Ernst Krenek, such a discovery!

Started by Harry, April 10, 2007, 05:50:52 AM

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Karl Henning

Sibelius had four faces? Or more? . . .
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Cato

Quote from: snyprrr on May 13, 2013, 07:17:24 AM
If anyone could recommend the best Krenek?...

Certainly the first two symphonies are a must, and yes, the Lamentations also!

And JLaurson is correct: Krenek's musical career does take you "all over the place!"

As to his visage, I believe the syndrome is called these days "Smoker's Face."

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

snyprrr

I'm just trying to keep Krenek, Toch, and Wellesz together. Patience...

71 dB

Quote from: 71 dB on April 11, 2007, 06:23:21 AM
hhmmm... someday I might explore Krenek...

Six years have gone and I still haven't explored Krenek.  ;D
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San Antone

#64
Quote from: The new erato on October 15, 2007, 04:03:11 AM
Investigate without delay the Lamentations of Jeremiah (on Globe eg). There are other admirers of this mighty choral work on the board.

Agreed.  Krenek spent some energy studying Medieval polyphony and carved something of a unique path, i.e. writing 12-tone works in the style of Machaut and Dufay.  A fascinating composer.

Besides the Lamentations, his symphonies and string quartets are where I would start.  Someone made a comparison with Wellesz, and I agree, their sound-worlds are in the same territory.  As a side note, when Stravinsky began composing in the serial style, Krenek was a great help.  His little book on 12-tone counterpoint was really the only source Stravinsky used beyond learning the basics of row manipulation from Craft.  Krenek's rotational arrays were his contribution to serial thinking, and which Stravinsky employed until the end of his life.

The new erato

Quote from: sanantonio on March 06, 2014, 04:35:06 AM
Agreed.  Krenek spent some energy studying Medieval polyphony and carved something of a unique path, i.e. writing 12-tone works in the style of Machaut and Dufay.  A fascinating composer.

Besides the Lamentations, his symphonies and string quartets are where I would start.  Someone made a comparison with Wellesz, and I agree, their sound-worlds are in the same territory.  As a side note, when Stravinsky began composing in the serial style, Krenek was a great help.  His little book on 12-tone counterpoint was really the only source Stravinsky used beyond learning the basics of row manipulation from Craft.  Krenek's rotational arrays were his contribution to serial thinking, and which Stravinsky employed until the end of his life.
Since that 2007 post I have investigated the symphonies (there's a post somewhere). Very varied stylistically, and mostly very good or better.

Ken B

Quote from: Harry on April 10, 2007, 05:50:52 AM
It started all with the SQ I bought on MDG, and now with the Symphonies.
I simply adore this composer, diving deeper and deeper into 20th century music.
I would like to have some chambermusic recommendations if possible, and discuss this composer.
More admireres on the board?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Krenek
Not sure I'm such a fan but I met him, and attended what was the Canadian premiere of his  latest quartet. Long long ago.
There's some nice a cappella religious stuff.

Rons_talking

I've just discovered Krenek's Symphonic Elegy and Works for String Orchestra conducted by Kovacic on Capreccio Records. A great performance of some of the composer's finest music. His different periods are represented well. I used to assume his work would be academic sounding, seing what a pedagogue he was, but these works are highly lyrical and fuse the Romantic and modern periods in an accessable way. I remember trying to play his 12-tone children's pieces long ago. His music is a bit on the dark side but it's clear that he has a master's handle on the atonal pieces (they don't strike me as atonal but they are) and that he was a great influence on composers in Europe and the USA alike.

ritter

Taking advantage of the fact that the Ernst Krenek thread has been bumped  ;), this new release (scheduled for Early July) seems worth mentioning:




It's good to have a recording of Krenek's completion of Schubert's Reliquie sonata. The cover also says this is "Volume 1" (but I have other Toccata CDs where "volume 2" has not appeared yet, even if "volume 1" was released several years ago  :( )....

Cato

Quote from: Rons_talking on June 09, 2015, 11:53:33 PM
I've just discovered Krenek's Symphonic Elegy and Works for String Orchestra conducted by Kovacic on Capreccio Records. A great performance of some of the composer's finest music. His different periods are represented well. I used to assume his work would be academic sounding, seing what a pedagogue he was, but these works are highly lyrical and fuse the Romantic and modern periods in an accessable way. I remember trying to play his 12-tone children's pieces long ago. His music is a bit on the dark side but it's clear that he has a master's handle on the atonal pieces (they don't strike me as atonal but they are) and that he was a great influence on composers in Europe and the USA alike.

Yes: not just because he was connected to Mahler's family, his early style at least seems to follow a path Mahler might have taken

Don't forget the symphonies! 
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Ken B

Quote from: Cato on June 11, 2015, 07:51:05 AM
Yes: not just because he was connected to Mahler's family, his early style at least seems to follow a path Mahler might have taken

Don't forget the symphonies!

I am sampling, and liking, them. I have sampled Krenek off and on for decades. I met the man, the only tolerably famous composer I have met (I also met Istvan Anhalt; see what I mean). I can't say anything has really appealed a lot, until now with the symphonies.

San Antone

Yes; Krenek is a very good composer.  The cpo box is fantastic as are the string quartets (but there is no satisfying complete set, so collecting them will be expensive). 

