Mauricio Kagel - Acustica (Kölner Ensemble für Neue Musik)

Information

Composer: Mauricio Kagel

1. Acustica: Teil 1
2. Acustica: Teil 2
3. Acustica: Teil 3
4. Acustica: Teil 4

Kölner Ensemble für Neue Musik

Mauricio Kagel, conductor

Date: 1972 / 2026

Label: Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

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Mauricio Kagel’s Acustica stands as a radical masterpiece of experimental music, seamlessly blending electroacoustic tape material with live performances guided by graphic-score cards. Central to the work is Kagel’s concept of instrumentales Theater, which synthesizes sound, gesture, and the physical presence of performers into a singular dramatic experience. By utilizing invented instruments and found objects, the composition liberates sound from traditional Western conventions. Deeply influenced by Kagel's diverse upbringing in Buenos Aires, Acustica presents a democratic, anarchic, and profoundly human sound-world, offering a distinctly Latin American counter-perspective to the rigid European avant-garde traditions of its time.

Mauricio Kagel (1931–2008) was one of the most fiercely inventive figures of the 20th-century avant-garde. Born in Buenos Aires to an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled Russia, he relocated to Cologne, Germany, in 1957, where he became a central pillar of the new music scene alongside figures like Karlheinz Stockhausen. Rather than treating music as a purely sonic abstraction, Kagel subverted the traditional concert experience through what he called instrumentales Theater (instrumental theater). In his world, a musician’s physical movements, facial expressions, and theatrical presence were just as vital to the composition as the notes themselves. Kagel's work remains celebrated for its unique blend of critical intelligence, theater of the absurd, and a distinctively humanistic, playful subversion of high-art conventions.

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