More about Lucia Dlugoszewski’s timbre-piano: it just has been published an article written in collaboration with Kate Doyle, PhD, for Contemporary Music Review Special Issue: Engaging Analysis and Performance. Kate is assistant Professor of Music in the Department of Arts, Culture & Media at Rutgers University—Newark, and I had the pleasure of collaborating with her for several years now about the work of Dlugoszewski. This is our more recent production after partecipating to Toronto Symposium and to the American Musicological Society Annual Meeting. The title of the paper is Problem as Possibility: A Dialogue about Performance and Analysis with Lucia Dlugoszewski’s Experimental Notation as Case Study (https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2023.2193090). Here is the abstract:
The musical score can be a site for dynamic exchange between performance and analysis, a place for conversation about material and meaning. As is typical in conversation, conundrums or disagreements generate new ideas and new forms; problems become possibilities. Such is the case in navigating the scores of Lucia Dlugoszewski, who sought radical ways to produce and notate sound forms from around 1950 until her death in 2000. This article is not intended to serve as a survey of Dlugoszewski’s work but to document an exploration of the role that dialogue plays when performing and analysing musical repertoires. Its two authors will perform an excerpt of an ongoing dialogue about the challenges of navigating Dlugoszewski’s innovative scores. A circularity emerges as every potential solution is performed, evaluated, and questioned anew; through this cycle, analysis and performance become a unified, continual process. A thesis emerges from the dialogue: Dlugoszewski’s scores are a documentation of logic that is not present as much as one that is, a kind of notation in reverse, an ideal realised through performance at the edge of practical execution.
Der Freitag and Die junge Welt also wrote about March Subtle Matters recital in Berlin at MaerzMusik Festival (music by Dlugoszewski, Corner, Dun). Quoting Der Freitag in the words of Michael Jäger, …the program announced “sound worlds full of unexpected textures and resonances,” and it was not an over-promise… In the compositions of Lucia Dlugoszewski (1925-2000), Tan Dun (*1957) and Philip Corner (*1933), playing not only on the keys but even more so on the strings under an open piano has always been the main move. We have heard it before, but in the compositions presented here (Tan Dun’s bears the name C-A-G-E, fingering for piano [1994], which refers not only to a sequence of notes, but also to that great initiator, and thus implicitly puts Cage on the same plane as B-A-C-H), the strings are often used like a zither, and sound almost like a zither, sometimes melodious, sometimes “sublimely” chaotic, both then occasionally doubled by the keys – a piano, so to speak, in dialogue with itself. As if communicating with [the] unconscious…
Very excited to take part to MaerzMusik Festival – Berliner Festspiele in Berlin! On March, 24th I will play “Subtle Matters”, with music by Lucia Dlugoszewski, Philip Corner and Tan Dun, following my 2021 release by Neuma Records and adding a premiere of Philip Corner. The recital is part of “Contemplations into the Radical Others”, a long-term project by Maerz Musik focussing on composer Lucia Dlugoszewski in cooperation with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Ensemble Musikfabrik and many others. Here you can find the program of the evening, featuring me and Ensemble Musikfabrik, here you have the whole program of the festival, and here there’s an interesting review about Dlugoszewski‘s life and work.
