Mauricio Kagel – Fürst Igor, Strawinsky (1982)
for bass voice, English horn, French horn, tuba, viola and two percussionists

“Fürst Igor, Strawinsky” was commissioned for the Biennale in Venice on the occasion of the centenary of Stravinsky’s birth. It received its premiere performance in the church on the cemetery-island San Michele, where Stravinsky is buried. As hinted in Kagel’s note for the Biennale programme, the sacred, theatrical ambience of this location was a lasting source of inspiration to the composer, who is especially susceptible to spectular sites. However, it proved impossible to carry out Kagel’s original vision of a funeral procession of gondolas transporting the audience to the performance: a thunderstorm erupted at precisely the wrong moment, bringing this cortege to nought. All that remained was the concert in the cemetery chapel.

The piece is scored for a chamber ensemble of bass voice, English horn, French horn, tuba, viola and two percussionists. The instruments lie in the middle and low registers, creating a plush, darkening sound. Besides the conventional percussion instruments, there is also a series of unusual sound-producing devices of indefinite pitch such as iron chains, cocoanut shells, the roaring of lions, wooden planks, an anvil, ratchets and metal tubs. These too have largely a muffled timbre. Kagel – who once referred to timbre as the “paramount material” of a work – here proceeds from a precisely conceived sound-image with associations related to the meaning of the composition. This sound-image is expressed not only in the choice of instruments, but also in the numerous performance instructions included in the score with the aim of making the composer’s intentions as unambiguous as possible.

The text derives from Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor”. Apart from a few repetitions to heighten the expression and a cut required for the sake of compression, the composer retains the whole of the text to Igor’s aria in Act 2, in which the captive Prince sings of his despair at his own fate and that of prostrate Russia. A comparison of Kagel’s setting and Borodin’s original, however revealing of Kagel’s methods, cannot be undertaken here. However, we can at least give a rough sketch of the way in which the picture of Igor changes in this re-composition. In Borodin’s work the Prince, though imprisoned, is still in possession of his traits as a ruler, while Kagel’s work reduces him to a complainer who has sacrificed, if not his dignity, at least any sense of his station. He gives free rein to his feelings in a Lamento with pronounced elements of self-castigation; ultimately, his deep despair borders on insanity. This is apparent, for example, in a key passage beginning with the words “geschändet ist mein Ruhm” (my fame has been desecrated), to which Kagel devotes three times as much time as Borodin, and also in the dynamic and expressive climax of the work, just after the half-way point, where the soloist, at the words “und dafür gibt man mir die Schuld” (and I am held guilty of this), is told to break out into “desperate, distorted laughter”. In the long crescendo which precedes this climax the voice part, which had previously been notated precisely, is rendered only in approximate pitch-curves – the inner turmoil bursts the form.

Although this piece is unusually expressive by Kagel’s standards, it cannot simply be pigeon-holed as an “expressive composition”. Kagel’s espressivo capsizes into the grotesque. One sign of this is the nagging, crazed, laughing sounds required of the instruments; another is the direction to the soloist during the preceding crescendo to be “excessively dramatic”, and Kagel’s helpful suggestion that he try to caricature classical Japanese theatre. Seriousness and irony, tragedy and ridiculousness merge in this paradoxical piece, and Kagel makes use of the shifting expression like a mask behind which lie his feelings, now hidden, now exposed. It is not only in the pun of the title, in the neo-classical figures such as scalar passages and parallel 7th chords, but also in this masquerade that Kagel reveals his spiritual affinity with the secretive dedicatee of his piece.

Max Nyffeler (Translation: J. Bradford Robinson)

Mauricio Kagel: Speech delivered on 5 October 1982 in the Chiesa di San Michele in Isola, located in San Michele Cemetery, Venice, on the occasion of the world premiere of “Fürst Igor, Strawinsky”.

Dear Friends and Strangers,

The news of Stravinsky’s burial in Venice gave me pause at the time to consider whether a touch of the master’s irony might also be buried in this wish of his. He was so fond of the damp – especially of that kind which is surrounded by glass – that it must have given him untold pleasure to have found his final resting place in this unique city where dampness is ever-present. We, too, who honour his memory today in our jovial manner, should take satisfaction in his decision: Stravinsky is ideally preserved in Venice, and forever within easy reach of one of the most crucial necessities of his former daily existence.

And yet – what ambiguity!

