Contemplations into the Radical Others // Dlugoszewski / Dun / Corner / Toniutti / Wang / Miller / Hespos / Kashian / Ensemble Musikfabrik

MaerzMusik 2023

“I wanted to help the ear hear sound for its own sake.” Spotlight on Lucia Dlugoszewski: Agnese Tonuitti and the Ensemble Musikfabrik reveal worlds of unexpected richness, textures, and resonances.

Subtle Matters – Lucia Dlugoszewski, Tan Dun, Philip Corner, Agnese Toniutti
For Agnese Toniutti a composition of such extensive imaginary sonic quality is Tan Dun’s “C-A-G-E, fingering for piano” (1994). Through the use of the so-called extended techniques, he transforms the piano into a relative of Chinese traditional instruments, using the typical Western compositional artifice of associating a pitch to every letter of the name Cage.
The encounter with Lucia Dlugoszewski’s work was much more unconventional. It started with a long investigation that began in Italy, with a bare name and a mysterious reference to one of her inventions, the “timbre piano”. Dlugoszewski’s music did not even have the guidance of a written paper, in order to make her own transcription Toniutti followed the recording of “Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does a Woman Love a Man?)” (1997/2000), performed by the composer. Other information she acquired from other scores for timbre piano and writings of Dlugoszewski.
With Philip Corner’s verbal indications and graphics generated from a precise musical intention, but at the same time required Toniutti to step into new domains of making choices of a compositional kind.

Space is a Diamond – Lucia Dlugoszewski, Jing Wang, Tamara Miller, Hans-Joachim Hespos, Mazyar Kashian, Ensemble Musikfabrik
In addition to Agnese Toniutti, the Ensemble Musikfabrik is also dedicated to Lucia Dlugoszewski, among other composers. One of her most famous compositions is “Space is a Diamond” – a lyrical and, at the same time, impulsive piece, charged with all kinds of experimental playing techniques. In 1970, when this trumpet solo with many rapid mute changes, simultaneous singing and blowing and virtuoso articulations was written, Lucia Dlugoszewski was 45 years old: “I wanted to help the ear hear sound for its own sake.”
About her work “Tender Theater Flight Nageire”, she wrote: “The first concern of all music in one way or another is to shatter the indifference of hearing, the callousness of sensibility, to create that moment of solution we call poetry, our rigidity dissolved when we occur reborn – in a sense, hearing for the first time. ‘Tender Theater Flight Nageire’ is actually a series of musical rituals involved somehow with the poetic roots of erotic experience.”

Programme
Subtle Matters
Lucia Dlugoszewski (1925-2000)
Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does a Woman Love a Man?)
for timbre piano (1997/2000)

Tan Dun (*1957)
C-A-G-E
fingering for piano (1994)

Philip Corner (*1933)
Toy Piano (2012)
Man in Field (the sound as “Hero”) (2020)
Small pieces of a Fluxus Reality (2018)
A really lovely piece made for & by Agnese (2019)

Space is a Diamond
Jing Wang (*1992)
Yan
for conch shell horn solo (2016)

Tamara Miller (*1992)
na rua – uma bola e um sol pobre – revira no lixo
for Trumpet and Percussion (2022)

Hans-Joachim Hespos (1938-2022)
li-lá
for two alphorns (1996)

Lucia Dlugoszewski
Space is a Diamond
for solo trumpet (1970)

Hans-Joachim Hespos
Ruhil
for cornet, tuba and bass trombone (1985)

Mazyar Kashian (*1991)
Rondo de facto
for one pebble (2020)

Lucia Dlugoszewski
Tender Theatre Flight Nageire
for brass quintet and orchestra of inventend percussion instruments (1971, rev. 1978)

Cast
Agnese Toniutti piano, timbre piano, toy piano
Ensemble Musikfabrik
Marco Blaauw trumpet, cornet, alphorn, co-curator
Maxime Morel tuba, alphorn
Dirk Rothbrust percussion, co-curator
Matthias Schwengler trumpet
Christine Chapman horn, shell horn
Bruce Collings trombone

Funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes