Liner Notes by Robert Blumenthal

 

      Born in Vienna, Ernst Krenek (1900-1991) grew up in Austria where, in 1916, he commenced musical studies with Franz Schreker.  He wrote his first composition in 1917, and developed creatively according to a pattern which Carlson sees as breaking into four distinct phases.  From the time of his first compositions until 1921, Krenek worked primarily in the late nineteenth-century romantic tradition.  During the period 1921-1923, he began to depart from a tonal (i.e., key-centered) compositional style, and from 1923-1930 his work shows the influence of Bartok and Hindemith as well as an interest in jazz (108).  During this phase of his career, Krenek was publicly critical of Arnold Schoenberg and the twelve-tone technique, but by 1930 he began to embrace the ideas of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern (Daniel 254), thus beginning his long association with twelve-tone theory.  The primary phase of Krenek’s composing career, and the one which represents his mature work, came subsequent to 1930; after this point his compositions show the influence of Schoenberg as Krenek begins working in the twelve-tone system which Schoenberg had devised, and much of his compositional output thereafter is based on twelve-tone principles.

      Krenek’s work was banned by the Nazis, and in the late 1930’s Krenek’s music could no longer find an outlet in Germany and Austria.  At the exhibition of “degenerate art” held in Dusseldorf in 1938, Krenek, along with Schoenberg, Schreker, and Hindemith, was labeled a “cultural bolshevik,” and later that year he emigrated to the United States.

      Soon after arriving in the United States, Krenek devoted considerable effort to increasing the awareness and appreciation, among musicians and lay people alike, of twelve-tone composition.  In 1939 he joined the faculty of Vassar College where he taught composition and embarked on a program to bring more attention to twelve-tone music and its underlying theory.  To this end, Krenek produced three works (Carlson 108-109).  In 1939 he published Music Here and Now, a revised and expanded version of six lectures on modern music which he had previously published in 1937 in a volume entitled Uber neue Musik.  It contains essays on atonality and related topics and is intended for a wide audience.  In his obituary of Krenek, Rothstein notes that the composer Roger Sessions referred to Krenek’s efforts to promote the twelve-tone technique in these lectures as “an artistic religion” and described Uber neue Musik as a “confession of faith” (B6).  Studies in Counterpoint Based on the Twelve-Tone Technique, published in 1940, is an elementary textbook on twelve-tone theory with examples from Krenek’s own compositions.  (Dika Newlin, a student in Schoenberg’s classes at UCLA in the late 1930’s, points out that Schoenberg disapproved of the idea of an introductory textbook on twelve-tone theory (37).)  Twelve Short Piano Pieces Written in the Twelve-Tone Technique, written in 1938 and published a year later, is an example of relatively straightforward twelve-tone writing.  The same twelve-tone row provides the underlying structure of each piece, and Krenek briefly describes how the various forms of the series are employed.

      As Krenek observes in Studies in Counterpoint Based on the Twelve-Tone Technique, atonal music is music which is not organized according the principle of major and minor keys.  He quotes Schoenberg who states that “music depends not only on acoustics but upon logic . . . Tonality, tending to render harmonic facts perceptible and to correlate them, is therefore not an end but a means.”  In Krenek’s view, the end goal of tonality is, in his words, “such a general organization of the musical material that musical formations may be perceived as logically coherent entities” (vii).  As the tonal idiom faded in the late nineteenth century, the need was felt for new principles upon which music would be logically organized.  For Schoenberg, the principles of twelve-tone theory answered this need.  Krenek quotes from a letter which Schoenberg wrote to Nicolas Slonimsky in which Schoenberg states that “I was always occupied with the aim to base the structure of my music consciously on a unifying idea, which produced not only all the other ideas but regulated also their accompaniment and the chords, the ‘harmonies’” (Studies in Counterpoint vii).  (For the complete text of Schoenberg’s letter, see Slonimsky 680-681.)

