Arnold Schönberg and Luigi Nono stand as emblems for a certain sort of difficulty in music, a difficulty charted by Schönberg himself in his essay, “How One Becomes Lonely.”[1] But this “difficulty” may have a purpose for us, at this time, either intended or unintended. Here I approach the “difficult” music of these two composers through the concept of experience, as described and discussed by Giorgio Agamben. Agamben’s thesis concerning the formation of human subjects through a process of infancy is outlined, and related to the work of these two specific composers, in order to think about the place and function of music in a noisy world: what possibilities does this particular, “difficult” music hold for us, now, in the middle of multiple and ongoing, existential and planetary crises?
[1] Schönberg, Arnold. “How One Becomes Lonely (1937).” In Style and Idea, ed. by Leonard Stein, trans. by Leo Black, Faber and Faber, London, 1975, pp. 30-52
