Kagel: Transición II & Phonophonie

Album review

With his typically tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, Mauricio Kagel describes these two pieces, dating respectively from 1959 and 1964, as belonging to an "almost prehistoric" period of compositional activity. The instrumental parts of "Transición II," for piano, percussion (playing just the inside of the piano), and electronics are notated precisely, but Kagel's score allows for some freedom in the ordering of material. In addition, the material is manipulated electronically in real time, and the plot is further thickened by the inclusion of prerecorded material. The sound world is defiantly and uncompromisingly postwar serial, but the work has lost none of its excitement, and is performed magnificently by Aldo Orvieto, Dimitri Fiorin, and Alvise Vidolin. "Phonophonie," subtitled "four melodramas for two voices and other sound sources," which Kagel describes as "the portrait of an anonymous 19th century singing actor captured at the moment of his vocal decline," is a tour de force for baritone Nicholas Isherwood, who negotiates the score's furious complexity with consummate ease. The "other sound sources" include a Waldteufel (a rosined string connected to a resonator) and two prerecorded tapes, and, as is often the case with Kagel, there's a strong visual and theatrical element to the work that a mere sound recording cannot communicate, but Isherwood's virtuoso performance more than makes up for the fact.

© Dan Warburton /TiVo