The motif of wandering runs like a thread through his late works: First and foremost is the exploration of the sound and the process of its generation. The wandering of the sound through space, (for example by arranging loudspeaker around a room) opens the listener up to constantly new perspectives on what can be heard. Closely connected with the aspect of wandering, is the search for constantly new sounds and perspectives of perception, the search becoming the essential goal of composing while following the aesthetic principle of constant change. Nono regarded his native and home town Venice as a symbol of such aesthetics of change. Until his death he admired its wealth of colour, the constant merging of architecture and acoustic impressions such as the ringing of bells. In contrast to the strict serialism of Karlheinz Stockhausen, he achieved the combination of great subjectivity and rigid architectonics even in his late works. In 1990 Nono received the Berlin Arts Prize for Music. He died on 8 May of the same year.