Liebeslied

Luigi Nono’s Liebeslied is a personal documentation recalling the first meeting with his wife Nuria Schönberg. The work for mixed choir and instruments based on a text in German written by Nono himself consists of only 74 bars. It is composed al most throughout in unison – with the exception of a few bars – and the choir dominates the musical action. Polyphonic choral passages provide a variety in tonal colouring and a density which gives weight to individual text passages of this declaration of love. This stands in contrast to the economical treatment of the instruments which only come to the foreground at certain points and generally lend colour to the texture rather than having a structural function.