"In the 1920s, Krenek had three stylistic shifts. From 1916 to 1921, he studied with Franz Schreker, a famous opera composer and teacher. Krenek's music from this period used late-Romantic harmonic language. In 1921, Krenek left Schreker's tutelage. From then on, he experimented with various styles, particularly with Expressionism. In 1924, Krenek travelled to Paris, which would be a turning point in his musical style, culminating in his third period. He called the years from 1925 to 1929 a 'stabilization period' (Ernst Křenek, Music: Here and Now, trans. Barthold Fles (New York: Russell & Russell, 1939), 86); his music became freer, combining various styles with great appeal for audiences. Krenek's musical style can be traced through a study of his piano works. 'Since composing his opus one ... he turned to the piano again and again when he was moved to test a new stylistic or technical idea.'(Candice Koehn-Griffith, "The Solo Piano Works of Ernst Krenek" (D.M.A. diss., University of Colorado, 1989), 1). This paper will focus on Krenek's Second Sonata, and how it is representative of his stabilization period"--Abstract.
"This thesis was written in support of a doctoral project recital on which I performed three piano sonatas (no. 2, 5, and 7) of the composer Ernst Krenek (1900-1991) ... In the introduction, I discuss major 20th century influences that impacted Krenek and how these influences are reflected in the piano sonatas selected for this study. I then devote one chapter to each sonata. Using seven tables and 63 musical examples, through analysis I identify why the sonatas are distinctive and significant, the unique performance challenges encountered, and why these works should be included in pianists' standard repertoire ..."--Abstract.
When Ernst Krenek's opera Jonny spielt auf (Jonny plays on) opened in Leipzig in 1927, it became an instant and spectacular success. Performed in over a hundred cities and translated into a dozen languages, it became the most popular opera of this century. And Austrian-born Krenek, easily one of this century's most prolific major composers, became a wealthy man. Ten years later, however, he found himself a destitute refugee, fleeing to the United States as Hitler's troops invaded Austria. His work, always avant-garde, had become increasingly political; Hitler banned it and labeled Krenek a "cultural Bolshevist." The composer endured long periods of hardship and neglect before his music, which was much admired by such colleagues as Stravinsky and Alban Berg but strange to American ears, was rediscovered by Europeans after the war. Eventually it brought him financial security and many honors, including the Gold Medal of Vienna and the Cross of Austria, and it has been celebrated by festivals in Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin, and other cities. Krenek, who in 1945 became an American citizen, has been as experimental and broad-ranging in his compositions as he has been prolific. His 240 musical works illustrate brilliantly the principal musical trends of the century: Neoromantic tonality, Neoclassicism, free atonality, the twelve-tone technique, integral serialism, and electronic music. In addition, Krenek has also been an accomplished teacher and writer. He has taught some of America's leading composers and has several collections of essays in both German and English to his credit. In this first major biography of Krenek, Stewart chronicles both the personal and the professional events of this brilliant, resilient composer's life. He not only explains Krenek's music in terms that enable us to comprehend and appreciate its character but vividly illustrates how Krenek's imagination has been affected by his experiences, his associates, and the massive social and artistic changes of the twentieth century. Many of the most important music figures cross the landscape of this life—Franz Schreker, Artur Schnabel, T. W. Adorno, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Dimitri Mitropoulos, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau—confirming Krenek's position as one of the world's foremost composers. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.