For it was precisely in the dryness, the objectivity of his music that Stravinsky – that grandseigneur of the mind and body, never content unless food and service were of the highest calibre – discovered that dimension which enabled him to turn his eye inward with such infinite profundity. His works are living documents of an apparent dichotomy. Passion and computation, unfettered inspiration and rational ingenuity, the sacred and the heathen – all mutually fertilize each other to produce an oeuvre which is well described by several expressions from the musicians’ lingua franca :sempre con passione ma senza rubato; con molta tenerezza ma non piangendo; con piacere, mai a piacere; musica pratica ma non tanto, musica poetica al piu possibile, musica viva da capo al fine.

For me, it is of course a great distinction to honour Stravinsky on this occasion and in this public forum. I belong to a generation of composers who were left with the unpleasant legacy of a family feud to which, pro or contra, we had in fact nothing new to contribute. The choice posited in Schoenberg’s canon “Tonal oder Atonal” has long, indeed has always been a question of sensibility and intelligent application rather than a hard and fast principle. Today, we no longer bother our heads by confusing a method of composition with the aesthetic of craftsmanship. I hope this will remain so in music history for a long time to come.

Stravinsky had much to offer all of us who practice music as a mental discipline. For this reason, we composers – who view the possibility of musical expression as a confirmation for many things that make our lives worth living – are very much in his debt. The very existence of a classical composer – particularly (sarcasm notwithstanding) a “classical modern” composer – is a clear challenge to anyone dedicated to the discovery of new, present worlds of music. It is my firm hope that my “Fürst Igor, Strawinsky” will prove to our honoured forebear that a goodly portion of his ‘attitude and doctrine consisted nor merely of contradictions and opposites, but also of a high-minded twinkling of the eye. In this sense my work is intended as an homage, without ambiguity: senza doppio (colpo) di lingua.

[text from ANABlog]

Non fatevi ingannare dal titolo, non è musica antica. Questo, invece, è uno dei miei brani preferiti nella produzione di Mauricio Kagel. Forse anche uno dei più eversivi perché qui il compositore trae sonorità inaudite da un corpus strumentale, quello della musica antica, che nessuno aveva stravolto fino a questo punto.

In realtà avevo già pubblicato questo brano del 1965/66 senza alcun commento in occasione dell’epitaffio del suo autore, ma oggi lo ripropongo alla vostra attenzione, corredato dalle note dello stesso Kagel:

This work contains neither prediction, pointers to the future, nor a comforting return to the past: the use of Renaissance instruments here has no programmatic purpose in any general sense. The only decisive fact is that these instruments correspond to my tonal concept better than any present-day stringed and wind instruments could.

The systematic alienation of conventional instrumental sound, which comes into its own in the material and methods of the most modem music, seemed to me to justify an attempt, for once, to reverse the normally accepted view on the subject of the composition of tone colour. The individual quality of restraint which belongs to the nature of these Renaissance instruments made it all the easier for me to introduce each of them in its own unadulterated tonal character. While still a student of musicology in Argentina I began to sketch a similar piece, but I dropped the project at that time, since one of the essential conditions for bringing the idea to fruition-the formation of a truly orchestral ensemble of early instruments-could not then be fulfilled. In the renaissance of the Renaissance which we are now experiencing such an ensemble has become feasible, because copies of most of the instruments have recently been made, and numerous musicians have become proficient in playing them.

Only the formation of complete families of typical instruments, played by 23 musicians, could produce a sound picture true to the period in question. All the Renaissance instruments required for my composition were represented in the Theatrum Instrumentorum of the “Syntagma Musicum” by Michael Praetorius (1619). During recent years I have become so familiar with each of the instruments used that I could think out its tonal function afresh, and have been able to develop the performing techniques beyond the conventional limits. Even an instrument such as the recorder, which is closely associated with home and school music making of a very different kind, proved to be extremely versatile, and more suitable for use in new instrumental music than, for example, the transverse flute.

Each instrumental part of this work was composed like a solo line. However, the parts were put together as a full score, written in more or less normal notation. Other versions of the work are also possible, using any number of players from two to twenty-two, in every combination of instruments drawn from the original scoring. These reduced versions are entitled “Chamber Music for Renaissance Instruments”. The concept of an ad hoc orchestra made up of whatever instruments are available–in accordance with the performing practice of the Renaissance period–is here taken literally, so that a degree of variation is possible which cannot be foreseen by the composer. This work (1965/66) was written in memoriam Claudio Monteverdi. Nevertheless it contains no collages of old music.

Mauricio Kagel – Music for Renaissance Instruments (1965/66)
Collegium instrumentale, conducted by Mauricio Kagel
Il brano è scaricabile in formato flac dall’AGP40.

