KAYN · NONO Roland Kayn | Deutsche Grammophon

Luigi Nono (1924–1990) enjoyed widespread international acclaim throughout his career. A central figure of post-war serialism, the Venetian composer established himself in the 1950s as one of the so-called “avant-garde trinity,” alongside Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez.

Contrappunto was composed in 1968 for two-channel tape during a period in which Nono was deeply engaged with the international student movements and the resistance to the Vietnam War. By basing the work on a seventeenth-century madrigal comedy by Adriano Banchieri, Nono sought, in his own words, to “reflect the kind of musical process employed by Banchieri: the focus on the voice, the incorporation of contemporary sound material, and its humorous and parodistic transformation, particularly in the lyrical and dramatic elements—but within the reality of the present.”

Roland Kayn’s Cybernetics III remarkably anticipates later developments in synthesis, computer and recording technology, as well as the emergence of samplers and sequencers. The ways in which these tools were subsequently adopted by later generations of artists fundamentally transformed the foundations of electronic music. In this sense, Cybernetics III foresaw far-reaching changes in musical thought and creative practice.

The vinyl was mastered and cut from the original analogue 2-track master tapes by Rainer Maillard and Sidney Claire Meyer at Emil Berliner Studios and features original artwork and a newly designed, beautifully crafted collector’s sleeve. It is released as a limited and numbered edition on 28 August and is now available for pre-order.