by mark wessels
Kagel’s “Dressur” & the Instrumental Theater Idiom
December 1, 2010 10:56 am in Concert by mark wessels
I recently finished filming, editing and posting the 2010 Yale Percussion Group’s performance of Kagel’s “Dressur” and thought it would be a great opportunity to open up a discussion of the piece – and the instrumental theater idiom in general.
View the Yale Percussion Group’s Performance:
(For the best visual experience, I recommend downloading the High Definition recording of the piece and watching it full screen)!
For those of you who may be uninitiated with Dressur, here is a bit from Jacob Cooper’s performance notes on the piece:
Mauricio Kagel’s percussion trio Dressur (1977) is rooted in Kagel’s concern for how audio recordings have altered the tradition of audience experience. “In the 19th century people still enjoyed music with their eyes as well, with all their senses,” Kagel has expressed. “Only with the increasing dominance of the mechanical reproduction of music, through broadcast and records, was this reduced to the purely acoustical dimension. What I want is to bring the audience back to an enjoyment of music with all senses. That’s why my music is a direct, exaggerated protest against the mechanical reproduction of music.”
Like many of the other works in Kagel’s “instrumental theater” idiom, Dressur therefore combines the visual element with the auditory, the theatrical with the musical. Using over 50 instruments and non-instruments, Kagel creates sound out of theater (such as when a percussionist slams a chair on the ground several times), and theater out of sound (such as when castanets mimic the sound of a typewriter). The percussionist is a particularly fitting conduit for the visual-aural convergence: even in the most traditional works, his or her striking a variety of instruments, often while clearly visible behind several seated performers, seems to possess an inherent theatricality.
Your first experience with Instrumental Theater?
Instrumental theater, to me at least, similar to my experience to modern art and dance. Being brought up in a very limited musical/cultural existence (rural west Texas), I was never exposed to anything resembling contemporary until a very early college PASIC trip where I ventured in to an evening performance of Michael Udow and his wife. I can’t say that I remember the piece – or much about it since my friends and I giggled our way through most of it. I guess I just wasn’t ready for the experience.
Much later, on my first visit to Yale, Bob Van Sice invited Neil Larrivee and I to watch James Dietz’ senior recital and I was completely blown away by the audio/visual experience. Of the pieces he performed, Le Corps a Corps was particularly striking – and I immediately thought, “I really need to film this!” (Check out Jame’s artist page for that video).
Of course, I’m still a neophyte to this idiom – and can’t say that I always understand just what the hell I’m watching. But, after several years of exposure, I would say that I’m fascinated with (great) performances… usually AFTER I’ve done a little study and have watched a piece many times.
What are your thoughts?
I’m interested to hear your experiences with the idiom and this piece. When was your first introduction to performance art (instrumental or otherwise)? What was your initial impression?
Have you performed in this idiom? Any stories you’d like to share on the reception you received (good or bad)?
Do you feel that this idiom is under or over valued in the standard repertoire? Where would you think it fits into “the grand scheme of things” as it relates to high school or college music education? What has been your experience to exposing your students to this idiom (or any contemporary literature for that matter)?
I, of course, would like to see more light shed upon it – which is why I choose to devote time and energy into filming and posting these performances on vicfirth.com (god knows it’s not for the marketing power behind it!). What are your thoughts?
Doug here – playing Dressur and other theatrical pieces (Table Music, Tunnels, Songs I-IX, the Aperghis trio, Yellow 632 by Ken Ueno…) were absolutely transformative to how I approach music. Your teachers talk about how to stand, hold your stick, use your balance and breath, and other physical elements of playing. Performing this repertoire puts you in touch with every part of your body as a communicative instrument and informs every aspect of your playing in great ways.
As you watch Dessur, notice the spirit with which Candy plays the instrument. First, I dare you to hit the right notes in the piece you are working on as someone chase you with a chair!!! Having played that part, I can tell you that you need to be particularly on your game even though you know that the chair is coming. Also, watch the intent that Ian has as he angrily plays the claves at Candy or as John plays the infamous coconuts. They have had to ask themselves “what is my motivation?” for playing every gesture in the piece. This also has a tremendous impact on how you approach any music after that. With any piece that you play, you can try to define a personal dramatic narrative for any phrase, section, or movement. With these kind of thoughts, you can build musical narratives that create thoughtful and cohesive performances.
OK, now for an annecdote. One of my first “professional” percussion ensemble experiences was having a theatrical percussion trio with Eduardo Leandro and Nathan Davis called, Rrrrr… Percussive Theater (dont waste your time googling… not gonna find much) back in 1998-2000. Our big gigs were to play at the 1999 New York Fringe Festival. We played a week of shows to very small and sweaty houses (it was August). While I can say that I had some of my most important performances (for better AND for worse), I will always remember my Dad (who is more a Pitt Football guy than a Pittsburgh Symphony guy) come up with great confidence and announce that what I did was definitively NOT music. We must have spent two days discussing music and aesthetics as we hung out in Chinatown and the Lower East Side. We have been having an ongoing conversation about that show for about 11 years now. I can say with certainty that this show touched him and (perhaps forcefully) changed his perception about music and know that it did the same for me.
