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Intertwining Modernism and Postmodernism: The Drama of Transformational Processes in Mauricio Kagel’s Solo Piano Works

Nemith, Joshua S.

Abstract Details

2004, DMA, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music : Piano.
The Argentine-born composer Mauricio Kagel (b. 1931) is one of the most distinctive and multi-faceted European composers of the contemporary music world. A staunch skeptic of accepted musical aesthetics, traditions, and values, his works incorporate relentless imagination, explosive drama, disjunction, eccentric humor, and fractured rhetoric. Kagel’s solo piano works span the composer’s mature career and aesthetically follow his compositional development. The four selected piano works explored in this thesis (Metapiece [Mimetics], An Tasten, À Deux Mains, and Passé Composé) are at first contextualized within the composer’s other output. This overview forms Part I. In the first chapter, a discussion of some important works from the two periods follows a brief biography. Within this survey Kagel’s compositional approach will be described as containing both modernist and postmodernist inclinations, ideas originating from musicologists Paul Attinello and Björn Heile. The next chapter focuses on the concepts of modernism and postmodernism first within a general cultural perspective, then secondly as they pertain to music. The point of this chapter is to establish for the reader an appropriate viewpoint for the analysis that follows. Each of the four chapters in Part II focuses on one piano piece. First, implied meanings and expectations of the titles are analyzed; these titles have important connections to the activity in the music as well as dramatic and formal expectations. Second, the central dramatic idea behind each piece is elucidated and then supported through analysis. Much of Kagel’s music relies on a constant transformation of “musical figures” (which are constructed from single notes, chords, rhythmic motives, or any combination thereof); thus, analysis centers around transformational processes. Third, the conclusion of each chapter assesses the dramatic implications of the titles through the previous analyses, establishing how Kagel interweaves postmodernist tendencies with modernist techniques. The final chapter will organize and review the broader points made throughout this thesis. One hopeful goal of this thesis is to help illuminate how listeners can engage Kagel’s work with a sense of playfulness, especially when confronted with the irony of enclosing within single works notions of modernism and postmodernism.
Dr. Robert Zierolf (Advisor)
125 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Nemith, J. S. (2004). Intertwining Modernism and Postmodernism: The Drama of Transformational Processes in Mauricio Kagel’s Solo Piano Works [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1083163935

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Nemith, Joshua. Intertwining Modernism and Postmodernism: The Drama of Transformational Processes in Mauricio Kagel’s Solo Piano Works. 2004. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1083163935.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Nemith, Joshua. "Intertwining Modernism and Postmodernism: The Drama of Transformational Processes in Mauricio Kagel’s Solo Piano Works." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1083163935

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)