Always in personal conversation with infinity

It is often said that putting together a library or a music collection reflects the deepest essence of a person, their most intimate desires, curiosities and sometimes hopes. Gathering hundreds of books or recordings requires a diverse education to begin with, possibly growing out of a passion rooted at a young age, cultivated as we grow older and perhaps "transmitted by contagion" from family members, friends and acquaintances. Our reading and music preferences represent immersion in a world we would like to live in, a sanctuary of the mind and often the body, as listening to music or a pleasant book can release healing and happiness-inducing endorphins.

Invitation to beauty

Thus, when we were allowed to enter Emilio and Stefania Bortoluzzi's large house in Velate (Italy), we could immediately grasp the essence of their characters through its large bookcases and shelves full of CDs and DVDs. An invitation to beauty and proof that science and humanism are perfectly compatible and can support each other, as both spouses were doctors but were continuously searching for their deepest purpose, inspired by extensive reading and music enjoyment. When Emilio drew new energy for his poetic writing from the books, retreating to his study to find rhymes and express feelings and memories, Stefania would put on a Deutsche Grammophon LP in the large, frescoed living room and follow the stages of her life in her armchair with music as her constant companion. She had already inhaled art music in the air of the Milan house where she was born, with her mother Alice Claius, a singer from Leipzig, an excellent song interpreter and pianist, in the house music evenings she experienced there, which later also became a custom in Velate, with the inestimable pleasure of having the dearest friends around her. 

Passion for legendary recordings

Let's try to get closer to Stefania Longoni Bortoluzzi by "investigating" her music collection. This points to some of the cornerstones of the personality of the doctor, who worked for 34 years as an anaesthetist at the Circolo Hospital in Varese, where her husband was head of the intensive care unit: legendary recordings with possibly not "historically informed" performers, as those who perform early music are called today, but who instead displayed exceptional charisma and artistic rigor.

There is Karl Richter with the Bach Passions, all of the cantor's keyboard music, interpreted by Angela Hewitt, whom we will talk about later, the Beethoven of the symphonies and concertos, the Mozart for piano and opera, Karajan's most famous recordings. Above all, however, we find a large collection of songs - Stefania's deepest passion. She had a perfect command of German, knew the texts of songs by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wolf and Strauss by heart and enjoyed the works of Richard Wagner in the original language. The Romantics, exactly, and we also add Chopin, of course played by Rubinstein, although Maurizio Pollini also appeared as an interpreter on some recordings, or Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, or the great Dino Ciani, who died far too early.

This particular preference might seem like a contradiction, because Stefania Longoni was a pragmatic person, without much frippery, very direct, and yet her taste in music suggests something quite different, namely a deeply romantic spirit. Perhaps this is the result of her years in Milan, where the young woman studied piano with her mother and discovered treasures in the poems of German poets such as Uhland, Klopstock, Müller, Brentano and, of course, Goethe. Her secret remained in the titles of the records, each of which she remembered, whose interpreters she could name and pass judgment on their performance. But she always preferred to listen to very specific authors, reciting them inwardly as veritable "mantras" before putting the records on.

With the sensitivity of a musician

As a child, Stefania heard her mother sing her mother's song repertoire, and she played the piano until she was eight years old, but did not feel ready to embark on a concert career. Music was always in her, however, and she kept it alive by listening to and getting to know great performers, whom she followed to concert halls all over Europe. The doctor, who put thirty thousand patients to sleep while holding their hands during anesthesia, compiled her music collection with the utmost care and expertise and remembered the many live concerts she had attended: Benedetti Michelangeli at La Scala, Herbert von Karajan in Salzburg, Bernhard Haitink at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and then Bernstein, Pollini, Sokolov, Fischer-Dieskau, Harnoncourt, Herreweghe - all the names stood on the shelves like friends she could "call" when there was an urgent acoustic need.

As a child, she was lucky enough to meet Victor De Sabata, who was once a guest at her parents' house. She played something for him on the piano and received compliments, then she heard him at La Scala Tristan and Isolde and it was an unforgettable experience. But her idol among conductors was Karajan, about whom she read articles and biographies and from whom she collected entire boxes of Beethoven and Brahms recordings, but also of operas that shaped an era, such as the legendary Bohemian with Mirella Freni and Luciano Pavarotti in their vocal prime. She loved watching the great video recording of Beethoven's Ninth with the Berliner Philharmoniker over and over again, repeating that no one else would be able to play it like that. She listened with the ear and sensitivity of a musician, not an amateur, grasping every nuance of the score and enjoying comparing different interpretations of the same piece.

The way inwards

Her passion for music was contagious, so much so that she also got her husband Emilio, who loved listening to jazz, to become enthusiastic about classical music and attend concerts with her. At the piano competition dedicated to Dino Ciani, Stefania Longoni had one of her most important encounters in the world of music - with the Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt, then unknown and very young, who later became like a daughter to her. Angela came to Casa Bortoluzzi to practice in the piano room, especially in the spring and fall when she was on tour in Italy. Stefania accompanied her every year to the festival on Lake Trasimeno, which the artist organized, and never missed an edition until 2018. Her music collection included the complete collection of Angela Hewitt's recordings, which played a key role in renewing the doctor's passion for Johann Sebastian Bach, as the Canadian artist is one of his most important living interpreters. Stefania Longoni loved to travel, and not a trip went by without her taking the opportunity to hear a live concert, whether in Stresa, Amsterdam, Salzburg or Berlin, at La Scala in Milan or at the Metropolitan in New York. As she grew older, she became more selective and approached more introspective composers and works: Bach, the late Beethoven, Brahms, the late Schubert sonatas, some songs by Schumann, but also operas that she had perhaps heard less often when she was younger.

The music patron

Stefania and Emilio Bortoluzzi were patrons of music and supported the municipal music season in Varese from the very beginning, which was directed by Fabio Sartorelli, musicologist and lecturer at the "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatory in Milan. Among other things, Stefania donated a lighting system for the concerts, bought various subscriptions every year, which she then gave to the people she cared about, and invited various musicians to the large house in Velate to rehearse, including Leonidas Kavakos and the pianist Enrico Pace, the violinist Vilde Frang and the young Beatrice Rana, who was still unknown on the international stage at the time.

Now the music collection that Stefania Longoni has lovingly compiled over many years is part of the library of the Fondazione Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana, to be of use to those who deal with music every day. And when you look at the list of titles, the soul of the woman who left her mark on this collection is emphatically revealed, as in the large hall of the villa in Velate, where science always gave way to an intimate and personal conversation with infinity.

Mario Chiodetti is a journalist, actor and writer. He lives in Varese (I).