Agnese Toniutti

Italian pianist Agnese Toniutti is often praised for her monographic performances, in which she interprets the oeuvres of her experimental forebears, whether they are as famous as John Cage or as little-known as Lucia Dlugoszewski, whose Exacerbated Subtlety Concert Toniutti laboriously restored from fragmented notations and recordings. At Blank Forms, she will present an exceptionally varied program, which unites compositions from several fellow Italians (whether by birth or by adopted homeland), including (but not limited to) Giacinto Scelsi (1905–1988), Giancarlo Cardini (1940–2022), and Philip Corner (1933–). Toniutti’s selection suggests her twin interests in the physical and spiritual challenges of formal innovation. While these composers pushed each other to more provocative gestures—a famous Corner score prohibits the pianist from touching the instrument’s keys; Cardini slapped himself in the face during a notorious bit of pianistic theatre—they also diligently refined their music to its most focused and devoted form. Scelsi emulated the seemingly single-tone chants of monks of India, while Cardini sought to express the gradual, restrained pace of nature. In one of Toniutti’s selections, “Foglie d’autunno lentamente trascolorano,” the pianist can only proceed as slowly as autumn leaves change color.