Europe News

Vienna thief snatches hundreds of obscure avant-garde music CDs

Oct 25, 2007, 14:10 GMT

Vienna - A thief single-mindedly stole between 800 and 1,000 CDs by the Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono (1924-1990) from the warehouse of a Vienna music distributor, police said Thursday.

In order to get to CDs of 'Prometeo' - a Nono work featuring four orchestras, a choir, speakers, two conductors and five soloists - the burglar had to break open a lock and move other merchandise to the side, Austrian media reported.

'It sounds like something made up,' a bemused Stefanie Schurich, manager of the music shop 'col legno', was quoted as saying by the Austrian press agency. 'I have no explanation for this.'

Despite the fact that the CDs - on the market only since October 19 - were no commercial smash hit, the burglar left other potentially more valuable things behind.

But he did take 222 CDs of another work by Nono. The 'Prometeo' CD is sold for around 30 to 40 euros, and only 2,000 of them had been produced.

Nono's work may be even less accessible than his CDs - his compositions are highly complex and do not fall into the category 'easy listening', making it doubtful that the thief had was after some fast money on the black market.