On Luigi Nono’s Political Thought: Emancipation Struggles, Socialist Hegemony and the Ethic Behind the Composition of Für Paul Dessau

Abstract

The musical activism of the Italian composer Luigi Nono (1924-1990) is one of the most fascinating examples of the relationship between music and politics in the second half of the twentieth century. A member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) from 1952, he considered music as a tool for the establishment of socialist hegemony. In this article, I firstly examine how concepts from Antonio Gramsci underlie Nono’s political thought, the relationship between his conception of social justice struggles and violence, and the ethic behind his compositional practice. Secondly, I analyse how Nono addressed his political and ethical commitment in his last work for magnetic tape, Fur Paul Dessau (1974). This article aims to contribute to the discussion on Nono’s appropriation of Gramsci’s ideas, shedding light on how Nono addressed the memory of antifascism, Cold War politics, and Third World international liberation struggles in works from the 1950s to the early 1970s.