- Ladislav Kupkovič
Ladislav Karol Kupkovič (born
March 17 ,1936 ) is a Slovakcomposer and conductor.Kupkovič was born in
Bratislava , and studiedviolin and conducting there, first at the conservatory, then at the Academy of Performing Arts. He played violin in theSlovak Philharmonic Orchestra from 1960 to 1965, and then began to write music fortelevision andfilm to make a living. At the same time, he was writing more experimental music forconcert s. In 1969 he won a music scholarship toWest Berlin , and emigrated there the following year. In 1971 he conducted thepremiere ofKarlheinz Stockhausen 's "Mixtur " inCologne , a piece dedicated to Kupkovič himself.Although not a very well-known composer, Kupkovič has probably become best known for his experiments with the concert form in the 1970s. In "Musik für das Ruhrfestspielhaus" (1970), he arranged forty performers to play a number of pieces in a concert hall in
Recklinghausen over the course of three hours. The pieces were played in various parts of the building, some of them at the same time. Kupkovič called this kind of concert a "Wandelkonzert", and "Wandelkonzerte" have often invited comparisons toJohn Cage 's "Musicircus " events. The idea was expanded for "Klanginvasion auf Bonn" (1971), for which 150 musicians played at various venues inBonn over the course of twelve hours. There is some similarity here toTrevor Wishart 's community pieces like "Forest Singularity ".Some of the music played in the "Wandelkonzerte" was written by Kupkovič himself, some of it by other people. Much of it, however, was music by older classical composers which had been altered and adapted by Kupkovič. This process is typical of Kupkovič's instrumental works, and can be seen in such pieces as the series of four "Präparierter Texte" from 1968. These pieces take quite insignificant parts from well-known pieces of the past, such as the
viola orbass drum parts, and isolate them, thus making central music which in its original context was incidental and often barely audible. "Präparierter Text 1" is adapted from the second movement of Brahms'Symphony No. 1, and is for violin andmagnetic tape ; "Präparierter Text 2" is adapted from the first movement of Mozart'sJupiter Symphony (No. 41), and is forflute ,trumpet ,timpani , violin,cello anddouble bass ; "Präparierter Text 3" is adapted from the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and is forcymbal , bass drum and magnetic tape; and "Präparierter Text 4" is adapted from the "Ricercar a 6" fromJohann Sebastian Bach 's "Musical Offering " and is for chamberorchestra (a version for full orchestra followed in 1970).Kupkovič also adapted old pieces by taking small elements from them and repeating them with only slight variation. This technique was used in "Morceau de Genre" based on a small piece for violin and
piano byEdward Elgar . It exists in versions for violin, trumpet, timpani and strings; solo piano; violin and piano; soloaccordion ; and violin and accordion. The constant repetition of two-bar figures from the original piece with very little variation is either extremely witty or extremely irritating, depending on your point of view.Kupkovič is one of the few composers to have written a significant amount of music for the
accordion . As well as the versions of "Morceau de Genre", he has written "312-SL / 723" (1978) for two accordions, and in 1980 wrote aconcerto for the instrument. This concerto was in the later diatonic style which Kupkovič turned to. The harmonies in these later pieces are very simple, and the works have sometimes been compared toWolfgang Amadeus Mozart . Kupkovič has been extremely prolific in this style.Although a return to a simpler form of harmony and to older musical forms may be seen as a kind of
neo-classicism , it is a very different sort to that used byIgor Stravinsky . Unlike his music, Kupkovič's has no sense ofirony and in many cases could be confused for a piece from theclassical music era . The composerGavin Bryars has said of these works that "there is a sense of peering into the past through a distorting lens that manages to reveal a clear picture, but a picture that never existed until the lens was put in place".Very few of Kupkovič's pieces have ever been recorded, although a short piece for violin and piano from 1968, "Souvenir", has been recorded several times, most recently by
Gidon Kremer .Some recent works are published by
Tre Media Musikverlage in Karlsruhe.In 1971 he began to teachmusic theory at theHochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover , and lives in Hanover today.
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