Ladislav Kupkovič facts for kids

Ladislav Kupkovič was a talented composer and conductor from Slovakia. He was born on March 17, 1936, and passed away on June 15, 2016. He created many unique musical pieces during his life.

His Life and Music Journey

Ladislav Kupkovič was born in Bratislava, which is the capital city of Slovakia. He loved music from a young age. He studied how to play the violin and how to lead an orchestra (this is called conducting). He went to a special music school called a conservatory. Later, he studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava.

From 1960 to 1965, he played the violin in the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. After that, he started writing music for television shows and films to earn a living. At the same time, he was also writing more experimental music for concerts. This was music that tried new and different ideas.

In 1969, he received a special music scholarship. This allowed him to go to West Berlin. The next year, he moved there permanently. In 1971, he conducted the very first performance of a piece called Mixtur. This piece was written by a famous composer named Karlheinz Stockhausen. Stockhausen even dedicated the piece to Kupkovič! In the same year, Kupkovič began teaching music theory. He taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. He lived near Hannover until he passed away.

Walking Concerts: A New Idea

Kupkovič became very well known for his special "walking concerts" in the 1970s. He called these Wandelkonzerte. This means "walking concert" in German.

What is a Wandelkonzert?

Imagine a concert where the music isn't just on one stage. In 1970, for his piece Musik für das Ruhrfestspielhaus, Kupkovič had 40 musicians. They played many different pieces over three hours. But they played in various parts of the building. Some pieces were even played at the same time! The audience could walk around and choose what to listen to. These concerts were a bit like John Cage's Musicircus events.

He made this idea even bigger in 1971 with Klanginvasion auf Bonn. For this event, 150 musicians played music. They performed in different places all over the city of Bonn. This lasted for twelve hours!

Old Music, New Sounds

Some of the music in these walking concerts was written by Kupkovič himself. Other pieces were by different composers. But a lot of the music was older classical pieces. Kupkovič would change and adapt them.

He often took small, unimportant parts from famous old pieces. For example, he might take just the viola part or the bass drum part. Then he would play only that part. This made music that was usually in the background suddenly become the main focus. It was a very clever way to make listeners hear old music in a new way.

He did this in a series of four pieces called Präparierte Texte (meaning "Prepared Texts").

• Präparierter Text 1 used music from Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 1. It was for violin and magnetic tape.
• Präparierter Text 2 used music from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. It was for flute, trumpet, timpani, violin, cello, and double bass.
• Präparierter Text 3 used music from Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. It was for cymbal, bass drum, and magnetic tape.
• Präparierter Text 4 used music from Johann Sebastian Bach's Musical Offering. It was for a small orchestra.

His Unique Musical Style

Kupkovič also adapted old pieces by taking small parts and repeating them. He would repeat them over and over, with only tiny changes.

Repetition and Adaptation

One example is his piece Morceau de Genre. This piece is based on a small violin and piano piece by Edward Elgar. Kupkovič made many versions of it. There are versions for violin, trumpet, timpani, and strings. There are also versions for solo piano, violin and piano, solo accordion, and violin and accordion. The constant repetition of just two bars of music from the original can be seen as either very clever or very annoying! It depends on who is listening.

Music for the Accordion

Kupkovič is one of the few composers who wrote a lot of music for the accordion. Besides the versions of Morceau de Genre, he wrote 312-SL / 723 for two accordions in 1978. In 1980, he even wrote a concerto for the accordion. A concerto is a piece for a solo instrument with an orchestra.

Later Simple Style

His accordion concerto was written in a later style he developed. In this style, the harmony (how notes fit together) was very simple. His works from this period have sometimes been compared to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Kupkovič wrote many pieces in this simpler style.

This return to simpler harmonies and older musical forms might seem like a kind of neo-classicism. This is when composers use ideas from earlier periods. However, Kupkovič's music was different from other neo-classical composers like Igor Stravinsky. Kupkovič's music often sounds like it could have been written in the classical music era. The composer Gavin Bryars said that listening to these works is like "peering into the past through a distorting lens that manages to reveal a clear picture, but a picture that never existed until the lens was put in place."

Recordings of His Works

Many of Kupkovič's pieces have been recorded. This means you can find them on albums or online. His short piece for violin and piano from 1968, called Souvenir, has been recorded several times. A famous violinist named Gidon Kremer recorded it recently.

Some of his newer works are published by Tre Media Musikverlage in Karlsruhe. The Slovak music label Diskant has also recorded several of his works. These include pieces for string quartet (a group of four string instruments) and for violin and piano. They also recorded pieces for the cello.]]]