Search - Mauricio Kagel, Teodoro Anzellotti, Luk Vaes :: Kagel: Solo Works For Accordian And Piano / Anzellotti, Vaes

Entertaining yet deadly serious as postmodernity allows

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 10/04/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This side of the Atlantic we rarely encounter the Accordeon as a seriously proclaimed instrument, a timbral minefield,or a gold vein waiting to betapped/ sapped clean. Guy Kluvicek,avant-garde composer/performer of the Accordeon and Pauline Oliveros are the only two serious devotees to this wonderful,magical Wind Box that come to mind here.Anzellotti has made this instrument his own, he can quite literally play anyting on it, Schoenberg I've heard,and he has a comparable disc on Erik Satie.He has a marvelous sense of beauty and sensitivity to what he plays enveloping timbres while holding chords arching nicely into nothingness.Mauricio Kagel is a creative aesthetic goldmine all to himself. He emerged from the Post-War avant-garde from South America settling in Cologne, a city that almost bears his name whenever new music expression is mentioned. He has toyed,and scoured and experimented and played with just about every genre imaginable within the avant-garde,Renaissance instruments,cinema,but theatre,musical avant-garde-theatre and the cracks and crevices which that implies has been a fruitful land for Kagel.Extremly prolific and versed in them, I've seen him perform with a bare torso, at the piano,simple chords with some mechanical device for time keeping while some yellowed costumed trombonist gets his foot stuck in his slide. His music has the strong element of Dada-esque play to it, yet ever bit a serious as the angst and dread that has been part of the ideologic existential corridors in Europe.This music here is playful "Rondena" a marvelously simple melody yet with dirty atonal chord thrown in at the ends of phrases to unsettle the festivities. Likewise "Rosalie",captures a disarming like melos,not quite predictable yet evocative. All the "rrrrrrrr" originally for organ is a nice post-modern way of thinking of collecting genres that springboard into sets of works,where the cohesive element is more imaginary than real.The transmogrification from the organ timbre lends itself quite nicely, nothing is sacrificed. In fact I prefer Kagel this way,more at street level,than in a cathedral. This is one of the more positive features of postmodernities modus operandi the ability to fly in between differing genres,gestures,gnomes,gesticulations,gods,golems,gigues,graves,without sacrificing content.The "Metapiece" was from the early Sixties a point of the high avant-gardewhen the tyranny of serilized music was brokened,and here the pianist should rightfully be a entertainer,playing keys with his nose,like the opening hit. This piece utilizes graphic notation, meaning the performer is allowed some interpretive freedoms on tones and entrances. It is fun to play, Fun is also a strong post modern category we should look for."