Camillo Togni

Camillo Togni (1922-1993), from Gussago near Brescia, studied piano with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and composition with Franco Margola and Alfredo Casella, then turned away from neoclassicism towards Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique. He attended the Darmstadt Ferienkurse from 1950 to 1955 while staying independent of both aleatoric music and Darmstadt orthodoxy. This disc, the first Naxos recording by the Venetian Ex Novo Ensemble, follows his chamber music across three decades, from 1950 to 1980.

The players are pianist Aldo Orvieto, flautist Daniele Ruggieri, violinist Carlo Lazari, guitarist Piero Bonaguri and others from the ensemble, with soprano Lorna Windsor. They recorded in the church of Sant’Apollinare at Lonigo, near Vicenza, on 9 and 11 September 2008. In the Three Studies on Morts sans sépulture, Op. 31, Togni set Sartre for the first time, with a serial technique Mauro Ferrante’s booklet note calls not yet orthodox; the third song ends on a piano ostinato depicting falling rain. The Flute Sonata, Op. 35 (1953) was first played at Darmstadt in 1954 by Severino Gazzelloni with the composer at the piano. In the Violin Sonata, Op. 37 of 1955 themes give way to continuous variation, and only the dance shapes of Sarabande and Rondo remain. The pointillist Piece for guitar and cello of 1959 is built in twelve sections. The String Trio of 1978-80 takes its movement titles, Angry, Tortured and Burning, from words Stravinsky used for Schoenberg’s face, and shares its tone row with Togni’s opera Blaubart. The Five Pieces for flute and guitar of 1975-76 honour Luigi Dallapiccola through fragments of Anacreon, and Two Preludes for piccolo close the disc. The violin sonata and the guitar and cello piece are marked as world premiere recordings.

Naxos CD 8.572074, released in 2009 in the series 19th/20th Century Italian Classics, with booklet notes in English and Italian; the sung texts are not printed.