Ladislav
Kupkovič

Ladislav Kupkovič (b. 1936 in Bratislava; d. 2016 in Haste, Germany) was best known for his “convertible concerts,” as he called the manifestations he organized and performed in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and then in Western Europe in the late 1960s. During these simultaneous and heterogeneous musical events, audiences could move freely around various architectural settings and outside the venue, while the performers remained in more or less fixed locations.

Kupkovič sought to give musical form to the simultaneity of various auditory events, above all from urban life, and to liberate listeners from a conventional, passively situated role. He was inspired by the intermedial and music-theatrical aspects of John Cage’s work (such as Musicircus from 1967), and in particular by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s group composition Musik für ein Haus, written for the Darmstadt Summer Course in 1968.

On January 6, 1969, Kupkovič organized a Wandelkonzert, a promenade concert that took place over several hours throughout the entire building of the Akademie der Künste in West Berlin. Various compositions of his were performed by Hudba Dneška, an ensemble he had founded in 1963, and also featured the participation of the Experimental Studio of Slovak Radio Bratislava. The event generated an enormous amount of attention, which led the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (BKP) to invite Kupkovič for a residency in 1970.

In the same year, two events were held in Berlin in which Kupkovič took his concept of the promenade concert a step further. First, he organized a Musikalische Ausstellung (musical exhibition) with which, according to his own statement, he intended to swap categories of time and space for visual arts and music. From March 11 to 15, 1970, between 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. daily (again in spaces of the Akademie der Künste in West Berlin), nineteen “sound creators” played on pedestals and were presented as exhibits. The performers functioned essentially as museum pieces around which the audience could move. Sounds generated by a horn player were modulated live with a ring modulator. Also involved were Swiss composer Thomas Kessler, who played recorded radio jingles, and rock musician Michael Günther, who could be heard on his bass guitar.

Another concert event organized by Kupkovič on September 15 of that year at the Akademie der Künste (West), entitled Treffpunkt (Meeting Point), also involved Michael Günther. This time, however, the guitarist did not perform alone, but with his band, the psychedelic rock group Agitation Free, which played in the foyer of the Akademie. Among the other performers, in additional to classical instrumentalists, were four pairs of percussionists, a wind ensemble, and a string quartet that moved around the space while playing on a rolling platform. Two announcers also participated, one of whom relayed current news updates to the audience via portable radio at the top of every hour.

A similarly conceived Kupkovič event was held on June 5, 1970, during the Ruhrfestspiele music festival in Recklinghausen. Following his BKP fellowship, the Slovak composer decided to emigrate to what was then the FRG. He first moved to Cologne, then to Hanover, where he took up a position at the University of Music, Drama, and Media in 1973. Through the late 1970s, Kupkovič continued to organize other experimental music events in Germany. He then bid farewell to avant-garde music and composed in a pre-modern tonal manner until his death.

Text: Thomas Groetz

Translation: Erik Smith