Peter~Anthony Togni

What a pleasure to hear Peter Togni in the Tempo slot this week. Wish we had more time with him regularly during the week!
Best regards from Washington state.

Looking (and sounding) good, Peter. I’ve been following your amazing career, lo these many years, my friend. Hoping you are well at this most FESTIVE (yet again the word of the week) time of year.

Peter: Oh, Please stay on Tempo! What a treat to have your voice and intelligent comments – and not talking to us like we were college kids. No more “bands” instead of Orchestras! Your choral program being on later cuts into church time, so have to miss half. We need to go beyond the lowest common denominator – which is where we are now. A little more class for Tempo. Most times I just turn it off as it drives me nuts!. Good luck Evelyn

Thank you, Peter, for playing Dvorak’s “American Quartet” on Wednesday, July 21. You coincidentally described the music as being “bucolic” in contrast to much of American society today. “Bucolic”, however, would describe the setting where apparently Antonin ‘Dvorak composed this piece in the summer of 1893.

At the time he was living in the small Czech community of Spillville, as you correctly noted. Spillville is located in the northeast area of Iowa and is quite bucolic in its locale of gently rollling hills and the somewhat forrested countryside of this region.

We visited Spillville on a midwestern holiday last month and read in a tourist brochure that Dvorak received his inspiration for this piece from the neighbouring Turkey River where he is said to have fished !

St, Wenseclaus Roman Catholic Church is the building where the Dvorak family worshiped and where, from time to time, he would play the still existing organ for Masses and apparently also during his stay in the village for two weddings and a funeral.

The Dvorak home is the upstairs of what was a tinsmith operation below. The upstairs is now an interesting and well kept museum of Antonin and his life and work. It is claimed that he was so pleased with his newly found Czech community in the new world that he would have liked to have stayed “forever”.

This well marked building also contains on the first floor a fascinating collection of exquisitively carved and elaborate clocks by two farmer brothers (Frank and Joseph Bily) who left the entire collection to the town of Spillville upon their deaths in 1965 and 1964 respectively. According to local lore, Henry Ford had once offered the brothers a million dollars for one of them. The offer was turned down.

One additional note which may interest you: on the 19th of June in the Stockholm Cathedral (Lutheran) Crown Princess Victoria married Daniel Westling. Service music from this impressive event has now been released in a special CD made in the EU and produced by Ladybird AB, whose website is
http://www.ladybird.se in case you would be interested in an ecclectic and superb collection of pieces. One of them, composed espcially for the occasion, is entitled “When You Tell the World You’re Mine” by the Swedish version of Sir Elton John, Jo(e)rgen Elofsson. I believe this remarkable CD would bring pleasure to yourself and many listeners.

Thanks for your time in reading allof this and thank you for your interesting programme !

(Rev.) James Buenting