Catholic Register Interview

Peter Togni finds hope in the darkness

Thursday, 19 November 2009

Written by Michael Swan

TORONTO - Chances are you won’t hear Peter Togni’s new concerto for bass clarinet and choir at a Holy Week Tenebrae service in your parish — even if the composer really wants the work to be used in that particular liturgy. The concerto requires more than just a very good choir and soprano soloist. There’s also the matter of a virtuoso bass clarinetist capable of improvising through about 30 per cent of the score.

But the new ECM recording of the work, due on store shelves Nov. 17, might well afford some insights into the prophet who insisted in giving Israel lessons in how to be human.

Lamentatio Jeremiae Propheate: Concerto for Bass Clarinet and Choir is about more than the dire complaints of the Old Testament’s grim performance artist.

"I didn’t want to tell just this really dark, apocalyptic, awful story," Togni told The Catholic Register. 'For me, though it’s a fairly dark journey, even the way the piece ends there’s a lot of hope in it."

Togni sees Jeremiah as "someone who tells the truth and is disregarded." That makes Jeremiah’s story both timeless and contemporary.

"Yes, it comes out of my Roman Catholic practice. And yes, it comes out of mysticism and all these things," said Togni. "But in the world today - where we’ve got environmental issues, we’ve got war, we’ve got psychological war - we have so much unrest and so many people who I think are telling the truth and are disregarded."

Togni has the musical challenge of writing a concerto that is also an oratorio, rendering the voice of Jeremiah in the bass clarinet, but also communicating the text through the choir. But the challenges aren’t just musical. He has also taken on a concerto with a dramatis personae - or at least one of the most dramatic characters in the Old Testament.

"Jeremiah did this kind of performance art," said Togni. "And he was thought to be kind of crazy."

The popular CBC Radio 2 host was to be in Toronto for a CD-launch performance by the Elmer Isler Singers at St. Anne’s Anglican Church Nov. 14.

Though Togni thinks of his composition as a liturgical work, he also believes Christian art should have a life outside of churches.

"I would love to see a performance of Lamentations not just in a church but in a foundry, in a cafe if it worked, or a factory."

Togni sees Jeremiah as "someone who tells the truth and is disregarded." That makes Jeremiah’s story both timeless and contemporary.

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