Ladislav Kupkovic
Encyclopedia
Ladislav Karol Kupkovič is a Slovak
composer
and conductor
.
, and studied violin
and conducting there, first at the conservatory, then at the Academy of Performing Arts
. He played violin in the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
from 1960 to 1965, and then began to write music for television
and film
to make a living. At the same time, he was writing more experimental music for concert
s. In 1969 he won a music scholarship to West Berlin
, and emigrated there the following year. In 1971, he conducted the premiere
of Karlheinz Stockhausen
's Mixtur
in Cologne
, a piece dedicated to Kupkovič himself. In the same year, he began to teach music theory
at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover, and lives in Hanover today.
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 to John Cage
's Musicircus events. The idea was expanded for Klanginvasion auf Bonn (1971), for which 150 musicians played at various venues in Bonn
over the course of twelve hours. There is some similarity here to Trevor 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
or bass 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 and magnetic tape
; Präparierter Text 2 is adapted from the first movement of Mozart
's Jupiter Symphony (No. 41), and is for flute
, trumpet
, timpani
, violin, cello
and double bass
; Präparierter Text 3 is adapted from the fourth movement of Beethoven
's Symphony No. 9, and is for cymbal
, bass drum and magnetic tape; and Präparierter Text 4 is adapted from the Ricercar a 6 from Johann Sebastian Bach
's Musical Offering and is for chamber orchestra
(a version for full orchestra followed in 1970).
by Edward Elgar
. It exists in versions for violin, trumpet, timpani and strings; solo piano; violin and piano; solo accordion
; 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 the 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 a concerto
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 to Wolfgang 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 by Igor Stravinsky
. Unlike his music, Kupkovič's has no sense of irony
and in many cases could be confused for a piece from the classical music era. The composer Gavin 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".
. Some recent works are published by Tre Media Musikverlage in Karlsruhe. The Slovak label Diskant has recorded three works by Kupkovič for string quartet: Initials for String Quartet, String Quartet in B major No.7, and Quintet for Accordion and String Quartet (Moyzes Quartet, Boris Lenko accordion: DK 0112-2131), as well as a number of pieces for cello. http://members.aon.at/lange.info/Diskant.htm
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
.
Life
Kupkovič was born in BratislavaBratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
, and studied violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and conducting there, first at the conservatory, then at the Academy of Performing Arts
Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava
The Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava is a university founded on June 9, 1949.The university consists of three faculties:*Theatre Faculty...
. He played violin in the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
The Slovenská filharmónia is a symphony orchestra in Bratislava, Slovakia.Founded in 1949, the orchestra has resided since the 1950s in the Baroque era Reduta Bratislava concert hall constructed in 1773...
from 1960 to 1965, and then began to write music for television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
to make a living. At the same time, he was writing more experimental music for concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
s. In 1969 he won a music scholarship to West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
, and emigrated there the following year. In 1971, he conducted the premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
of Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
's Mixtur
Mixtur
Mixtur, for orchestra, 4 sine-wave generators, and 4 ring modulators, is an orchestral composition by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1964, and is Nr. 16 in his catalogue of works...
in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, a piece dedicated to Kupkovič himself. In the same year, he began to teach music theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover, and lives in Hanover today.
Wandelkonzerte
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 RecklinghausenRecklinghausen
Recklinghausen is the northernmost city in the Ruhr-Area and the capital of the Recklinghausen district. It borders the rural Münsterland and is characterized by large fields and farms in the north and industry in the south...
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 to John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
's Musicircus events. The idea was expanded for Klanginvasion auf Bonn (1971), for which 150 musicians played at various venues in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
over the course of twelve hours. There is some similarity here to Trevor Wishart
Trevor Wishart
Trevor Wishart is an English composer, based in York. Wishart has contributed to composing with digital audio media, both fixed and interactive...
'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
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
or bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
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
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
' Symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
No. 1, and is for violin and magnetic tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
; Präparierter Text 2 is adapted from the first movement of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Jupiter Symphony (No. 41), and is for flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, violin, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
; Präparierter Text 3 is adapted from the fourth movement of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Symphony No. 9, and is for cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
, bass drum and magnetic tape; and Präparierter Text 4 is adapted from the Ricercar a 6 from Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's Musical Offering and is for chamber orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
(a version for full orchestra followed in 1970).
Musical style
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 pianoPiano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
by Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
. It exists in versions for violin, trumpet, timpani and strings; solo piano; violin and piano; solo accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
; 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 the point of view.
Kupkovič is one of the few composers to have written a significant amount of music for the accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
. As well as the versions of Morceau de Genre, he has written 312-SL / 723 (1978) for two accordions, and in 1980 wrote a concerto
Concerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
for the instrument. This concerto was in the later diatonic style which Kupkovič turned to. The harmonies
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
in these later pieces are very simple, and the works have sometimes been compared to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
. 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 by Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
. Unlike his music, Kupkovič's has no sense of irony
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
and in many cases could be confused for a piece from the classical music era. The composer Gavin Bryars
Gavin Bryars
Richard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.-Early life and career:Born in Goole, East...
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".
Recordings of his works
Few of Kupkovič's pieces have been recorded, although a short piece for violin and piano from 1968, Souvenir, has been recorded several times, most recently by Gidon KremerGidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...
. Some recent works are published by Tre Media Musikverlage in Karlsruhe. The Slovak label Diskant has recorded three works by Kupkovič for string quartet: Initials for String Quartet, String Quartet in B major No.7, and Quintet for Accordion and String Quartet (Moyzes Quartet, Boris Lenko accordion: DK 0112-2131), as well as a number of pieces for cello. http://members.aon.at/lange.info/Diskant.htm