      As Schoenberg devised it, a twelve-tone series is an arrangement, into a certain order, of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale without regard to register.  The tones of the series must be used in their chosen order (repetition of tones is allowed in certain circumstances and two or more successive tones of the series may appear as a chord), and once all twelve tones of the series have appeared, the series is repeated again and again until the conclusion of the composition.  The series may appear in any of its four basic forms: the original series, the inverted form (in which ascending intervals of the original series are replaced by equivalent descending ones and vice versa), the retrograde form (in which the tones of the original series are read backwards), and the retrograde inversion (in which the tones of the inverted form are read backwards), and each of the four forms of the series may be transposed to any of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale, thus making available forty-eight permissible patterns of the series.  In multi-part writing the same series is used for the various parts, and the series may cross over from one part to another.  Krenek notes that music composed according to the twelve-tone technique will have an inherently contrapuntal character (viii).  Furthermore, he points out that a series is not a theme (in fact, a theme rarely coincides with a statement of the series) (3) but, rather, is a “pattern” (1) which provides the unifying principle of the composition.

      According to Krenek, the disappearance of tonality as a unifying principle quite naturally resulted in increased significance attaching to what he calls the motif-relationships.  “Whereas they had formerly been a superstructure erected above the harmonic groundwork, they now became responsible for the consistency of the whole edifice” (viii).  He goes on to make the point that “the primary function of the series is that of a sort of ‘store of motifs’ out of which all  the individual elements of the composition are to be developed.  By virtue of its ceaseless repetitions throughout the whole composition, however, the series accomplishes more than that: it assures the technical homogeneity of the work, by permeating its whole structure, like a red thread which, woven into a fabric, lends it a characteristic color shade, without ever becoming conspicuous as such” (viii). 

      Krenek sees the unifying principle of tonality (and all its accoutrements such as key, dominant-tonic relationships, and tonal cadences) as a manifestation of what he calls a harmonic conception of music.  When the underlying structure is based on motif-relationships, there results a shift in the conception of music to the melodic.  Consequently, Krenek sees the twelve-tone unifying principle as grounded in a conception of music which is essentially polyphonic and therefore closely related to the pre-tonal music of the Middle Ages (viii).  Krenek concedes that the twelve-tone technique circumscribes the composer’s melodic choices and enforces substantial restrictions on the use of counterpoint.  But he goes on to observe that, at the same time, the composer’s harmonic freedom is significantly enhanced.  In any event, “music written in the twelve-tone technique, as well as music organized by any other principle rests, in the final analysis, upon imagination and inspiration” (19).

      Almost from the moment of the start of his project to increase public appreciation of twelve-tone music, Krenek was engaged in a continual process of adapting and altering Schoenberg’s ideas.  This is evident in Studies in Counterpoint where he addresses the abandonment of strict twelve-tone writing along the formal lines laid down by Schoenberg.  He points out that the twelve-tone technique is still evolving, and it is clear that he is one of the major forces propelling this evolution, and he expresses the belief that eventually strict twelve-tone technique will not need to be consciously applied as the essence of this unifying principle becomes a natural habit of mind (ix).

      I think Krenek is right when he suggests in Music and Mathematics, which is one of the essays in Music Here and Now, that "my mind is structured twelve-tonelike ... and thinking in series relations is a natural habit of mine" (211).  Krenek discusses at some length his thoughts on axiomatic systems, and he views the relationship between tonal and twelve-tone music the same way in which a mathematician views the relationship between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry (203-207).  Implicit in Krenek's creative philosophy is the idea that alternative systems within music or within mathematics are each determined by a set of self-consistent axioms, and no one system is more natural than any other.  Each is capable of serving as a medium for the expression of aesthetic impulses, and it is ultimately on aesthetic criteria that the final product must be judged.  Krenek himself saw the twelve-tone system as providing "a different angle" (216) from which to study "truth."

       The compositional technique employed in Twelve Short Piano Pieces Written in the Twelve-Tone Technique (Opus 83, 1938) provides a good example of the twelve-tone principles which Krenek lays out in Studies in Counterpoint.  All twelve pieces are based on the same series, and the four basic forms of the series are utilized in a manner which is quite consistent with Schoenberg’s conception of twelve-tone theory.  However, even in this attempt to advertise Schoenberg’s twelve tone system, Krenek is not a slave to theory.  In the seventh piece in the set, as Carlson notes, Krenek repeats tones before the series has been completely stated, a practice not permitted in strict twelve-tone writing, in order to achieve the desired level of energy and intensity (109).

