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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 lifeFranz Schreker, Artur Schnabel, T. W. Adorno, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Dimitri Mitropoulos, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskauconfirming Krenek's position as one of the world's foremost composers. ... Read more

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This clear, comprehensive reference guide highlights the major events in Ernst Krenek's life in the context of his musical and literary works. An insightful biography carefully puts the man and his work into perspective. Next, a list of compositions is organized in generally chronological order. Publications, manuscript, recording, and performance data are included under each entry in this list. A bibliography of Krenek's writings covers both manuscripts and published writings, while a bibliography of writings about the composer traces his career. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Silencing Chaos
Gustav Mahler by Bruno Walter is an anomalous memoir of Gustav Mahler by another of the 20th century's great composers, yet it reads more like a hagiography (an idolizing biography) by a venerable disciple who was vastly influenced by Mahler following his acceptance to become the Austrian's assistant at the Vienna Court Opera House. Bruno Walter, German but of proverbial Jewish temperament, enjoyed an intimate musical relationship with his troubled mentor. This monograph allows us to scour the prejudices that have been imputed on Gustav Mahler, be it due to misunderstandings or facile psychologization. Sharing a vocation for the mystical intimacy of music, this memoir reminisces how the tantrums, the irascible dour demeanor, not to mention his petulant and demanding ways, were but the inevitable make-up of a Faustian striving for perfection. Not surprisingly Thomas Mann narrated such fact in fiction in his magnum opus Doctor Faustus, where the composer is a rather faithful description of Mahler and his music (with Theodor's Adorno's musical direction in the matter).
The rage that ebbs throughout the life of Mahler is here viewed as an over brimming sense of responsibility, that at the behest of his exalted calling he felt compelled to dedicate his entire being. The many ways he came to shock ordinary people, the Wittgenstein intensity of his preoccupations, and the impetuous genius. By contrast Bruno Walter's style was dictated by a belief in cajolery and tact persuasion, which Mahler was boldly dismissive of. There is an element of a grotesque grandeur that becomes pervasive at lengths as Walter condescends to the fascinating personality of Mahler, and less frequently he becomes apologetic towards a musical idiom that extorted the orchestrations of a a man whose penchant for climactic banalities in music equaled those in his relationship with the world about him.
There is not much of interest when it comes to the musical interpretation of Mahler, where the influences of Beethoven is paraphrased, and moreover the distinctive startling juxtaposition of ironic and parodic elements that, although without influence or ancestry, Bruno Walter describes as Post-Wagnerian.
The complexity of the psychic disorder and the unprecedented use of the counterpoint to articulate his sense of the radical incompatibility of human experience is overlooked: A blaring oversight which should be unforgivable would it not be for the testament the disciple gives of the man who most influenced him and the personality that deepened his musical intuition.
The moment most particular and of greatest philosophical beauty in Mahler's works, is the innocuous heroic dramatization with the chaos about us, which yields nothing more than a tenuous thread of awaiting extinction, where triumphs is achieved by a peaceful resignation, extinguished and extinguishing, where the exhaustion of being is rendered as a culminating surcease, oblivion as a hint of ecstasy before the void consumes all we are. Silence is put on a pyre and burns bright, enflamed by despair and then flickers away leaving behind but the warmth of embers readying to freeze into the absence desire.
Although the biography is stilted with occasional apercus about Mahler's personality, it fails to bring out the essence of the music. For such insights I should address the reader of this review to Kurt Blaukopf's comprehensive read "Mahler: His Life, Work and World"; Deryck Cooke's superb and concentrated introduction; and best of all, Theodor Adorno's "Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy", by far the most outstanding and insightful work on the Austrian composer in print. Finally for a recording that sheds some light on Mahler, Benjamin Zander's rendition of Mahler's Ninth Symphony issued by Telarc, adds a third CD where the maestro discusses Mahler, the performance and its philosophy underpinning. And to boot, it is the single best performance out there today of Mahler's arguably most important symphony, characterized with melancholy, gusto, and overpowering emotional detail. Bruno Walter's performances by contrast are a good listen and an interpretation, which like this little volume, fails to heed of that which is most representative of Mahler's oeuvre.