Another step forward in researching the work of composer Lucia Dlugoszewski. This time a four-handed reflection, along with Dr Kate Doyle, on how our collaboration – and collaboration in general between theorists and performers – could lead to a step forward both on stage and in the field of musicology. We will share our insights by speaking at the Dialogues: Analysis and Performance symposium, held October 7–9, 2021, at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. Here is our abstract:
Problem as Possibility: Experimental Notation as Nexus of Concept and Praxis, Theorist and Performer
Kate Doyle (Rutgers University-Newark) and Agnese Toniutti (independent)
What happens when a score becomes a site for dynamic exchange between theorists and performers – where conundrums generate new ideas and forms? We have worked at such a place in dealing with the experimental scores of Lucia Dlugoszewski, who sought innovative ways to notate sound forms from 1950 until her death in 2000. As we sorted through Dlugoszewski’s graphic scores (held at the Library of Congress and the Archives of American Art), it became clear that they hold numerous challenges for performance – pitch arrangements do not match the composer’s descriptions, inconsistencies in graphic signs are frequent, instructions press the performer beyond the limits of even extended techniques. Through our dialogue about these problems, we developed an analysis that considers Dlugoszewski’s notation an attempt to capture what the composer simultaneously regarded as not able to be captured – the nuances of sonority. We began to understand the score(s) as a documentation of logic that is not present as much as a logic that is, as a kind of notation in reverse, as an ideal existing beyond the domain of practical execution. We each produced new forms in response to this analysis that reflect our primary work, but our dialogue continues as an integral aspect of both respective and mutual projects. We propose to perform a concise version of this dialogue as means to openly explore the possibilities of exchange between theorist and performer in the negotiation of concept and praxis in experimental notation.
Last update December 2021 Spring is blooming and brings a brand new recording! “Subtle Matters” will be released by American label Neuma Records on April, 16th. It features compositions by Lucia Dlugoszewski, Philip Corner and Tan Dun. Dlugoszewski, pioneer in experimental musical scene, is the inventor of “timbre piano” and Corner, internationally known as a composer, musician and artist, is co-founder of Fluxus movement. Almost all the pieces are played with extended techniques in the inside of the instrument. The album will be welcomed on Monday, 29th March by Alley Stoughton’s show “Not Brahms and Liszt” for Cambridge MIT WMBR Radio. You can also listen to the very first track here on Bandcamp. To know part of the (adventurous) story behind the recording you can read the booklet here (Italian version in pdf here.) To purchase the album: physical copy on Bandcamp or digital download here (from April, 16th).
“[…] Ms. Toniutti impresses with the practiced ease with which she moves from sound event to sound event. Agnese Toniutti takes to these works with enthusiasm, imagination and eventful awareness. As one re-listens a few times the structural and sensual elements of each work becomes more pronounced and readily understandable, until in the end you see that no piece is arbitrary but rather poetically sensible and comprehensible in the pianist’s vision of each segment. The music vacillates between high abstraction, cavernous atmospherics and post-ethnic primality. In so doing the album sums up the spectrum and state-of-the-art for the continuingly fertile extended technique pianisms operative today. I warmly recommend it.” Grego Applegate Edwards, Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review, August 23rd, 2021
“[…] Agnese Toniutti is not only a deserving Italian artist but, as far as her subject matter is concerned, she is at the top of the world scene. […] If only for the inclusion of this suite [by Dlugoszewski, ed.] the value of “Subtle Matters” seems to be immeasurable. […] In conclusion, “Subtle Matters” is an important disc, for the material it contains, for the excellent performance, for the excellent sound and for the more than accurate packaging.” Mario Biserni, Sands-zine, August 21st, 2021
“Tinkly, booming, comedic, and thought provoking. ” Cousin Mary, KFJC, July 30th, 2021
