Music has not one history but many


'Kagel was to continue to insist that music has not one history but many, especially since the early twentieth century, and that the norms of musical life are only social conventions. In the particular case of Anagrama he also unloosed sonic possibilities that stimulated many of his contemporaries' - Paul Griffths writes in A Concise History of Western Music about Mauricio Kagel (above) who died today aged 76.

The use of a speaking choir in Anagrama links it with Darius Milhaud's little known music drama Christophe Colomb. Kagel was not among Milhaud's students, but many other important twentieth-century musicians were.

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Doundou Tchil said…
Interesting you mention Christophe Colombe. That's what brought Kagel to Europe. Kagel was one of the extras in the Teatro Colon production in 1953, brought to the Argentine by Pierre Boulez. The two met and swapped music. Boulez was instrumental in getting Kagel a scholarship to Cologne when his attempt to study in Paris fell through.

Recent popular posts

Happy birthday to the paradoxical Dalai Lama

David Munrow - more than early music

Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

Soundtrack for a porn movie

Composer with very mixed feelings about the digital world

In the shadow of Chopin

The Accidental Pilgrim

No big bearded imam was going to tell me music was haram

Word quickly spread that the old composer had lost it