Notturno, for tape

• Date: 1955
• Composer: Bruno Maderna
• Period: Modern (1910-1949)

Review

In 1956 Maderna and his fellow Italian avant garde colleague Luciano Berio founded the Studio di Fonologia Musicale at the Milan studios of Radio Italy. This well-equipped and well-staffed studio became the leading venue for electronic music in Europe for several years.

Notturno was one of the first works produced by Maderna. Not unexpectedly, it shows the composer working to understand and master the equipment and the concepts of electronic music. Nevertheless, it is a highly expressive piece. The piece is generated from white noise. This term, an analogy to "white light," is used to refer to a sound that contains all pitches; the inter-station noise on an FM radio is an example. Maderna filtered away the parts of the white noise that he did not want, changing the coloration of the sound. At one point, he filters out all but a narrow bandwidth of two hertz. (Hertz is a newer term for "cycles per second.") This is practically a pure tone, and the result sounds like a flute. In his filtrations, Maderna aimed at making sounds that appear to be natural, stressing the similary of electronic sound to acoustic sounds. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Bruno Maderna: Electronic Music
Bruno Maderna: Musica Elettronica

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