[asin]B007HOEZZI[/asin]

And all the recommendations for the Lamentations are strongly echoed.

:)

Cato

Quote from: sanantonio on June 12, 2015, 11:24:08 AM
Yes; Krenek is a very good composer.  The cpo box is fantastic as are the string quartets (but there is no satisfying complete set, so collecting them will be expensive). 

[asin]B007HOEZZI[/asin]

And all the recommendations for the Lamentations are strongly echoed.

:)

I will need to look into that set!

Here is a fascinating interview with Krenek from nearly 30 years ago.  He was 86 at the time and living in Palm Springs, California.

An excerpt:

Quote

BD:    Is the public always right in its taste, dictating who will be played and who will not be played?

EK:    No, I am convinced the public is not at all right.

BD:    How can we get the public to play more contemporary music, or to appreciate more contemporary music?

EK:    That's a pickle.  I think contemporary music is just not played much and is not played well enough when it is done.  I can tell that because always, when there is a concert with a new work and two or three old works, the old ones are much better rehearsed.  That's usually the prerogative of the conductor, and the new pieces just come at the end when there's little time left.  The conductor seems to just go through it, as if it will take care of itself.  It's interesting to look at programs of early the nineteenth century.  Those concerts were much longer than we are used to now.  There were many more pieces on one program, and almost all of them were contemporary.  Today we have developed a classical repertoire
.

See:

http://www.bruceduffie.com/krenek2.html
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Karl Henning

And the classics, of course, benefit from a performance history.  Even where I have had a piece done gratifyingly well for an initial performance, later performances by the same group are always musical gains.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Ken B


QuoteBD:    Is the public always right in its taste, dictating who will be played and who will not be played?

EKJames:    No, I am convinced the public is not at all right.

Discuss.

Karl Henning

Does the public dictate that way?  I mean, I play my own music in public;  the public doesn't dictate about that, one way or any other.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Cato

QuoteBD:    Is the public always right in its taste, dictating who will be played and who will not be played?

EK:    No, I am convinced the public is not at all right.

Quote from: karlhenning on June 26, 2015, 09:00:56 AM
Does the public dictate that way?  I mean, I play my own music in public;  the public doesn't dictate about that, one way or any other.

I did have to wonder about that: I suspect Krenek meant that a music director who pushed contemporary music at the expense of proven favorites, i.e. two or three works from the  last 2 or 3 decades vs. 2 or 3 works from before 1910, would be feeling the "dictatorship of the audience" and it would not be a good feeling.   :laugh:

I still recall Andrew Massey, former conductor of the Toledo Symphony, very nervously conducting the Five Pieces for Orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg and delivering a long and unnecessary apologia for the work before the orchestra played it. 

Krenek is right about concerts being longer and more open to contemporary music in the 19th century.  As we know, the musical tumults of the last century left audiences skeptical about the creations of their contemporary composers.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Ken B

Quote from: Cato on June 27, 2015, 10:21:42 AM
I did have to wonder about that: I suspect Krenek meant that a music director who pushed contemporary music at the expense of proven favorites, i.e. two or three works from the  last 2 or 3 decades vs. 2 or 3 works from before 1910, would be feeling the "dictatorship of the audience" and it would not be a good feeling.   :laugh:

I still recall Andrew Massey, former conductor of the Toledo Symphony, very nervously conducting the Five Pieces for Orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg and delivering a long and unnecessary apologia for the work before the orchestra played it. 

Krenek is right about concerts being longer and more open to contemporary music in the 19th century.  As we know, the musical tumults of the last century left audiences skeptical about the creations of their contemporary composers.

Concerts were quite open to modern music as late as the 50s. Look at the Living Stereo or Living Presence repertoire. But then the institutional avant garde, the bullies like Boulez, the snoots like Babbitt, rose to influence. By the 80s modern music was usually an assault. This was achieved partly via subsidies from government or foundations.

Cato

Quote from: Ken B on June 27, 2015, 11:34:40 AM
Concerts were quite open to modern music as late as the 50s. Look at the Living Stereo or Living Presence repertoire. But then the institutional avant garde, the bullies like Boulez, the snoots like Babbitt, rose to influence. By the 80s modern music was usually an assault. This was achieved partly via subsidies from government or foundations.

Leopold Stokowski was rather fearless in his promotion of new music, even programming a quarter-tone Piano Concerto by the now nearly forgotten Hans Barth for the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Of course, I am not sure any conductor has the world-wide fame and "clout" of Stokowski today, so that skeptical or even hostile audiences could be persuaded to give a non-traditional work a chance.  (Bernstein and von Karajan came close to having Stokowski's influence.)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

ritter

* bump *

Cross-posted from the "New Releases" thread:

Quote from: ritter on September 27, 2016, 08:48:21 AM
A major addition to the discography of Ernst Krenek, this opera on a libretto by Oskar Kokoschka:


Announced by jpc for mid-October.
This is early, pre-Jonny spielt auf Krenek. Only some years later (around 1930) did he embrace 12-tone techniques. The libretto by Kokschka (a rather fascniating character--also for Mahlerians  ;)) can be interesting.

The opera was given in concert form at Madrid's Teatro Real some years ago (conducted by Pedro Halffter), but sadly I could not attend those performances.