Kagel's Finale

Over the weekend, some sad news hit the arts pages - Argentinian-born composer Mauricio Kagel has died, aged 76. In all likelihood, you've never heard of Kagel, since he was the very model of the anti-establishment, avant-garde composer, and as such, his music never achieved wide fame among the general public.

While I'm a big evangelist for new music in general, I must confess that a lot of what goes on on the fringes of the music world doesn't really hold much interest for me. I always thought John Cage was somewhat overrated, I never thought much of "chance music," and I'll always believe that the academic world of composition is ill-served by allowing avant-garde types to belittle the efforts of young composers who seek to write music that a majority of people would enjoy listening to.

But Kagel, in addition to being a supremely talented composer, had a quality that many hyper-intellectual music types lack: a great sense of humor. From the Washington Post's obituary: "[Kagel's] pieces include a string quartet to be played by gloved musicians using knitting needles; a lecture on avant-garde music that is interrupted by music and mime; and an orchestral piece in which the conductor tries to get through a performance while negotiating with hostage-takers."

Oberlin percussionists performing Kagel's Dressur

Back when I was a student at Ohio's Oberlin Conservatory, I got to take part in one of Kagel's more, shall we say, theatrical works. The piece was called Finale, which is an odd title for a one-movement work. But the meaning becomes clear roughly two-thirds of the way through the performance, when the conductor begins clutching his chest and stumbling at the podium, eventually having a full-fledged heart attack and "dying" on stage. (Our conductor, who was not even thirty years old and in great physical shape, had a tough time pulling this off realistically, but it was probably for the best. Had the septuagenarian who led our larger orchestras been conducting, someone in the crowd would undoubtedly have called 911 when he fell...)

Once the conductor has collapsed, Kagel's score calls for the orchestra to immediately stop playing and leap to their leader's aid. The concertmaster takes his pulse, and sadly shakes his head at the other players. All slowly return to their seats, where, conductorless, the whole ensemble plays the Dies Irae, at which point, presumably, the audience gets the joke. The piece winds up this way, and if I'm remembering correctly, Kagel dictates that the conductor is not allowed to pop back up and bow at the end. Either he may lie "dead" on the stage until the whole audience has left, or, according to Kagel, he may actually have died, in which case the problem will sort itself out.

Finale, to me, perfectly represents Kagel's outlook on music and life. It's a serious piece, albeit one with a dark joke buried in it. The composer himself put it best: "What most interests me is the laugh that stops in your throat, because you realize that laughter is the wrong reaction."