“If the extended technique is the “canon” of the 21st century, the pianist Agnese Toniutti deserves a place of honor among the performers who have emerged in this twenty years of amazing creative fervor: figures like hers nourish and even inspire the repertoire of the new avant-gardes dedicated to the instrument of the romantic ideal par excellence […].[…] an all-out action on the metal surface of the taut strings, a landscape of vivid tonal and non-tonal polychromy, a playing field and set of profound dramatic tension that Toniutti masters with extraordinary control, offering us […] one of the most meaningful essays of inside piano never heard.” Michele Palozzo, Percorsi Musicali, June 20th, 2021
“[…] Spooky and entertaining by turn, one’s left curious to see exactly how the work [Dlugoszewski’s Exacerbated Subtlety Concert, ed] is notated, and Toniutti’s intensity and concentration keep us listening. Tan Dun’s C-A-G-E is subtitled a “fingering for piano”, passages where the piano’s strings are strummed hinting at pentatonic folk music. Repeated listenings highlight the work’s ingenuity and beauty, and there’s naturally a focus on the four notes which spell the name of John Cage, a friend and mentor to Tan. Philip Corner’s Toy Piano is ear-tickling, and his A really lovely piece made for & by Agnese showcases her ability to make the unlikeliest musical material sing.“ Graham Rickson, The Art Desk, May 22nd, 2021
Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classics – April 2021 “This riveting recital by the Italian pianist Agnese Toniutti brings together the work of three disparate composers, all of which involve exploring the inside of the keyboard. In her liner note essay she writes, “Walking into a new score is like opening a door, having in hand a magic access-key to someone else’s inner universe—their music, first of all, but also a world of feelings, thoughts, decisions and reactions, an individual view of life. That notion is crucial to the opening work, the four-movement “Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does a Woman Love a Man?)” by the Polish-American Lucia Dlugoszewski, who wrote and recorded the piece using the “timbre piano,” one of many instruments she designed before her death in 2000. Toniutti had to learn the piece through that recording and research various ways to get at the sound, since apart from knowing some of the devices she used (including thimbles, hairpins, jars), there was no specific instruction about the instrument. She transcribed the recording and found her own way forward to create something clearly related to the original, but also her own, rife with alien, evocative textures, resonances, and sonic fractures. She also leaves her own impression on works by Tan Dun and Philip Corner.” Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily, April 29th, 2021
“In a unique CD, the researcher Agnese Toniutti collects the experiments of the last century of musical history – […] “Subtle Matters” is a rare and courageous example of artistic documentation of poetics by authors who have made and are making the history of piano music -and not – of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. […] Between sound echoes of Noh theater and Kabuki (Dlugoszewski), arpeggiated and dreamlike piano delicacies (Tan Dun), fragments of wandering and bewitching sounds (Corner), this work is a “unicum” projected into the future“. Marco Maria Tosolini, Il Gazzettino, April 25th, 2021
“Agnese Toniutti, sonic subversion loves lightness – In her heretical itinerary she meets today Dlugoszewski, Tan Dun and Corner – Far from academisms “Subtle Matters”, the new album by the pianist from Friuli” “…if in this album the four of his works [of Corner, ed] stand out for their acumen and a degree of singularity which is rarely remembered the same, it is certainly due to Toniutti’s acumen and singularity. […] In one of Corner’s pieces, Man In Field (the sound as “Hero”) […] the word masterpiece can be written without hesitation. […] Toniutti magical.”
“[…] a poetic landscape where the key acrobatics are nothing short of stunning.
A very exciting album that nearly redefines how one interprets the piano, Toniutti’s dedication to her art is only proving to be more gripping with each subsequent project, and it be will be interesting to see what happens next.“ Take effect Reviews, April 18th, 2021
“The young pianist, an excellent performer, is here dealing with a repertoire of contemporary music written between 1994 and 2020, ranging from the tribute to John Cage by the Chinese Tan Dun to the dedicated pieces (also for toy piano) by the American Philip Corner, although the surprise remains the initial concert in 4 parts by the Polish-American Lucia Dlugoszewski, an extraordinary artist and inventor of a timbre-piano in which hammers and keys are replaced with strings and plectra. 5/5: Unique.” Guido Michelone, Alias – Il Manifesto, April 17th, 2021
