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Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel (December 24, 1931–September 18, 2008) was a German-Argentine composer who was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance.

Biography

Kagel was born into a Jewish family which fled from Russia in the 1920s. He studied music, history of literature, and philosophy in Buenos Aires. In 1957 he came as a scholar to Cologne, Germany, where he lived until his death.

From 1960–66 and 1972–76 he taught at the International Summer School at Darmstadt.

He taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1964 to 1965 as Slee Professor of music theory and at the Berlin Film and Television Academy as a visiting lecturer. He served as director of courses for new music in Gothenburg and Cologne. He was professor for new music theatre at the Cologne Conservatory from 1974 to 1997.

Among his students were Maria de Alvear, Carola Bauckholt, Branimir Krstić, David Sawer and Juan Maria Solare.

He died in Cologne on September 18, 2008 after a long illness, at the age of 76.

Works

Many of his pieces give specific theatrical instructions to the performers, such as to adopt certain facial expressions while playing, to make their stage entrances in a particular way, to physically interact with other performers and so on. His work comparable to the Theatre of the Absurd.

Staatstheater (1971) is probably the piece that most clearly shows his absurdist tendency. This work is described as a "ballet for non-dancers", though in many ways is more like an opera, and the devices it used as musical instruments include chamber pots and even enema equipment. As the work progresses, the piece itself, and opera and ballet in general, becomes its own subject matter. Similar is the radio play Ein Aufnahmezustand (1969) which is about the incidents surrounding the recording of a radio play.

Kagel also made films, with one of the best known being Ludwig van (1970), a critical interrogation of the uses of Beethoven's music made during the bicentenary of that composer's birth. In it, a reproduction of Beethoven's composing studio is seen, as part of a fictive visit of the Beethoven House in Bonn. Everything in it is papered with sheet music of Beethoven's pieces. The soundtrack of the film is a piano playing the music as it appears in each shot. Because the music has been wrapped around curves and edges, it is somewhat distorted, but recognisably Beethovenian motifs can still be heard. In other parts, the film contains parodies of radio or TV broadcasts connected with the "Beethoven Year 1770". Kagel later turned the film into a piece of sheet music itself which could be performed in a concert without the film - the score consists of close-ups of various areas of the studio, which are to be interpreted by the performing pianist.

Other pieces include Con Voce (With Voice), where a masked trio silently mimes playing instruments and Match (1964), a tennis game for cellists with a percussionist as umpire, also the subject of one of Kagel's films and perhaps the best-known of his works of instrumental theatre.

Kagel also wrote a large number of more conventional, "pure" pieces, including orchestral music, chamber music, and film scores. Many of these also make references to music of the past by, amongst others, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, and Liszt.

He has been regarded by music historians as deploying a critical intelligence interrogating the position of music in society.

Notes

References

Attinello, Paul. 2001. "Kagel, Mauricio." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
Decarsin, François. 1985. "Liszt’s Nuages gris and Kagel’s Unguis incarnatus est: A Model and Its Issue", translated by Jonathan Dunsby. Music Analysis 4, no. 3:259–63.
Griffiths, Paul. 1978. A Concise History of Modern Music: From Debussy to Boulez. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500181675. (Originally published as A Concise History of Avant-garde Music: from Debussy to Boulez. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. ISBN 0195200446 (cloth), ISBN 0195200454 (pbk.). Reissued as Modern Music: A Concise History from Debussy to Boulez. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1985. ISBN 0500201641. Revised edition, as Modern Music: A Concise History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1994. ISBN 0500202788.)
Griffiths, Paul. 1981. "Unnecessary Music: Kagel at 50". Musical Times 122:811–12.
Heile, Björn. 2006. The Music of Mauricio Kagel. Aldershot, Hants; Burlington, VT: Ashgate. ISBN 0754635236
Klüppelholz, Werner. 1981. Mauricio Kagel 1970-1980. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag. ISBN 3770112466
Nonnenmann, Rainer. 2008. " Komponist Mauricio Kagel gestorben". Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (18 September). (Accessed 18 September 2008)
Reich, Wieland. 1995. Mauricio Kagel: Sankt-Bach-Passion: Kompositionstechnik und didaktische Perspektiven. Saarbrücken: Pfau-Verlag. ISBN 3930735210
Schnebel, Dieter. 1970. Mauricio Kagel: Musik, Thater, Film. Cologne: M. DuMont Schauberg.
Tadday, Ulrich. 2004. Mauricio Kagel. Munich: Edition Text + Kritik. ISBN 3883777617
Warnaby, John. 1986. "Bach according to Kagel: St Bach Passion". Tempo, no.156:38–39.
Zarius, Karl-Heinz. 1977. Staatstheater von Mauricio Kagel: Grenze und Ubergang. Vienna: Universal Edition. ISBN 3702401253