Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel Raúl ( born December 24, 1931 in Buenos Aires, † September 18, 2008 in Cologne ) was a German -Argentine composer, conductor, librettist and director. His oeuvre includes not only instrumental music and works for the musical theater and the composition and production of radio plays and films; he made ​​an important contribution to contemporary music of the second half of the 20th century.

Life

Mauricio Kagel was born in 1931 in Buenos Aires in a Jewish family that had fled in the 1920s from Russia. Early on, he received private music lessons and worked in Buenos Aires as a film critic, a rehearsal pianist and conductor, including at the Teatro Colon. Kagel had attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in the 1950s. In 1957, he traveled with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service to Germany.

From 1960 he was a lecturer at the Darmstadt Summer Courses. In 1968 it came eV in cooperation with Wolf Vostell and other establishing the laboratory, which should explore acoustic and visual events. In 1969 he was appointed director of the Institute for New Music at the Rheinische Music School in Cologne and, in place of Karlheinz Stockhausen, head of the Cologne Courses for New Music ( to 1975 ); In 1974 he was appointed professor of music theater at the Cologne Musikhochschule.

Kagel was a founding member of the Ensemble for New Music in Cologne and has worked in the electronic studios in Cologne, Munich and Utrecht. Kagel conducted many of his works himself, and was director and producer of all his films and radio plays. On the occasion of his 75th birthday, he performed - symbol of the German - Argentine cultural dialogue - in July 2006 at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, at the Goethe -Institut and the Teatro Margarita Xirgu with concerts, open rehearsals and lectures. Prior to his last concert appearance in Argentina in the seventies had been. It started with his piece a breeze, volatile action for 111 cyclists who " trilling, warbling " only passing by at the Teatro. Although he remained Argentines, the music criticism sees there Mauricio Kagel as " German composer ".

Invited by Walter Fink, he was in 1991 the second composer in the annual composer's portrait of the Rheingau Musik Festival.

In the season 2006/2007 was Mauricio Kagel " Artist in Residence" at the Philharmonie Essen and was there to experience also as a conductor. In the same year he was composer in residence at the University of Music and Theatre in Rostock. At a symposium in June 2007 at the University of Siegen, he received an honorary doctorate in philosophy. Mauricio Kagel lived until his death in Cologne.

Kagel has received numerous awards and prizes for his work and is represented on all important festivals for contemporary music. With him, have studied include: Maria de Alvear, Carola Bauckholt, Theo Brandmüller, Martyn Harry, Bernhard König, Klaus König, Branimir Krstic, Yves- Miro Magloire, Dominik bag, Juan María Solare, Manos Tsangaris, Chao -Ming Tung, John S. Sistermanns, Ulrich Wagner and Daniel Weissberg.

Work and impact

Kagel is regarded as the most important representative of " instrumental theater ", a kind of ritualized Konzertakt, in the visible side effects of playing music ( facial expressions, gestures, actions) are included. An impressive example of his music theater works is state theater, even had to be performed due to threatening letters under police protection. Kagel even developed its own instruments and playing techniques, about the movie a two-man orchestra or instrumental theater Exotica. The scores represent sometimes comically original consistently not only the expectations of the performer but also the audience on the head. Also in the works for the concert hall played theatrics and visible music is always a big part. So the soloist crashes in concert piece for timpani and orchestra at the end headfirst into his instrument. Other works relate everyday objects ( Acustica ) and a noise with. The use of electronics and tape passing, but also references to traditional music were, of course, for the cosmos of Kagel's music.

Honors, Memberships

Works (selection)

Stage Works

  • State Theatre. Scenic Composition (1967 /70), UA at the Hamburg State Opera in 1971
  • Mare nostrum. Discovery, pacification and conversion of the Mediterranean by a tribe from the Amazon. Dramatic acting for counter-tenor, baritone, flute, oboe, guitar, harp, cello and percussion ( 1975)
  • Kantrimiusik. Pastorale for voices and instruments (1975 )
  • The depletion of the world. Scenic illusion in an elevator (1980 )
  • From Germany. An opera songs (1981 )
  • The oral treason (La Trahison oral ). A musical epic about the devil for 3 speaker / performer and 7 instrumentalists ( 1981-83. German text by Thomas Körner )
  • Tantz school. Ballet d'action (1988 )

Vocal works

  • Prince Igor - Stravinsky, a requiem for Igor Stravinsky for bass voice and instruments (1982 )
  • Sankt -Bach - Passion - for soloists, chorus and large orchestra ( premiered 1985)
  • Mitternachtsstük ( 1980-81/86 ) for voices and instruments on four fragments from the diary of Robert Schumann
  • A letter - concert scene for mezzo- soprano and orchestra (1986 )
  • Quodlibet - Cantata for female voice and orchestra by French chanson texts from the XV. Century (1986 /88)
  • Liturgies for soloists, double chorus and large orchestra (1989 /90)
  • Garbled messages - for baritone and instruments (1992 )
  • Duodramen - for soprano, baritone and orchestra (1997/ 98)
  • Black Madrigal - for choir, trumpet, tuba and 2 percussionists (1998 /99)
  • Kidnapping in the concert hall - concertante opera (2000)
  • In the mattress grave - for solo tenor and instrumental ensemble (2008)

