<i>The Music of Mauricio Kagel</i> (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Music of Mauricio Kagel Deborah Schwartz-Kates Björn Heile. The Music of Mauricio Kagel. Aldershot, England, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. 209 pp. Illustrations, musical examples, notes, chronological list of works, bibliography, index, $99.95. ISBN-10: 0754635236. The complex and multifaceted musical personality of Mauricio Kagel (1931 – 2008) defies ready categorization. Born in Buenos Aires into a family of Russian-Jewish birth, he traveled as a young man to Germany, where he made his home permanently. His music encompasses diverse stylistic tendencies, combining integral serialism from post – World War II Germany with experimental chance music from the United States. His compositions richly explore connections between music and language, but avoid conventional text settings (ironically, because of the high regard that Kagel has for literature). They employ traditional ensembles, but just as often use these groups to interrogate power relationships embedded in the Western musical establishment, such as the quasimilitary hierarchy of the modern orchestra. Who is this composer whose works embody such myriad contradictions? In a skillful monograph devoted to the subject, Björn Heile suitably titles his introduction, “In Search of Kagel.” Heile demonstrates his ability to deal with the composer’s complex persona and the way that it engages with multiple sociomusical dimensions. He positions his study within the framework of identity construction, stating that “identities are no longer pre-defined but have to be chosen; they can no longer claim exclusivity but have to be negotiated with conflicting, often contradictory, positions” (2 – 3). Rather than viewing styles as self-contained musical entities that follow each other according to predetermined evolutionist successions, Heile asserts that “composing means to position oneself, accepting certain traditions and influences while rejecting others.” Thus, in the author’s own words, “the notion of style refers to more than a characteristic way of combining notes: it signals identity” (3). [End Page 271] While the book’s title implies coverage of the composer’s complete works, the study nevertheless transcends a narrow focus on autonomous musical sound structures. Rather, Heile emphasizes that Kagel’s work is always “about something” or “reflects on something.” In his view, the composer focuses “more on the referential character of a composition — on how it relates to the world — than on how it is constituted in and of itself ” (4). To connect Kagel’s music with the broader sociocultural issues with which it engages, Heile avoids a unitary theoretical approach. Instead he explores the composer’s works from multiple perspectives, freely drawing upon interviews, formal analyses, sketch studies, reception history, hermeneutics, and ideological readings of the composer’s texts. Ultimately, it is this eclectic approach that allows Heile’s readers to merge the multiple sides of Kagel’s creative personality together. Chapter 1 of the book deals with the composer’s formative years in Buenos Aires. Here, Heile identifies several major influences, among them Kagel’s contact with the Argentine vanguard composer Juan Carlos Paz, his experience as a rehearsal pianist and assistant conductor at the Teatro Colón, his study of literature and philosophy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, his work as a film and photography editor at the prestigious journal Nueva Visión, and his relationship with the brilliant literary personality Jorge Luis Borges. Only after Kagel had arrived in Germany did he subsume these activities within a central framework of music composition. Yet, as Heile correctly notes, the composer’s Argentine experience was fundamental, since the individual creative activities he cultivated there gave rise to his multi-medial conception of music, arguably his most enduring contribution. Chapter 2 describes the composer’s early association with the post –World War II avant-garde. In this chapter, Heile sketches a fascinating portrait of the internal aesthetic debates that animated European musical life of the period. He situates Kagel within the Cologne and Darmstadt circles, yet notes how the composer resisted adherence to strict serial orthodoxy and aligned with composers at the margins of these groups, such as Ligeti, with whom he shared a common Jewish background and non-Germanic heritage. Chapter 3 describes the way that Kagel responded to fragmentation of the serial avant-garde by creating innovative forms of musical theater. His...