Whether you think this piece is the coolest or the wierdest thing you have ever seen, go out and find (or create) a piece of theatrical music. It will change the way you think about playing and communicating through your music. Go for it. DO IT!!!
Thanks, Dave and Adam, for sharing your experiences. I have been interested in Kagel and his relationship to sound/theatre since 2001 when I saw a performance of Dressur by the Percussion Group Cincinnati.
The variety of interpretations I have seen from PGC and numerous other groups on YouTube is revealing. The piece is always recognizable from performance to performance. However, the piece inspires each group to interpret with vastly different approaches to drama: be it overt or subtle.
In March, I posted a reaction to the piece on the Roots and Rhizomes blog that cites the same texts from Bjorn Heile’s book on Kagel that Jacob Cooper quotes above. It also cites a very important instruction from the score to Dressur:
“Such musical events as occur within the context of a scenic ‘plot’ require rigor and concentration. One must renounce to every kind of facial expressions and gestures which might be understood as a means of putting across a particular ‘content’. Only a high degree of intensity in the performance can awaken in the listener the desired degree of humor and seriousness; therefore the acoustic-visual situations don’t call for any kind of exaggerations.” (taken from the score to Dressur. Peters Edition. 1977)
‘Plot’ and ‘content’, placed in emphasis quotes by Kagel, are not to be exaggerated by the performer. Humor and seriousness (effects of dramatic interplay) are to be ‘awakened’ via ‘intense performance’. No clearer words could be used to indicate the passive relationship between the performers and drama which results from an intensely active relationship between the performers and the musical score.
(For more of that article, visit http://rootsrhizomes.blogspot.com/2010/03/rehearsed-peculiarity-mauricio-kagels.html)
Other pieces in Kagel’s repertoire, such as Pas de Cinq, include instructions from the composer which are explicit in their dramatic intentions. He says the piece should have a director and actors, not necessarily five percussionists. For me, Dressur requires no further theatrical interpretation on the part of performers than is suggested in the score. Musically, of course, there is a lot that can be done. Just as one would interpret any percussion trio, the piece is a vehicle for the collective artistic expressions of the group. This is what I find so fascinating about PGC and their interpretation. Their faces never give away any of the subtlety of the complex relationships on stage. Instead, the music and their performance speaks for itself, fostering an indeterminate relationship between the audience and the interpretation. Is it funny? Is it tragic? Like all good art, the piece asks more questions than it answers. Therefore it is vital as percussionists to be aware of actions which are overly demonstrative, which give away to much, and deprive the audience of their role as interpreters; complicit in the same complexities and ambiguities that pieces like Dressur and ?Corporel promote.
I too was skeptical the first time I saw a theatrical percussion piece! I think it was Stuart Saunders Smith’s “Songs.” Actually, skeptical isn’t right word – I thought it was hilarious. Forget giggling, I think I laughed out loud. I couldn’t believe what I saw the performer doing, and I assured myself that I would never play anything like it….
Years later, “Dressur” is the first theatrical piece I have played, and it won’t be the last. After rehearsing it and playing it many times, I can say without hesitation that it taught me more about performing than any other piece I have ever played. I now think carefully about every movement I make – whether I am playing a solo theatrical piece, a standard marimba piece, or even playing in orchestra. What Adam wrote above is so true. Percussionists make so many little motions and have so much “business” to do just to get in front of the right instrument, pick up the right stick, and finally play it! There is an inherent theatricality to everything we do, and one mark of a great performer is the way that he or she uses this to their advantage.
I love pieces like “Dressur” because they shatter the boundary that classical performers sometimes erect between themselves and their audiences. Watching “Dressur” live is almost like watching a mini-play. You are invited to laugh, cry, scream, whatever you’d like. In my experience playing this piece for many different types of audiences, this is exactly what people want they go to a concert. They want to feel involved in what is going on.
To all those percussionists out there: if you’ve never played a theatrical piece, give it a try! I bet you’ll enjoy yourself, and I know you’ll discover something new about music making.
Just think – Mauricio Kagel sat down with a blank sheet of paper and somehow created this completely crazy world. If that isn’t amazing, I don’t know what is.
-Ian Rosenbaum
oops. That last comment was by Adam Sliwinski.
There are many levels of interest in the theatrical aspects of percussion playing right now. Certainly, a group like STOMP demonstrates how much popular appeal it has. Some people may not consider that “serious,” but I guarantee none of those people can do backflips while holding trash can lids. I saw STOMP when I was 15 years old…and then again…and again. Although you could argue about what’s serious or not, what is undeniably true about a show like that is that it is built to appeal to a wide audience, and it makes a lot of money.
