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In Memoriam Mauricio Kagel
24.09.2008The composer Mauricio Kagel died in his hometown of Cologne on 18 September 2008 at the age of 76. He had been ill for some time, but nevertheless continued composing and conducting until the end. In December 2007 he conducted the Nederlands Kamerkoor in a recording of part of his unique Chorbuch. This work, together with a work commissioned by the NKK and the Rascher Saxophone Quartet - Les inventions d’Adolphe Sax, conducted by Klaas Stok – is due to be released on CD shortly.
We remember Kagel as a composer who possessed the rare gift of elevating a combination of humour and seriousness to a higher plane. With Kagel humour wasn’t just fun or merriment, but a finely honed expression of intelligence and curiosity. This is evident in various works of his which the Nederlands Kamerkoor has sung in recent years, such as Mitternachtstück and Quirinus’ Liebeskuss.
(In the photo above: Kagel is sitting in the middle of the front row with the blue tooter over his head and his glasses in front of it…)
News from the front…
Despite the situation in which the Nederlands Kamerkoor finds itself at the moment – pretty well sentenced to death and yet alive and kicking! – its singers are managing to give special concerts time after time. With Klaas Stok conducting, they firstly sang Arvo Pärt’s short choral work Da Pacem at the opening of the Gergiev Festival, and then on 21 September, during the car-free Sunday in Amsterdam, they sang works by György Ligeti in the beautiful Orgelpark. And in between they combined with Reinbert de Leeuw and the ASKO | Schönberg Ensemble to give an impressive performance of works by Alexander Raskatov and Harrison Birtwistle.
Under the headline ‘Bittersweet concert by threatened ensembles’, the NRC reviewer rightly concluded that much will be lost if concerts at this level given by ensembles at this level no longer take place. And he went on to say:“The Nederlands Kamerkoor was impressive in the very effective choral sections, but also as indivuduals, for instance in the references to Russian Orthodox precentors which suddenly crop up.” The day after the concert, the Neruda Madrigales by Birtwistle were recorded for CD in the new Bernard Haitink Hall in the Amsterdam Conservatorium.
The Ligeti concert in the Orgelpark caused the Volkskrant newspaper to reach the following powerful conclusion: “After the last notes of Lux aeterna had died away, conductor Klaas Stok continued conducting for a while. This was prescribed by the composer, but the symbolism of the silence was more far-reaching than that. If, following the cut in subsidy that has been announced, the Kamerkoor becomes an ensemble of freelancers, it will never again prepare such a wonderful programme just for a single afternoon concert in Amsterdam.”
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