Bernardo Mario Kuczer (30 April 1955 – 22 June 2023) was an Argentinian composer, music theoretician and architect.
Biography
Argentina Bernardo Mario KuczerA short biography of the artist is included in the "Handbuch der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert" ("Handbook of the Music in the 20th Century"), by Frieder Reininghaus, Florian Lutz and Detlef Brandenburg, Band 13, 4, page 330, Laaber-Verlag, 2007. was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 30 April 1955. Until his early twenties, he was involved in rock music as composer and guitarist, also writing music for the theatre. Simultaneously, he studied architecture and graduated in 1978.
Through the study of the classical guitar with Hector Rocha and then with Jorge Panitsch he came into classical music. He studied harmony and musical analysis with Nestor Zadoff and then with Sergio Hualpa and later Renaissance counterpoint with Nestor Zadoff. He became a member of an interdisciplinary music investigation group, collaborating with psychologists, biologists, doctors and musicologists.
In 1979 he presented a thesis under the supervision of Sergio Hualpa with own ideas about "the Basic Components of Music, their multiple interrelations and a special kind of "energy" generated by their uni- and multidimensional dynamic interactions, an energy which determines and enables the micro and macro Articulation of the Music-stream". The thesis was first named: "La forma natural de la música"registered as GEMA-Werk-Nr:13769793-001. ("The natural ways of music"), then "The New Connections"registered as GEMA-Werk-Nr:13769792-001. and later "Música sin el Factor Humano"registered as GEMA-Werk-Nr:13769790-001. ("Music without the Human Factor").
Europe In 1980, Kuczer went to London to study the viola da gamba, abandoning it shortly after for starting composition.
His first ensemble piece ("Even ... the loudest sky") (1981) for saxophone quartet, was selected by the British SPNM (Society for the Promotion of New Music) for the "composers' week-end", London 1981.SPNM, Report of the Executive Committee for the period 1/4/81-31/3/82, page 2.
Kuczer arrived in Freiburg in 1983 to study composition with Brian Ferneyhough. He felt however very soon the need to continue his way in music alone.
In 1984 he was invited to participate of the "International Summer Courses for New Music" at Darmstadt,The invitation was made on behalf of Brian Ferneyhough, who had the chance to hear some of the pieces beforehand. In a letter to the organizers he wrote: "In my opinion these pieces... are partly of very great interest". And later: "... I consider him to be a major composer in this area". (Original German: "... Ich halte ihn für einen bedeutenden Komponisten in diesem Bereich...") Taken from a letter from Ferneyhough to the organizers of the Darmstädter Ferienkurse from 9 May 1984. While the (German) original stays at the IMD archive, a copy of this letter can be found at http://bernardomariokuczer.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=186151395. where several pieces of his tape-cycle Civilización o Barbarie received a first performance and where he was awarded, as first Latin American composer,Chronology of the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis the "Kranichsteiner Musikpreis" (Kranichstein Music Prize).
In 1986, for the next edition of the Darmstadt Courses, he was invited to perform a second concert with works of his tape-cycle.During these summer courses, his piece A-gent's Arguum for solo viola, from 1982, was premiered. For this performance, mainly, the soloist, Barbara Maurer, received the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis for interpreters.
Civilización o Barbarie The title is a paraphrase of the title of a book by the Argentine author and statesman Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, published in 1845: Facundo – Civilización y Barbarie – Vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga. was later selected, as personal choice of the jury, by Klaus Huber (one of the three jurors),IGNM Weltmusiktage 1987, General Program book, page 13, Druck- und Verlagshaus Vienand Köln for the "World Music Days" of the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) held in 1987 in Cologne.IGNM Weltmusiktage 1987, General Program book, page 15, Druck- und Verlagshaus Vienand Köln
During 1990 he was a stipendiary of the "Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung" (Heinrich Strobel Foundation) of the broadcasting service Südwestrundfunk.
After 1999 he remained apart and distant to the active music and concert scene.
Since 2000, he has been working extensively with computers, designing, writing and developing his own computer programs. These programs, which are based on and are used to further research his personal hypotheses, models and theoretical ideas about harmony, rhythm, sound, musical form and "Music-Stream", have also been used to generate his latest digital, computer and algorithmic generated works.
At times and complementary to his main musical activities, Kuczer has been active in other fields of art. He has produced more than 1000 paintings, drawings,not included in this lot is the, so called, "Apuntes de Arquitectura (cotidiana)" (1980- ) a gathering of more than 1000 drawings, sketches, plans, etc. around the fields of architecture and design. sculptures, as well as designed his own furniture. As a writer he has written some 250 poems and two (still unpublished) books, the title of the first one being: "Salvas de Guerra" (contra La Música)"registered as GEMA-Werk-Nr:13769794-001 ["War Salvos" (against Music)]. He also produced and musicalised an own documentary film: "Vida?"(por un Espacio Poético o una Poesía del Espacio-Tiempo), una documentación"The music for the film is registered under the same name as GEMA-Werk-Nr:13769787-001 ["Life?" for a Poetic Space or a Space-Time Poetry, a documentation].
Work and performances Kuczer's musical oeuvre comprises more than 81 (principal) works (with some 110 individual "named" pieces) covering different areas of music (e.g. instrumental music, tape music, electroacoustic music, computer music, algorithmic compositions and digital music).