UBUWeb ha messo in linea una serie di film di Mauricio Kagel. Li trovate qui

Nel frattempo, ho trovato su YouTube questa esecuzione di Exotica (1971-1972), una composizione in cui sei esecutori di tradizione e cultura europea sono costretti a confrontarsi con musica e cultura extra-europea. In Exotica gli esecutori non sanno suonare gli strumenti che si trovano a maneggiare (almeno 10) perché provengono tutti da culture non europee. Proprio per questo la partitura prescrive essenzialmente durate e dinamiche, mentre la linea melodica è generalmente una monodia oppure si limita a intervalli vicini.

La partitura impone anche di cantare, a volte emettendo suoni più o meno snaturati. La voce è una parte molto importante del brano, tanto che, nei punti in cui un interprete sia impossibilitato ad eseguire insieme le parti strumentali e vocali, quest’ultima è prioritaria.

Esistono inoltre 12 nastri su cui è incisa autentica musica extra-europea, che gli esecutori devono imitare con un grado di accuratezza variabile, prescritto in partitura per i vari parametri.

Performer — Christoph Caskel, Michel Portal, Siegfried Palm, Theodor Ross, Vinko Globokar, Wilhelm Bruck.

Questa immagine vi dà un’idea di come erano conciati gli esecutori alla prima esecuzione

In questo podcast, dopo una breve presentazione, potete ascoltare Kagel che commenta, in inglese, il suo brano Anagrama del 1957-58, per soli, coro e ensemble, basato sul famoso palindromo In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni. Segue poi l’esecuzione dell’opera e al termine, Kagel risponde a domande di Pauline Oliveros, Ramon Sender, e Will Ogdon.

Il podcast proviene dalla stazione radio KPFA. Registrato nel 1963, è attualmente disponibile sull’Internet Archive, da cui è ascoltabile e scaricabile in MP3 a questo link.

Anagrama, for four soloists, speaking chorus, and chamber ensemble (1957/1958).

Per gli interessati ecco delle note al brano, in inglese, tratte dalla vecchia e non più disponibile edizione:

The composition “Anagrama” for four solo voices, speaking chorus, and instruments, written between February 1957 and November 1958, after preparatory work in Argentina, was given its first performance at the ICMS Festival in Cologne on nth June 1960. Nearly all the speech elements and sounds are derived from the palindrome on gnats and moths (wrongly attributed to Dante):

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
(we circle in the night and are consumed by fire)

whose completely symmetrical structure is the equivalent of Webern’s late twelve-tone rows. This is not a superficial comparison, for this piece, constructed in five sections and in three levels, represents no less than an attempt to match in vocal music the standard of synthetic sound differentiation based on Webern’s work achieved in electronic music of that period. Of course, “Anagrama” at the same time also has its sources in completely different worlds, above all in Romanic- Manneristic Surrealism, but also in the Romantic-Universalistic spirit, which was obsessed with the idea that everything was connected with everything else. Kagel uses German, French, Italian, and Spanish; Latin is reserved for the palindrome, whose vocabulary of sounds (i, n, g, r, u, m, s, o, c, t, e) is extended by transposing the letters into acoustical terms; the c of consumimur, for example is mutated into a German k or a Spanish q (as in queso), the k in turn – together with s – provides the German x (as in Xylophon). It is not the meaning of the words, then, but their sound values which are the most essential part of all sound, word, and text composition here – most obviously so in what Kagel calls “acoustical translation”. Pure sound imitation produces from the palindrome a sentence like: “In giro immoto notte e quieto ingu” (p. 36, b. 15). In line with Kagel’s conception of lexica as the “summa summarum of all permuration systems”, most of the new words are formed out of more or less regular rearrangements of the palindrome syllables. From “rum”, for example, the words rumor (Sp.: rumour), rue (Fr.: street), Ruhe (G.: rest), Russe (G.: Russian), and rustre (Fr.: boorish) are derived, and there is an effortless development with about 30 intermediate steps from rime (Fr.: rhyme), ruinoso (Sp.: ruinous) or ripieno (It.: full) to Regung (G.: movement, emotion etc.), Regen (G.: rain) and requiem – partly via regular, partly via associative word production.

