Kagel-Dressur(S)-EBKS

Dressur by Mauricio Kagel for percussion trio. From Jacob Cooper's performance notes on this 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.