Reconstructing Beethoven: Mauricio Kagel’s Ludwig van by Nikos Stavlas A Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD in Music (Performance Pathway) Department of Music Goldsmiths, University of London June 2012 1 I, Nikos Stavlas, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Date: 2 Abstract The subject of this dissertation is Ludwig van , Mauricio Kagel’s tribute to Beethoven on the occasion of the 200 th anniversary of the latter’s birth, which consists of three separate, but closely related, versions: a film, a musical score and a recording. The main aim of this project is to analyse the performance problems that musicians have to face when realising the score Ludwig van , which is an entirely indeterminate collage of Beethoven’s music, and to suggest ways of tackling them. For this purpose, all three versions of the work are studied in this thesis. The film is examined in terms of the issues it raises concerning Beethoven’s reception and of the function of its music, which consists of unusual performances of Beethoven’s works. The score is analysed from the perspective of postmodern theory and 20 th -century art movements, while the roles of the composer and the performer are discussed and redefined. The recording is studied as a sample of how Kagel himself chose to realise his own score. Finally, the difficulties I encountered in my own attempts to realise Ludwig van are discussed, and the ways in which I dealt with them are presented. The conclusion at which this dissertation arrives is that, in works of such indeterminacy as Ludwig van , the performers are required to step outside their conventional role and act partly as composers. Compared to works that are considered challenging to the performer in the conventional sense, of requiring technical virtuosity, this work presents a more fundamental challenge, which has to do with overcoming personal boundaries: it asks the performer not to execute a pre- composed work, but to create their own version of Ludwig van . Since very little has been written about Ludwig van by performers with an academic background, this thesis can offer valuable assistance to prospective performers of the work in their attempt to balance between the highly charged conceptual aspect of the composition and the practical need to achieve its successful performance. 3 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................3 List of illustrations and other material ..............................................................................6 Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................7 Introduction.......................................................................................................................8 1. Preface.......................................................................................................................8 2. Structure of the thesis..............................................................................................10 Chapter I: A presentation of primary sources and literature review ...............................12 1. Primary sources.......................................................................................................13 2. Secondary sources...................................................................................................16 Chapter II: Ludwig van in context...................................................................................21 1. Historico-social context attitude towards tradition..............................................22 A. The anti-authoritarian movement of the 1960s and 1970s and its impact on avant-garde composers............................................................................................22 B. Beethoven as bourgeois symbol and as revolutionary – the Beethoven year 1970 .................................................................................................................................25 C. Kagel’s political views and his attitude towards tradition .................................30 2. Experimental music and its performance................................................................35 A. Definitions..........................................................................................................35 B. Performance of indeterminate music..................................................................39 C. Kagel and experimentalism................................................................................43 Chapter III: Ludwig van: Ein Bericht ..............................................................................46 1. “Plot” of the film – Musical materials ....................................................................47 2. The music of the film ..............................................................................................62 A. Manipulation of Beethoven’s works ..................................................................62 B. Role of the music in the film..............................................................................66 3. Issues raised by the film..........................................................................................69 A. Musealisation – Commercialisation...................................................................70 B. National identity – Politics.................................................................................75 C. Beethoven and performers..................................................................................79 D. Scholarship on Beethoven..................................................................................82 E. Beyond Beethoven’s myth – Distance................................................................85 4. Reception of the film...............................................................................................87 Chapter IV: Ludwig van: Hommage von Beethoven .......................................................89 1. The score .................................................................................................................90 A. List of fragments of Beethoven’s music used in the score of Ludwig van .........93 B. Kagel’s instructions............................................................................................97 2. Ludwig van as a postmodern composition ............................................................100 A. Intertextuality ...................................................................................................101 B. The death of the composer ...............................................................................103 C. Deconstructing hierarchies, deconstructing Beethoven ...................................105 D. Collage vs. compositional control: Björn Heile’s view ...................................108 E. Jonathan Kramer’s conception of postmodern music.......................................110 4 3. Comparison to artists and art movements of its time............................................113 A. Experimentalism...............................................................................................113 B. Fluxus, Conceptual Art.....................................................................................115 C. Borges...............................................................................................................117 4. Kagel’s recording of Ludwig van: Hommage von Beethoven ...............................119 A. Kagel’s notes....................................................................................................120 B. Structure of the recording, list of quotations from Beethoven’s works ...........124 C. Notes on the recording......................................................................................127 5. Other realisations of Ludwig van ..........................................................................132 A. Realisations by Kagel.......................................................................................132 B. Realisations by others.......................................................................................135 C. Alexandre Tharaud’s recording........................................................................137 6. Discussion of performance problems....................................................................140 Chapter V: Realising Ludwig van: Hommage von Beethoven ......................................145 1. May 2009 realisation.............................................................................................146 A. Preparation .......................................................................................................146 B. Structure ...........................................................................................................149 C. Performance evaluation....................................................................................160 D. Conclusions......................................................................................................163 2. June 2011 realisation.............................................................................................165 A. General aims.....................................................................................................165 B. Structure - staging.............................................................................................169