silenced chaos
Gustav Mahler by Bruno Walter is an anomalous memoir of Gustav Mahler by another of the 20th century's great composers, yet it reads more like a hagiography (an idolizing biography) by a venerable disciple who was vastly influenced by Mahler following his acceptance to become the Austrian's assistant at the Vienna Court Opera House. Bruno Walter, German but of proverbial Jewish temperament, enjoyed an intimate musical relationship with his troubled mentor. This monograph allows us to scour the prejudices that have been imputed on Gustav Mahler, be it due to misunderstandings or facile psychologization. Sharing a vocation for the mystical intimacy of music, this memoir reminisces how the tantrums, the irascible dour demeanor, not to mention his petulant and demanding ways, were but the inevitable make-up of a Faustian striving for perfection. Not surprisingly Thomas Mann narrated such fact in fiction in his magnum opus Doctor Faustus, where the composer is a rather faithful description of Mahler and his music (with Theodor's Adorno's musical direction in the matter).
The rage that ebbs throughout the life of Mahler is here viewed as an over brimming sense of responsibility, that at the behest of his exalted calling he felt compelled to dedicate his entire being. The many ways he came to shock ordinary people, the Wittgenstein intensity of his preoccupations, and the impetuous genius. By contrast Bruno Walter's style was dictated by a belief in cajolery and tact persuasion, which Mahler was boldly dismissive of. There is an element of a grotesque grandeur that becomes pervasive at lengths as Walter condescends to the fascinating personality of Mahler, and less frequently he becomes apologetic towards a musical idiom that extorted the orchestrations of a a man whose penchant for climactic banalities in music equaled those in his relationship with the world about him.
There is not much of interest when it comes to the musical interpretation of Mahler, where the influences of Beethoven is paraphrased, and moreover the distinctive startling juxtaposition of ironic and parodic elements that, although without influence or ancestry, Bruno Walter describes as Post-Wagnerian.
The complexity of the psychic disorder and the unprecedented use of the counterpoint to articulate his sense of the radical incompatibility of human experience is overlooked: A blaring oversight which should be unforgivable would it not be for the testament the disciple gives of the man who most influenced him and the personality that deepened his musical intuition.
The moment most particular and of greatest philosophical beauty in Mahler's works, is the innocuous heroic dramatization with the chaos about us, which yields nothing more than a tenuous thread of awaiting extinction, where triumphs is achieved by a peaceful resignation, extinguished and extinguishing, where the exhaustion of being is rendered as a culminating surcease, oblivion as a hint of ecstasy before the void consumes all we are. Silence is put on a pyre and burns bright, enflamed by despair and then flickers away leaving behind but the warmth of embers readying to freeze into the absence desire.
Although the biography is stilted with occasional apercus about Mahler's personality, it fails to bring out the essence of the music. For such insights I should address the reader of this review to Kurt Blaukopf's comprehensive read "Mahler: His Life, Work and World"; Deryck Cooke's superb and concentrated introduction; and best of all, Theodor Adorno's "Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy", by far the most outstanding and insightful work on the Austrian composer in print. Finally for a recording that sheds some light on Mahler, Benjamin Zander's rendition of Mahler's Ninth Symphony issued by Telarc, adds a third CD where the maestro discusses Mahler, the performance and its philosophy underpinning. And to boot, it is the single best performance out there today of Mahler's arguably most important symphony, characterized with melancholy, gusto, and overpowering emotional detail. Bruno Walter's performances by contrast are a good listen and an interpretation, which like this little volume, fails to heed of that which is most representative of Mahler's oeuvre.
... Read more

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Contents: Vocabulary · Rhythm · Meter · Melody · Two-Part Counterpoint · Three-Part Counterpoint. ... Read more

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Modal Counterpoint ... Read more