The sentences formed from the new words are superimposed, as in a palimpsest, to form absurd dialogues, as in, for example: “Quien teme?” (Sp.: whom do you fear?) – “Tiens, mon Seigneur, ecoute un cri rôti” (Fr.: Well, sir, hear a roast cry) – “Je suis innocent” (Fr.: I am innocent). Or they are vaguely related: “Ein Ritter sitzt im Griinen” (G.: A knight sits in the open – “ieri ricino” (It.: castor-oil yesterday) – “er summt in seinem Eisen” (G.: He hums in his iron) – “oggi riposo” (It.: closed today). In general, a lack of syntactical connection between parts of sentences, dense polyphony, and an additional darkening of the sound (by use of vocal clusters, for example), combine to make such speech compositions almost totally incomprehensible. The phonetically written vocal sounds, the counterpart of the diversity of forms in the “Streichsextett”, form a compendium of articulation methods, resembling electronic amplitude and frequency modulation. Pursing of the lips, breathy notes, nasalization, diverse vibrati, etc., create a rich spectrum of individual tone colours and transitions which before this composition had been restricted to electronic sound synthesis. The instrumental articulation is also alienated. Their sound spectra and the connection of the palindrome letters with certain pitches aims at the acoustical integration of speech and music. That this does not lead to any kind of mechanical rigidity, but on the contrary, contributes towards a multifarious and large-scale structure is already made clear by the fact that identical connections only recur after 12 (pitches) times 11 (letters) =132 notes. In fact the form of the work is an implied criticism of the rigid formal structures of serial music; its ideal is constant transition even in the smallest elements – a concept derived partly from painting, in particular from Klee’s “visual thought”. “Anagrama”, then, is a passing tableau of colours and relationships which half conceals an anagrammatic form of semantics deriving from spontaneous and intentional associations and which occasionally descends from the heights of serial rationality – as in a passage of extreme density and intensity on which Kagel comments: “If these creams should awaken in the listener an impression that these are injured, suffering persons, then the chorus is to be heartily congratulated.”
Werner Kluppelholz (Translation: John Bell)

Uno dei desideri di Mauricio Kagel, compositore argentino di nascita (1931), ma tedesco di adozione, è sempre stato quello di “sabotare l’ascoltatore”. Ma con Der Schall (1968) (il suono, nell’accezione della fisica), Kagel riesce a sabotare anche gli esecutori.

In questo brano, infatti, il compositore demolisce la tradizionale struttura dell’esecuzione, in cui un esecutore iper-specializzato nel proprio strumento interpreta una partitura codificata, pensata e scritta per il suddetto strumento. Der Schall, invece, è per 5 esecutori e 54 strumenti, gran parte dei quali sono totalmente ignoti agli esecutori.

Le regole del brano, inoltre, sono concepite proprio per mettere questi ultimi in una situazione per loro inconsueta: quella di avere in mano uno strumento che non sanno suonare. Gli esecutori devono cambiare strumento spesso. La partitura stabilisce che:

1. nel corso dell’esecuzione ogni strumentista deve sperimentare un numero di strumenti pari almeno alla metà di quelli a lui disponibili e
2. ogni strumento non può essere utilizzato per più di un terzo della durata totale del pezzo.

In tal modo si assicura che la composizione dell’ensemble strumentale cambi continuamente. Una esecuzione come questa dura circa 36 minuti e dispone di 54 strumenti che sono stati suddivisi fra i 5 esecutori come segue (riporto i nomi in inglese dalle note di copertina):

1. Foghorn, spaghetti tube with trumpet mouthpiece, straight cornet, C-trumpet. baroque trumpet (clarino), plastic tubing with ringed joints, tromba d a tirarsi, short tube with plastic funnel, 20 meters of garden hose with plastic funnel, antilope horn, various mutes and mouthpieces.
2. Conch trumpet, pandean pipe, 2 posthorns, hand-drum as mute, double foghorn, plastic tubing with connection piece, plastic tubing with ringed joints, trombone, various mutes and mouthpieces, nafir.
3. Low jew’s harp, sitar, banjo, octave guitar, stoessel lute, rubberphone (rubber bands to be plucked), various gloves, bowing and plucking requisites.
4. 6-12 organ pipes (mixtures) to be blown by mouth, 2 pandean pipes, taishokoto, ocarina, Kimuan violin (Kimuanyemuanye), bass balalaika, bass mouth-organ, 2 brass tubes, various bowing and plucking requisites.
5. Bell-board (eight bells fixed to a board, to be bowed only), genuine Cagniard de la Tour siren (blown siren with frequency measuring device), cuckoo (a short of seesaw with two bellows, each adjustable in pitch), 4 tortoiseshelIs, nose-flute, bassdrum, telephone, 2 brass tubes, 1 musical box

Dato che ogni esecutore ha a disposizione circa una decina di strumenti e ne deve utilizzare almeno 5, è tenuto a cambiarlo mediamente ogni 7.2 minuti.

Nel 1969 il brano viene inciso per Deutsche Gramophone da un quintetto d’eccezione composto da Edward H. Tarr, Vinko Globokar, Karlheinz Botner, Wilhelm Bruck, Christoph Caskel, con la direzione dell’autore (vinile ormai fuori catalogo). È disponibile in flac qui.

Mauricio Kagel – Der Schall (1968)