      In Eight Piano Pieces (Opus 110, 1946), all eight pieces are based on the same series.  Krenek writes about this collection that “the listener does not have to observe consciously the presence of the twelve-tone series in order to become aware of a certain characteristic regularity of the design” (11).  In the first four pieces, Schoenberg’s strict conception is adhered to as Krenek makes use of transpositions of the four basic forms of the series.  In his notes on the compositional technique of this collection, Krenek observes that “in the subsequent four pieces the basic tone row is used in different, less rigid ways, showing more recent developments of the twelve-tone technique.”  In these pieces, the row is divided into groups of tones (into three four-tone groups in No. 5 and into four three-tone groups in Nos. 6, 7, and 8), and Krenek points out that “these groups are used as independent units of design.  Each group is treated like the original row, by inversion and retrogression.  Furthermore, the succession of the tones inside of a group is occasionally changed” (11-12).

      Carlson has observed that Twenty Miniatures (Opus 139, 1954) represents a return to Schoenberg’s conception of twelve-tone composition (110).  These short pieces, all based on the same twelve-tone row, comprise a collection having the general character of a theme and variations.  The general comments of Friskin and Freundlich concerning Krenek’s twelve-tone piano music are particularly appropriate with regard to Twenty Miniatures: “Those piano pieces of Krenek written in the twelve-tone manner exhibit a compromise between a ruthless, linear writing (with minimum consideration for the traditional vertical aspects of sound) and the conventional tonal organization of music.  Both the rhythms, melodies and musical textures are less jagged and abrupt than is usual, for example, with Schoenberg.  By contrast, the pianistic style is softer in contour, the figuration along more traditional lines” (276).

      Krenek’s twelve-tone piano miniatures exhibit a high degree of contrapuntalism, a quality which is a natural consequence of the utilization of twelve-tone compositional principles, and a pronounced lyricism, a quality perhaps not immediately associated with twelve-tone writing.  These compositions reveal a lyrical aesthetic that emerges from a fertile creative spirit which is steeped in a rich formal structure.

 

Works Cited

 

Carlson, Effie B.  A Bio-Bibliographical Dictionary of Twelve-Tone and Serial Composers.  Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1970.

Daniel, Oliver.  “Krenek, Ernst.”  The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.  1980 ed.

Friskin, James, and Irwin Freundlich.  Music for the Piano.  New York: Dover, 1973.

Krenek, Ernst.  Eight Piano Pieces.  New York: Mercury Music Corp., 1946.

–––––.  Music Here and Now.  New York: W.W. Norton, 1939.

–––––.  Studies in Counterpoint Based on the Twelve-Tone Technique.  New York: G. Schirmer, 1940.

Newlin, Dika.  Schoenberg Remembered: Diaries and Recollections (1938-76).  New York: Pendragon Press, 1980.

Rothstein, Edward.  “Ernst Krenek, 91, a Composer Prolific in Many Modern Styles.”  New York Times 24 Dec. 1991, natl. ed.: B6.

Slonimsky, Nicolas.  Music Since 1900.  Boston: Coleman-Ross, 1949.

 

Selected Additional Works by and

about Krenek and Twelve-Tone Theory

 

Basart, Ann Phillips.  Serial Music: A Classified Bibliography of Writings on Twelve-Tone and Electronic Music.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961.

Corson, Langdon.  Arnold Schoenberg’s Woodwind Quintet, Op. 26: Background and Analysis.  Nashville: Gasparo, 1984.

Krenek, Ernst.  Exploring Music: Essays by Ernst Krenek.  New York: October House, 1966.

–––––.  Horizons Circled: Reflections on My Music.  Berkeley: University of California       Press, 1974.

–––––.  “Self-Analysis.”  New Mexico Quarterly 23 (Spring 1953): 5-55.

Perle, George.  Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern.   Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

Rosen, Charles.  Arnold Schoenberg.  New York: Viking Press, 1975.

Stewart, John L.  Ernst Krenek: The Man and His Music.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Straus, Joseph N.  Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990.

 

 

Robert Blumenthal earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from the University of Rochester and studied piano at the Eastman School of Music.  He subsequently obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis and continued his piano studies with Seth Carlin, Cary Lewis, and Anna Arshavskaya.  Dr. Blumenthal currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia and is Professor of Mathematics at Oglethorpe University.