RIP Mauricio Kagel

Kagel Triple curse: writing obituaries is depressing.

Two days ago, Mauricio Kagel passed away. An Argentine who moved to Germany in 1957, Kagel was always a provocative and diverse figure in the European music scene.

Interested in musical theater, in the "scenic" aspect of music as much as in music itself, he created works that transcended both these aspects, to the point of qualifying as metamusical works. From Exotica (1971-72) and Der Schall (1968), in which the performers, who are usually experts on the instrument, are forced to deal with instruments they do not know how to play, to Musik fur Renaissance Instrumente (1965/66) where ancient instruments are used to create completely new sounds, up to lucidly provocative works such as Con voce (1972), where three silent actors appear on stage and, after a long, undaunted silence, mime short fragments of a concert, in ridiculous and irreverent attitudes, or Recitativarie (1971-72), where a harpsichordist-singer stages a delirious musical reading, or again Match (1964) for two cellos and percussion, which is the musical transcription of a meeting of boxing.

I would also like to mention Hétérophonie (1961), a piece for orchestra composed entirely of other composers' material, drawn from works by 20th-century composers such as Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Ravel, Varèse, Boulez, and Stockhausen. Quotation taken to excess and made art.

It is fair to say that, in Kagel, music became theater and sometimes even film, as in Ludwig van (1970), one of his best-known works. It is a reproduction of a fictional visit to Beethoven's studio in his home in Bonn. Many scenes are covered with Beethoven's scores, and the soundtrack consists of the musical excerpts that appear in the scores inserted into the shots. The music appears to be distorted in timbre, and its sound is distorted, yet the authentic Beethoven melodies are still recognizable. In other scenes, the film features parodies of radio and television broadcasts related to the commemoration of "Beethoven Year 1770."

His output, in various fields, is so vast that it's impossible to give it the space it deserves here, but we'll talk about it later.

Mauricio Kagel – Musik fur Renaissance Instrumente (1965/66)
Collegium instrumentale, conducted by Mauricio Kagel
FLAC format

You can find more of Kagel's music/films at AGP (num. 2, 40, 41, 104) and UBUWeb.

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