ABSTRACT
The chapter explores some creative and performative peculiarities of works whose genesis and performance are influenced by the new technologies of sound production and transformation (live electronics in particular). The reflection is led on the basis of questions around the concept of authorship and involves some problematic tangles related to the performance of works, which are usually not notated in the traditional way or whose writing is often missing or destined for paperless media (i.e. performer’s memory, disk, electronic programs, etc.). The paradigmatic examples chosen to highlight different typologies and various issues concerning the performance practice of new music – as well as to reflect on some aporias related to the fixation and transmission of the presumed ‘author’s will’ – are mainly drawn from the catalogue of works by Luigi Nono and Luciano Berio (with occasional references to some works by Karlheinz Stockhausen). In the chapter are examined scores (edited, retrieved or unpublished), audio documents and archive materials, as well as direct statements of composers and performers.