“A very original cd […] by the talented pianist Agnese Toniutti, which presents a courageous choice of authors out of any commercial homologation: Lucia Dlugoszewski (1925-2000), Tan Dun (1957) and Philip Corner (1933). Sounds and peculiar paths that open not only to musical perspectives but also to existential ones. Congratulations for this choice and for the excellent interpretation that demonstrates how much Agnese Toniutti is convincingly inside this music which is also a different interpretation from the usual repertoire.” Renzo Cresti, April 10th, 2021
“Pianist Agnese Toniutti has a bracing, incisively performed new recording, ‘Subtle Matters’, on the Neuma label, featuring pieces by three composers. Lucia Dlugoszewski’s ‘Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does a Woman Love a Man?’ is a rigorous, four-part exploration of the piano’s interior. There’s a lovely, jagged but dreamy work by Tan Dun, ‘C-A-G-E fingering for piano’ and four wonderful compositions by the always inspiring and challenging Philip Corner. Excellent work, do check it out.” Brian Olewnick, April 1st, 2021
“A wonderful album of modern piano landscapes, all gorgeous and unusual in their own voices. A sonic journey / exploration of dynamic acoustic atmospheres.” Collin J Rae, March 30th, 2021
“One of those people that doesn’t just play the piano, she plays the piano going beyond just hitting the keys and even bringing toys into the arena. An experimental work that doesn’t feel like it’s just pulled out of the air on a whim, this is less a recital than a journey inhabited by stops and starts, twists and turns. Often becoming head music for cosmic experiences, if you start with Varese and go from there, this might just be the musical comfort food you want on your plate.” Chris Spector, March 15th, 2021, Midwest Record
Il Manifesto, April 21st, 2021
Il Gazzettino, April 25th, 2021
RADIO BROADCASTING AND INTERVIEWS: #RadiostArt (Italy) – Interview for Clocks and Clouds with Stefano Taglietti 10.45 pm, June 28th, 2021
#Radio UNAM (Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico): Interview for Testimonio de Oídas curated by Dulce Huet (espagnol – podcast) June 15th and June 19th, 2021
#Radio Horizon 93.9 fm (Johannesburg, South Africa) May 18th, 2021 Philip Corner: Toy piano, A really lovely piece made for & by Agnese
#Radio CiTR 101.9 FM – University of British Columbia (Canada) Bepi Crespan Presents May 8th 2021 Lucia Dlugoszewski: Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?) – Part IV, Tan Dun: C-A-G-E, fingering for piano
#Radio Centraal (Antwerpen, Belgium) Vhoorspel with Rudi Claessens April 29th, 2021 Lucia Dlugoszewski: Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?) – Part I e II, Philip Corner: Man in field (Sound as hero), A really lovely piece made for & by Agnese
#Radio Onde Furlane (Udine, IT) Ator ator, interview with Paolo Cantarutti (Furlan/ITA) April 28th, 2021 Podcast here Lucia Dlugoszewski: Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?), Tan Dun: C-A-G-E, fingering for piano, Philip Corner: A really lovely piece made for & by Agnese
#Radio WFCF (Flagler College Radio, Florida, USA) Music of our Mothers with Ellen Grolman April 28th, 2021 Lucia Dlugoszewski: Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?)
#Radio Horizon 93.9 fm (Johannesburg, South Africa) April 26th, 2021 Lucia Dlugoszewski: Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?), Tan Dun: C-A-G-E, fingering for piano, Philip Corner: Man in field (Sound as hero), Small pieces of a Fluxus reality
#Radio Panik (Bruxelles, Belgium) Indiedrome : “Exacerbated Subtlety” April 20th, 2021 Lucia Dlugoszewski: Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?)
#Radio Capodistria (Slovenia) Sonoramente Classici interview with Luisa Antoni: “Agnese Toniutti presents Subtle Matters” (ITA) April 18th, 2021 Philip Corner: Man in field (Sound as hero), Tan Dun: C-A-G-E, fingering for piano, Lucia Dlugoszewski: Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?) – Part 4
#Radio CiTR 101.9 FM – University of British Columbia (Canada) Bepi Crespan Presents April 17th, 2021 Philip Corner: Man in field (The Sound as hero), Small pieces of a Fluxus reality
#Radio Electus (Seattle, USA) #85: Music of Memory with Michael Schell April 8th, 2021 Lucia Dlugoszewski: Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?) – Part 2.