More than 60 of his works have remained unperformed (and mostly unrevealed). Several of his instrumental pieces were and/or are still considered unplayable. His Saxophone Quartet (1981) was first regarded as unplayable until 1994, when it was given its first performance.This live performance by the XASAX Saxophone quartet, which occurred on 23 April 1994 and which is billed as the work's premiere in the CD's leaflet, was included in the "CD-Dokumentation Nº 2", from the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik 1994, WDR Köln (wd 05/2). The same ensemble made a second studio recording of the work, for the record label hat[now]art, which is included in Xasax "Ars subtilior", Label Code: LC 6048.More recently, in January 2014, the Fukio Ensemble played the piece at the Berlin University of the Arts, at the finals of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdi competition, where they were awarded the 1st prize in the category New Chamber Music. Some of his works have been played and broadcast in various European cities and elsewhere.
Examples: London: „Composers' Weekend“, 1981 Darmstadt: Darmstädter Ferienkurse, 1984 and 1986 Como: „18° festival internazionale, autunno musicale“, 1984 Milan: „Musica del nostro tempo“, 1987 Freiburg: „Horizonte Reihe“, 1984 Paris: „Perspectives du XXe siècle“ (Carte blanche à Harry Halbreich), 1985 Stockholm: „International Festival of Electronic Music“, 1985 Freiburg: „Aventure Freiburg“, 1987 Mönchengladbach: „Ensemblia Festival“, 1987 Cologne: Weltmusiktage der IGNM, 1987 Frankfurt: Hessischer Rundfunk, 1989 Los Angeles: Arnold Schoenberg Institute, 1990 Witten: Wittener Tage für neue Musik, 1994 Basel: IGNM Basel, 1995 Piteå: Piteå University, 1995 Bremen: Festival „Transit“ Orte/NichtOrte, 1999 Montreal: World Saxophone Congress, 2000
Press reviews ... the real revelation of this disc is Argentinian Bernardo Maria Kuczer, whose "even ... The loudest sky!!" is one of the wildest things I've heard for some time. Brilliantly written (fiendishly difficult) and played with utter conviction, it makes you wonder what Kuczer's been up to since he wrote this back in 1981. Anything new by either Kuczer or [the saxophone ensemble] Xasax is welcome here.Best of Paris Transatlantic
On the 2 May 1996, Fara C. wrote in the music magazine World: ..., and " Even … The loudest sky!!! ", composed by the Argentine Bernardo Kuczer in 1981.
This work reaches a summit of complexity such as it had never been played before the world creation of Xasax in 1994 ! Six months of hard work were necessary to the group to triumph over these supernatural seven minutes. A musical intensity which the quartet will make us share with crazy pleasure.Concerts Critics, Maison de la Culture of Amiens 1996
The Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich wrote a review about the Darmstadt International Summer Courses of New Music 1984, published in the monthly magazine Le Monde de la musique:
However, the end of the evening had to be spent... in the company of the Argentinian Bernardo Kuczer living in Germany and some of his apocalyptic electroacoustic pieces grouped into an immense cycle under the title Civilización o Barbarie. I admit that I fled. But two days later I was able to hear again, at a somewhat more bearable volume level, these extraordinary pieces of music of a visionary madman, skinned alive, bleeding shreds of flesh of a prodigious expressive power, produced, paradoxically, with a simple cassette tape recorder!
Work list Articulaciones II (1980), for two alto recorders (or two equal wind instruments), tuned at a quarter tone difference Seis estudios sobre la disonancia simple y la mixtura de lenguas (1980), for choir Huella (1981), for flute Dualidades (1981), for piano Drei'h (1981), for clarinet Even ... the loudest sky (1981), for saxophone quartet A-gent's Arguum (1982), for viola La Distancia IV (un fragmento) 1982–83, for flute, bass clarinet, violoncello and piano towards a New Brutality (1983), nine studies Study Nº 1: (Historias Naturales), for percussion and (digital) Sound-Space (*) Study Nº 2: (Soul-Lage), for voice in a Sound-Space (*) Study Nº 3: (La vuelta al día Ia), for percussion (two roto-toms) (*) Study Nº 4: (memorias de un pasado por suceder...) (1983), for two percussionists, voice, tape and electronices Study Nº 5: (La vuelta al día II: de Spatium Natura), for Space-Percussion (*) Study Nº 6 & 7: (Twin dances) Nº 6 dance A, for percussion and (digital) Sound-Space (*) Nº 7 dance B, for percussion and (digital) Sound-Space (*) Study Nº 8: (El espejo y la lámpara I), for percussion (*) Study Nº 9: (El espejo y la lámpara II), for voice and percussion (*) (*) revised in 2012, now existing only as digital version Civilización o Barbarie (1984), a cycle comprising the following 18 individual tape pieces: Peripéteia II (1984), tape music Peripéteia III (1984), tape music Peripéteia IV (1984), tape music Peripéteia V (1984), tape music Peripéteia VI (1984), tape music Peripéteia VII: Iña'K (1984), tape music Peripéteia VIII: Periplo (1984), tape music Une mémoire la vie (1984), tape music Cri de la mémoire fermée (1984), tape music Finale, ou la mémoire pulsante (1984), tape music Contre-rime (1984), tape music Him'l (1984), tape music Dream-line (1984), tape music One other desert (1984), tape music Escenas-Miró (1984), tape music Ejercicio de aire (1984), tape music Hole the black (1984), tape music ... und Stille daneben (1984), tape music K'tedral (1984–85) for viola formas y fluidos II–VII (1985) for piano Form-Memory (1986), tape music Memory-Form (1986), tape music Equations of change (1987), computer music