: a series of varia- tions, of which I think Nos. 3, 4 and 5 are quite remarkable and especially worthy of inspection by students (not to mention those who teach students).

Luigi Nono: II Canto sospeso. Fur Sopran-, Alt-, & Tenor-Solo, ge- mischten Chor & Orchester. [4.2.3.2. -6.5.4.0.-Timp. Perc.-2 Harps, Celesta-Str.] (Ed. AV 50.) Mainz: Ars Viva-Verlag; U. S. A.: Asso- ciated Music Publishers, New York, 1957. [Min. score, 88 p., $3.00]

11 Canto Sospeso by Luigi Nono is a large and ambitious work based on this tone row: A Bb Ab BO G C F$ C$ F D E Eb. It's impossible to read a score of such complexity and then blithely make defini- tive remarks about it without the actual experience of hearing it. A surface de- scription of its properties which is all I will allow myself here, therefore, must point out that, like much of the music of Nono's generation in Europe, it makes extensive use of what Schoenberg called Klangenfarbenmelodie and Webern's de- vice of exchange of voices. Divided in nine sections employing orchestral and vocal forces, it is based on portions of farewell letters of young Europeans who died in concentration camps during the last war ("I am not afraid of death-I go in the belief in a better life for you"). Perhaps one of the more intriguing fac- tors is Nono's method of distributing syllables of words among different voices of the chorus. Perhaps the most arbi- trary feature is his penchant for in- credibly complicated rhythmic groupings -for example, a tactus divided into five parts, with four of those parts tied to one and a half parts of the next beat. But this is already a convention in the music of Boulez, Stockhausen, and other young Europeans who, by returning to a regular tactus, hope to achieve a new freedom by atomizing it.

GEORGE ROCHRFRC

Carlo Alberto Pizzini: Grotte di Postumia, divertimento per orches- tra in forma di tema con variazioni. [3.3.3. (Sax.) 3.-4.4.3.1.-Timp. Perc. -Vibraphone, Celesta, Harp, Piano -Str.] New York & Milano: Ricordi, 1957. [Min. score, 67 p., $2.00]

On the Italian-Yugoslavian border not far from the city of Trieste are located one of Europe's most astounding phe-

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