Mauricio KAGEL: Ludwig Van (1970) - Free Audiobook

Ludwig Van

Composition by Mauricio Kagel (1970)

30 cm Deutsche Grammophon-Gesellschaft 2530014

Carlos FELLER - Bass

William PEARSON – Bariton

Bruno CANINO -  Piano

Frederik RZEWSKI - Piano

Saschko GAWRILOFF - Violine

Egbert OJSTESEK - Violine

Gérard RUYMEN – Viola

Siegfried PALM - Cello

Karl FAUST – Produktion

Mauricio KAGEL – Artistic Supervision

Note: This is my contribution to the Beethoven year 2020 - an echo from the Beethoven year 1970 with a great "meta-collage" of the late Beethoven, set in scene by composer Mauricio Kagel (1931-2008) and performed by some of the finest musicians of the time. The work fascinates me since over 40 years, and I suppose to give it a try to listen to it in whole. I think, it will not be the last time...

For better understanding here is an interview with Kagel. The producer of this LP (Karl Faust) asks the questions.

Faust: 'Ludwig van' is really a single collage.

Kagel: Yes and no. It would be more appropriate to refer to it here as a "meta-collage”, since chamber music by Beethoven served as the only source for tonal material Foreign elements were introduced as its beginning and end-point. The intention was to avoid scattering quotations into a piece in "contemporary" music language. I had in mind a drastic extension of the collage technique.

Faust: You speak of a musical collage, but perhaps you mean musical context?

Kagel: I mean both. When a composer makes use of existing material, a series of questions at once arise: serious homage or irony? Alienation of foreign and own material? Making banality still more banal, or merely language between lines? The listener, hearing a composition in which musical quotations occur sporadically, is often forced into a position similar to that of someone sitting at a window: people walk past him while he stays in the same place; if he happens to know a passer-by, there is a courteous nod of greeting. My idea was to do the opposite: by means of careful inbreeding to make up a closely integrated montage of more or less well-known pieces — without the addition of any alien material; the listener's attention could thus be directed towards the musical substance of the context. instead of being distracted by anecdotal flashes of recognition.

Faust: So your work was purely syntactic. You wanted to bring Beethoven’s music to itself in other relationships, without destroying his property?

_K_agel: An ultimate consequence of the collage principle would be the ending of intellectual ownership. The development is not, however, synonymous with destruction. The life inherent in the collage technique exists, perhaps on the fluid borderline between here and elsewhere, between private and public consciousness: the possibility is created of unforced continuity.

Faust: You once called ‘Ludwig van' a contribution by Beethoven to the music of our time. Did you want to obscure your own contribution to this composition?

Kagel: Not at all. Becthoven's modernity is not dependent on the mood or feeling of the listener, but is fundamental modernity, a modernity of relationship. It seems to mc that there is scope here for further investigation of the premonitions and formal tensions already evident in Beet­hoven. This concept can be made clear by an example: the Largo in D minor from the Fifth Piano Trio. Op. 70 No. l m D major. This movement. to which the work owes its name "Ghost Trio" by which it is popularly known,  is positively expressionistic in its content. Each of the three instrumentalists build up an espressivo molto in such intensity that I asked the instrumentalists  to play their parts independently of each other but at the same time. They were to play neither chronologically nor non-chronologically, but in fragmentary form and in whazever ordcr they pleased; additionalk rests had to be inserted to enable them to react to each other. The result was a higher power of the Ghost Tno, which mighi be called the analytical synthesis of this splendid music (record Side A minute 11 '35" until 15'40”).

In this way the musicians began to interpret Beethoven as “new music”, and astonishingly enough they suffered no qualms of conscience before or after the re-functioning of the original musical text.

Faust: May I remind you of the concept of “fidelity-to-the-work”?

Kagel: Certainly, our concept of fidelity to the work - particularly in the sphere of 18Th and 19th century music - needs to be overhauled. Painful efforts to make familiar music of the past still more familiar have led to a tendency towards mediocrity and salon-style performances. Instead of individual works it is the essence of the masters which ought to be interpreted today.

Faust: How do you propose to distil this extract?

Kagel; Through increased subjectivity of the musician, and by making use of techniques of performance and composition which are not, seemingly, appropriate to the music to be realized. In other words, when a pianist gives a Beethoven recital today he should not necessarily announce certain piano sonatas as his programme, but simply “Beethoven". If he were capable of allowing this music to flow through his fingers for two hours, without,  perhaps, playing any movements in their entirety, I would prefer this experience to the "commercial-ethical-musical-society" pressure which compels a pianist to present complete works for the hundredth time. 'Ludwig van' is intended to prove this point. Its overall form is based on the 33 Varia­tions on a Waltz by Diabelli op. 120. I have transferred Beethoven's variation technique to the problems of my composition, altering Beethoven’s own music in a manner similar to that in which he altered Diabelli's theme. The result is a transformation on second level — although without a constantly recurring subject. In order to avoid disrupting the continuity of these variations through electronic incense, I did without far ranging electro-acoustical manipulations.

Faust: Nevertheless, an unconventional recording technique was helpful to you.

Kagel: Certainly. I regard microphones and mixing panels as active instruments to articulate music and effectively transform musical relationship. Consequently I attempt to reveal to an increased extent the extremely "unobjective" nature of the tape recording, instead of decking it out with the trappings of objectivity, The spatial element of stereo recording should do more than pinpoint the sources of sound — with me it plays an important part in the defining of musical structures. Volume regulators are also made to tremble and quiver, so that they disrupt the sound picture and the acoustical events, as do the periodic-aperiodic breaks made in the presentation here of certain Beethoven passages. This employment of studio technique for a really subjective recording is part of the transformation of the Variations on Diabelli’s Waltz which I mentioned earlier. To me methods of composition, the creative participation of the interpreter, and musical invention in the technique of recording are a single entity. I regard the integration of these various stages of music making as an important pre-requisite of musical thinking.

Faust:  Do you therefore regard 'Ludwig van’ and this recording as a single entity?

Kagel: Either you are a devil's advocate or you are toying with the idea of instigating further versions of the work. 'Ludwig van' is an idea, and therefore wants to be more than a completed composition. It seeks to say to the interpreter that music of the past should also be performed as music of the present. What have I in fact done? As a rule I have avoided transposing original pitches, but I have altered dynamic levels (thus releasing other passions);  l have removed articulation marks and replaced them by others; repeats have been devised;  final cadences favored (in contrast to concert guides and the like, in which, for the most part, first and second subjects are singled out for illustration); I have allowed the player to emerge as a living individual out of the normally compulsory anonymity, , allowing him during the recording to breathe in and out naturally (i.e. loudly, when a particular phrase so demands) or sing (as many musicians do while practising privately); I have allowed deliberate imperfections of playing, since this is not permissible in the professional world of music; tempi are not slightly but far quicker or slower than usual; pieces conceived “monaurally” I made stereophonic – not at the control panel but with the help of the performers, by adding the element of space to their interpretation; I have had the solo parts of various violin and cello sonatas played simultaneously without piano accompaniment, as Beethoven's string trios are few; similarly I devised an Andante for viola with piano accompaniment (comprising the viola part of the fourth movement of the String Quartet Op. 131 and tbc Largo from the Hammerklavier Sonata both in A major), because Beethoven wrote no sonata for the viola, and the player was unhappy about this. l have combined all sort of modulation in order to bring out audibly Beethoven's periodicities and innovations; both homogeneous blends of sound und heterogeneous tone colors were stimulated.

l give all this as an introduction and invitation: musicians can go on from here.