On the other end of the spectrum, many percussionists who study orchestral playing learn to be intentionally modest theatrically while they play. This is partially due to the dignified dress and setting, but has a lot to do with the guy who is getting paid a lot of money to stand on the podium and be very theatrical. It’s also true that the intense focus on precision and quality of sound often doesn’t lend itself to histrionics.
Although we don’t consider ourselves a “theater” group in any meaningful sense, the members of So Percussion have all been very influenced by educational and professional exposure to theatrically interesting music: it seems inescapable for percussion. In our desire to be taken seriously early on, we were very self-conscious of the images most people have of percussion playing: the “crash and hold ‘em up” cymbal playing, the big timpani roll at the end of a Lawrence Welk number, “Animal” from the muppets. America’s cultural consciousness of percussion playing is closely linked to the vaudeville tradition, and we felt a burning mission to dislodge that image.
As with much burning young idealism, we have tempered our fever a bit over the last ten years – a whole career is a long time to go without getting goofy every once in a while. Increasingly, we have embraced the visual interest in percussion playing…as long as it serves the music. Dressur is a fascinating example of a work where sound and visual elements are carefully chosen to balance each other (as the excellent program notes describe).
Two quick stories to illustrate:
When David Lang wrote his percussion quartet the so-called laws of nature for us in 2002, we at first built our setups the way any sane performers would when facing a sea of black ink: in a nice arc where we could all see and hear each other clearly.
David loves theatrical gestures, and he thought it would be really interesting if the setup on stage articulated visually what was happening in the very process-oriented music he had written. So he asked us to line up the first movement across the stage, facing front. We, of course, complained that we couldn’t see each other any more, and Jason and I had no prayer of hearing each other. The movement consists of 4 minutes of complete unison, followed by players joining each other up and down the line, splitting off, coming back together…
The second movement consists of strict canons that run mercilessly down the line. Again, we learned it in the “chamber music” arc. Again, he complained that it would be cooler to watch the music run down the line. So we turned in profile, all facing stage right. I couldn’t see anybody, and Jason was forced to look at everybody else’s backs.
But David was right on both counts: the visual placement augmented the aural effects in every way.
Recently, we put together an evening-length work based on a book, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. We had been commissioned specifically to create a theatrical work for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and found it a challenge to release some of our baggage about getting out there and doing it. We worked with a remarkable director named Rinde Eckert, a multitalented playwright/actor/singer/director. Rinde helped us see the potential in every motion that we were making as percussionists. When I fidgeted to get my four mallets in place, he asked: “Do you have to do that?” I said, “well, kinda.” “Good, then do it even more, like you’re having a seizure. It’s very visually busy, and we don’t want to think that you aren’t doing it intentionally.”
Of course, that moment only fit within the context we were creating within that piece, but it’s worth thinking about: how many tics and unconscious motions do we make when we are preparing to make a good sound? People hear what they see all too often…are we thinking about how our visual presentation effects the overall experience?
Studying repertoire like Dressur or John Cage’s Living Room Music helped us develop awareness about our physical presence on stage, an invaluable arrow to put in your percussion quiver.
Mark, funny that you mention your first experience with instrumental theater was a performance by Mike Udow at PASIC…mine was as well! And I was just as baffled as you were. But like so much great art music, although this idiom of instrumental theater is confusing or even ridiculous to the newcomer, a little bit of background information makes this music fun and exciting. And now instrumental theater has become an important part of my performing career as well.
I’ve had the opportunity to perform a piece called “Corporel” by French composer Vinko Globokar. The piece is performed by a solo percussionist barefoot with no shirt on. In the piece, the performer is asked to beat his chest, face, stomach and legs; to sing, hum, gasp, and recite a short text; to bang his arms and legs on the floor; to rub and scrape his face and body with his hands. So needless to say, this is not your typical piece of music.
But what I found when talking to audience members after the performances of that piece is that often they had the same reaction I had to watching this terrific performance of “Dressur”. There are moments that are totally weird, maybe even uncomfortable. But that’s okay…in fact it’s great. At some point it seems society decided that music should always be either relaxing or uplifting. But in fact, it can be so much more. Horror movies, roller coasters and stand up comedians make us uncomfortable and we LOVE it…so why not music as well?
And Mark, you mention giggling in a performance of instrumental theater. Again, I say why not?? Laughter is another totally acceptable reaction to music, and “Dressur” has moments that are so silly it would be weird NOT to laugh. Kagel turns the concert stage into a playground and invites us all to enjoy the chaos that ensues.
So if anyone out there goes to a concert and you find yourself cringing or laughing or excited or terrified, remember that any of those are totally acceptable reactions. It’s a wonderful thing that music has the power to create such incredibly strong feelings in a listener.
-David Skidmore