by Charles Bergengren
Let the record show that the esteemed Andrew Kaletta is not the only one in town to suffer for his art, and to suffer physically. While one might almost expect such extremes at the Performance Art Festival (at which Andrew left a small pool of his blood on the floor last summer), last weekend Karel Paukert (the usually reserved and formal organist at the Cleveland Museum of Art), left blood on the keys of the organ console, performing a rare concert of avant-garde organ works by Gyorgi Ligetti and Mauricio Kagel. These composer's works often use visually graphic scores, in which individual notes are not (cannot) be specified, but clusters and zones of sound are indicated by dense blocks and other geometric shapes on the page. Several sections of Sunday's scores contained broad swathes of speckled textures, in which the performer must try to play hundreds of notes nearly at once. The Pointless Orchestra musician, David Badagnani, explained that Ligeti's intent was to find out what all 4,000 pipes of an organ would sound like if you could play them at once. Paukert made a heroic stab at pulling the feat off, flailing his arms and hands over all three registers and literally "pulling out all the stops" of the museum's main organ (and at one point adding a second instrument from off stage, as well). The sonic result was pretty amazing, and the effort did leave traces of blood on the keys. Paukert was still licking his fingers as he came out for his bows, and was still so zonked from the exertion (not to mention mental concentration) that he fell all the way down the stage stairs on his, um, derriere. Such an "extended performance" has gotta be a first for our relatively stodgy museum and should be noted by all. Paukert himself says he loves these radical organ works, but doesn't dare present them very often, for fear of putting off his relatively conservative regular audience. But that's a self fulfilling prophesy. We should all do what we can (despite his draconian policy punishing latecomers) to support his too infrequent performance of contemporary music. The museum may look like a Courthouse at one end and a fortress at the other, but it is supposed to let the public, including the art of our own times, inside. Paukert does know this, but, like us all, needs encouragement. Now he really deserves it, too - after all, he has paid in blood. From Cool Cleveland reader Charlie Bergengren cbergengren@gate.cia.edu

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