Orchestral works

  • Dos piezas - for orchestra ( 1952)
  • Cuatro piezas breves para orquesta de cuerdas ( Four Pieces for String Orchestra, 1954 /56, UA posthumously 2011)
  • Ten Marches to Miss victory, for wind orchestra (1979 )
  • Music for keyboard instruments and orchestra (1987 /88)
  • Les idées fixes ( Rondo for Orchestra 1988/89)
  • Opus 1991 ( concert piece for orchestra, 1990)
  • Concert Piece for Timpani and Orchestra ( 1990-92 )
  • The pieces of the compass - 9 pieces for Salon Orchestra (formed from 1988-1994)
  • Études for large orchestra (1st 1992, 2nd 1995/96, 3 1996)
  • Broken Chords for large orchestra (2000/ 01)
  • The concert - Concerto for flute, harp, percussion and strings (2001/ 02)
  • Foreign Sounds & reverberations - for large orchestra (2005)

Chamber Music / Ensemble works / instrumental theater

  • Heterophony - for non-European instruments (1961 )
  • Sur scène (1962 )
  • The sound - for five players (1968 )
  • Exotica - For non-European instruments (1971 /72)
  • Sound Wolves - for violin and piano (1979 )
  • Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano ( 1985)
  • From the estate - for viola, cello and double bass ( 1981-86 )
  • Fanfanfaren for 4 trumpets (1993 )
  • Shadow sounds - three pieces for bass clarinet (1995 )
  • Type bruit ( for drummers and assistants, 1994/95 )
  • A Deux Mains - Impromptu for piano (1995 )
  • Orchestrion - Straat - for chamber ensemble (1996 )
  • Second piano trio, completed on September 11, 2001 ( extracted from kidnapping in the concert hall )
  • Divertimento? - Farce for ensemble (2005/2006)
  • Musi for Plucked Instruments

Radio plays

  • ( Radio play ) A receiving state, WDR 1969 ( Karl Sczuka price).
  • Good morning, WDR 1971.
  • Indoor, WDR 1971.
  • Test - Tests for an impromptu collective, WDR 1971.
  • Soundtrack, WDR 1975.
  • The reversal of America, WDR 1976 ( Prix Italia ).
  • The Tribune, WDR 1979 ( Hörspielpreis the Kriegsblinden ).
  • Rrrrrrr ... - A Radio imagination, WDR 1982.
  • After a reading of Orwell, WDR / RB 1984.
  • Cecilia: Plundered. A visit to the Holy, WDR 1985
  • The oral treason. A musical epic about the devil, WDR 1987.
  • Mare Nostrum - discovery, pacification and conversion of the Mediterranean by a tribe from Amazonia, WDR 1992.
  • Near and far. Radio piece for bells and trumpets with background, WDR 1994 ( Karl Sczuka price).
  • Playback Play, WDR 1997.
  • Premature sale - Unfinished Memoirs of a sound engineer, WDR 2004.
  • Erratic boulders - Radio piece of acoustic images, SWR / HR 2008.

Movies

  • Antithesis. Game for a performer with electronic sounds public (1965, b / w, 19 min)
  • Match. For three players (1966, b / w, 27 min; abridged version of 1970: 21 mins)
  • Solo ( 1967, b / w, 26 min)
  • Duo ( 1967/68, b / w, 41 min)
  • Hallelujah (1968 /96 b / w, 47 min)
  • Ludwig van. A report (1970, b / w, 100 min)
  • Two - piece orchestra. For two one-man orchestra (1973, color, 71 min)
  • Undercurrent (1975, color, 20 min )
  • Kantrimiusik. Pastorale in Pictures (1976, color, 50 min )
  • Phonophonie. Four melodramas (1979, color, 38 min)
  • Blue's Blue. An ethnomusicological reconstruction for four musicians (1981, b / w, 31 min)
  • MM 51 Version 1: A piece of film music for piano (1983, b / w, 10 min)
  • MM 51 Version 2: A piece of movie music for piano and the projection of a collage of Mauricio Kagel from FW Murnau Nosferatu (1922 ) (1983, b / w, 10 min)
  • Scenario. Music for Un Chien Andalou ( Luis Buñuel's film: 1929, Music: 1982, b / w, 17 min)
  • Er. TV play about a radio Imagination (1984, b / w and color, 40 min, with Gert Hauke ​​)
  • Dressage (1985, color, 36 min)
  • Mitternachtsstük (1987, color, 36 min)
  • Repertoire (1990, color, 57 min)
  • Intermezzo
  • Ex - position (55 min )
  • Bestiary (2000, color, 37 min)

Writings

  • Mauricio Kagel: Words about music. Discussions, essays, speeches, radio plays. Piper -Schott, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-492-18320-4; (Series Music: Piper, Scotland, Vol 8320 ).
  • Mauricio Kagel: fanfare. Monologues and dialogues with the music. Articles, radio manuscripts, lectures and discussion edited by Felix Schmidt. Piper, Munich, 1975, ISBN 3-492-02126-3.
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