Camillo Togni

Camíllo Togní was born in Gussago (Brescia) on October 18, 1922. He began studying the piano at the age of seven, first under the guidance of Alfredo Casella (Rome and Siena) and Giovanni Anfossi (Milan), then by Arturo Benedetti Michelangelí (Brescia), graduating from the Parma Conservatory in 1946. In Brescia he followed his classical studies, obtaining a degree in philosophy at the University of Pavía in 1948, with a thesis on Aesthetics of Croce and the problem of musical interpretation. At the same time he began studying composition in Brescia with Franco Margola (1936? 1939) and then continued it in Rome and Siena with Alfredo Casella (1939? 1943). He performed concerts as a pianist until 1953, after that date he performed only his music in public. Very impressed by Arnold Schónberg's performance of music, which he was given to attend for the first time in 1938, he developed in those years a growing interest in the second Vienna School. In 1940 he initiated that decisive approach to the method of serial composition which, in the historical context of expressionism, now attracted him as a vocation. For his knowledge of the German musical Expressionism movement and Schónberg's scores, Togni found in those first years of war a rare help in Luigi Rognoni's friendship. From 1951 to 1957 he attended the Feríenkurse in Darmstadt. In 1953 he was invited by the "Congrès pour la líberté de la Culture" in Paris to write an opera for the Festival de "La Musique du XX síècle" held the following year in Rome (Research, for baritone and five instruments). The City of Darmstadt commissioned him in 1954 the cycle of Cinque Líeder for soprano and piano Helian based on a text by Georg Trakl. 1 Rondeaux for ten won the S.I.M.C. for chamber music in 1965 and the performance at the Madrid Festival in May of the same year. He held courses on contemporary music, from 1960 to 1961, at the University for Foreigners of Florence. Called to the Conservatory of Parma, he held the chair of the higher course of Composition from 1977 to 1988. From autumn 1989 he taught at the special Composition Courses of the Music School of Fiesole. His works have been presented several times at the Venice Film Festival, at the Festivals of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Brussels, in Cologne, in Madrid, at the Contemporary Music Weeks in Palermo, at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne and at the Ferienkurse in Darmstadt, where he was guest of honor in 1990. He died in his home in Brescia on November 28, 1993.