#Wrmbr Radio, MIT Institute (Cambridge, USA) – NOT Brahms and Liszt with Alley Stoughton March 29th, 2021 Tan Dun: C-A-G-E, fingering for piano, Philip Corner: A really lovely piece made for & by Agnese
A brief extract from Dlugoszewski’s Exacerbated Subtlety Concert – Part IV for “timbre piano”, performed at Angelica Festival, Bologna (IT), on Sept 18th, 2020 (European premiere).
The exploration of Lucia Dlugoszewski’s work for “timbre” piano keeps on going. After the European premiere of Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?) in Bologna this September for Angelica 30th Festival, I’m very happy to have given my little contribution to musicologist Kate Doyle’s speech at the American Musicological Society Annual Meeting this weekend. Dr Doyle’s lecture for the panel “At the Borders of Notation” was titled “The Suchness of Sound: Lucia Dlugoszewski’s Revolutions of Musical Form and Instrumentation”. I partecipated with a video extract of the performance in Bologna (here is the link, below is the video) and a brief interview. My research on Exacerbated Subtlety Concert is also the topic of a podcast episode of Infuse, a dynamic concert series based in Paris. You can listen to it here or below, with the elegant (and musical) direction and editing by Sarah Elzas.
Lucia Dlugoszewski (pic courtesy of Erick Hawkins and Lucia Dlugoszewski Papers, Music Division, Library of Congress)
A brief extract from Exacerbated Subtlety Concert Part IV, performed in European Premiere at Angelica Festival, Bologna (IT), on Sept 18th, 2020.
Infuse Podcast, “Agnese Toniutti à la recherche du piano à timbre de Lucia Dlugoszewski”, interview made in February 2020, direction and editing by Sarah Elzas.
Grateful and excited to play live again: a weekend on the road with music I love. On Friday 18th Sept in Bologna, for Angelica 30th Festival. In program the intriguing music for timbre piano by Lucia Dlugoszewski (a European premiere) and a solo piano piece by Giancarlo Cardini from my new disc Lento trascolorare. Double set: it was great to share the stage with Frances Marie Uitti’s legendary cello (and music)! On Sunday 20th Sept. in Villa di Toppo Florio (Buttrio, Ud), immersed in an enchanting botanical garden, for TreeArt Festival. A program dedicated to Giacinto Scelsi, introduced by Luciano Martinis’s lecture about the famous Palm Tree of Scelsi. In collaboration with Scelsi Foundation – Rome. Below some pics and video of the events.
Angelica Festival, Bologna, before and during the concert
photo by Angelo Salvin
photo by Angelo Salvin
TreeArt Festival, Buttrio (UD), with Luciano Martinis and his series “La Palma di Scelsi” (Scelsi’s Palm Tree)
TreeArt Festival, Buttrio (UD), the concert (photo Lara Carrer)
In March two concerts focussed on the work of women composers. On the 10th of March the performance for Camino deGenere Festival at Camino al Tagliamento (Udine, Italy): music by Fanny Mendellsohn, Alina Piechowska, Giovanni Vannoni, Caterina Venturelli, Stathis Gyfthakis, Mieko Shiomi. On the 15th an other step in my research on connections between men and women composers at Salotto Musicale del Friuli Venezia Giulia: a first encounter with Lucia Dlugoszewski‘s music for timber piano, together with pieces by John Cage for prepared piano (and not).
A marzo due concerti a forte percentuale femminile: il 10 marzo ore 17.30 per il festival Camino deGenere (un nome, un programma…) a Camino al Tagliamento (Ud), con musiche di Fanny Mendellsohn, Alina Piechowska, Giovanni Vannoni, Caterina Venturelli, Stathis Gyfthakis, Mieko Shiomi. Il 15 marzo ore 21 una nuova tappa della ricerca di connessioni tra compositori e compositrici per il Salotto Musicale del Friuli Venezia Giulia: una serata dedicata ai newyorkesi Lucia Dlugoszewski e John Cage, inventori rispettivamente del timber piano e del pianoforte preparato (e non solo!).
Camino de Genere Festival, 8th-10th March 2019
Salotto Musicale del Friuli Venezia Giulia, 15th March 2019
