This Saturday, 9th December, the new release of John Cage’s Sonatas&Interludes for prepared piano (Neuma Records, 2023) will be presented in Trieste, Italy, h. 19.00 at Revoltella Museum, invited by Trieste Prima Festival. The conversation around Cage will be accompanied by the young pianists of Piano City Pordenone; a dialogue between Cage’s music for prepared piano and works by Ligeti, Kurtàg e Dohnányi. From the booklet of the festival: “Will we also find the suggestions inherent in Sonatas & Interludes in Kurtagian hommages and Ligeti’s piano pages? Or will it be the seemingly most distant piece, Dohnányi’s Nocturne, that is most in tune with the Cagean dimension?“…
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.
It is a great satisfaction to be able to announce this new Spring release (street date: March 17th, 2023), coming out after many years of performances of such a masterpiece as Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano by John Cage. This achievement was possible thanks to a great team of professionals: Marco Melchior, always by my side recording, Erdem Helvacioglu, mastering, and Philip Blackburn, director and manager of Neuma Records label.
To have a physical copy come listen to one of my concerts or buy it on Bandcamp or on Neuma Records website (also digital download).
…a fresh look into the seven decades old music that both her playing and her musicological insights make as fresh as if the work had been composed last year.Rafael de Acha, All about the Arts , February 27th, 2023
The prepared piano was one of the legacies of composer John Cage, and this album with Agnese Toniutti gives a tribute to the iconoclastic sound and attitude. Is the listener prepared for the prepared piano? George W.Harris, Jazz Weekly, February 27th, 2023
The sound of the work has something special, different from many other editions of this repertoire… we have reason to believe that Cage would have appreciated this magical playful “humus.” Needless to note Toniutti’s executive gracefulness, which blends with that precision of accent inescapable in the most “antipianistic” pianism of the 20th century, devoid of emphasis, restored to a welcoming, almost meditative dimension. Marco Maria Tosolini, Il Gazzettino, March 8th, 2023
Agnese Toniutti, among the greatest “performers” of contemporary classical music, interprets to perfection this summa of modern culture… And the pianist, in approaching the instrument, opts for the wonder of intonation and the delicacy of timbre. Guido Michelone, Alias – Il Manifesto, March 18th, 2023
Certainly there’s much to admire in the Italian pianist Agnese Toniutti’s centered rhythm, rich palette of dynamic nuances, and her sensitive textural delineation…Toniutti unquestionably conveys the music’s roots in dance, as well as Cage’s subtle humor. Her intelligent, well-written booklet notes discuss both the music and the process of getting it ready for performance.
Jed Distler, Classics Today.com, April 3rd, 2023
This is a very enjoyable recording whether it is to be a collector’s only recording of this music or one that stands most favorably in comparison to previous recordings. If this is to be your first recording of this work or if you simply want to hear another interpretation, you will not be disappointed. This is a wonderful performance. […] Keep your eyes and ears open for Agnese Toniutti, an advocate for and a master of the avant garde.
Allan J.Cronin, New Music Buff, April 14th, 2023
…That is why this interpretation by Toniutti is sensational. We are listening to a Martian instrument; the technologization of the old piano is extreme and detected. Then there is the anti-solemn attitude of this performer who manages to bring to mind the amiability of Cage in the midst of games (also paradoxically evocative of the Baroque) that seem to take place among laboratory machines and not in front of the most matronly and bourgeois of keyboard instruments. Mario Gamba, Alias – Il Manifesto, April 22nd, 2023
From the booklet of Sonatas&Interludes, Neuma Records
