Contemplations into the Radical Others

This section of the evening is a unique exploration of the piano’s sonic possibilities beyond its body. Pianist Agnese Toniutti employs various techniques to uncover the instrument’s unexpected richness, textures and resonances. Her journey delves into the imaginative worlds of the three composers and how their individual searches each shaped the concept of the piano. Lucia Dlugoszewski’s “Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?)” (1997, rev. 2000) is a piece for “timbre piano,” a transformation of the instrument’s sonic identity that earned critical recognition with a new name. Dlugoszewski, a pioneering figure of the last century, created an original sound universe that is not widely recognised. Since no score of the work was available, Toniutti has conducted extensive research to be able to present it. Tan Dun’s “C-​A-G-E fingering for piano” (1994) bridges traditional East and contemporary West. The piano becomes a “relative” of Chinese traditional instruments and pays homage to John Cage, one of the most revolutionary Western composers of the 20th century. Tan Dun uses the Flemish compositional device of associating a pitch to every letter of Cage’s name. And Philip Corner, an American composer based in Italy, explores the piano as an open field where all means of sound production are welcome, and the keyboard is one among many. The priority is the realisation of the compositional idea of each piece, moving within the boundaries of a few written indications that turn into poetry, as the author says. The concert “Subtle Matters” features three distinct sonorous and musical worlds that reshape the piano in different ways. Yet they all share one common trait: to inspire wonder while listening and reach “a hearing whose moment in time is always daybreak,” as Lucia Dlugoszewski once wrote.

In the second part of the concert programme, Ensemble Musikfabrik presents Dlugoszewski’s challenging composition for solo trumpet “Space is a Diamond” and one of her better-​known ensemble works “Tender Theatre Flight Nageire”. This is followed by works by Hans Joachim Hespos (1938–2022), an autodidactic composer whose music defied categorisation throughout his career. The evening also includes works by Jing Wang, whose fascination with the variety of sound led her explore the sonic qualities of the shell horn. The works of Tamara Miller and Mazyar Kashian enter a conversation with Dlugoszewski’s pieces that reveals their highly experimental and inventive character. “The stuff is very fresh and new and with the very reduced material forms a nice counterpoint to ‘Tender Theatre Flight Nageire’,” says Dirk Rothburst, the percussionist of Ensemble Musikfabrik. “Space is a Diamond” includes various “calligraphies” of speed, that often only stripe the outermost registers, leaving a toneless void in between, or spiralling parabolas of melodic variations in calligraphic flights. “‘Tender Theatre Flight Nageire’ is actually a series of musical rituals involved somehow with the poetic roots of erotic experience. Its nakedness of spirit requires a special courage all its own, the courage of vulnerability in terms of letting out feeling, something perilously real with a fierce fragile ambience of elegance, sensitivity, and that radiance of the highest energy release in the mind we call passion. Rituals of sound involving both immediacy and Amor combine to create the musical structure.” (Lucia Dlugoszewski)