By: Philip Stoecker, Hofstra University
Abstract:
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian-born composer, writer, and teacher who is arguably best-known for his 1926 jazz-infused opera, Jonny spielt auf. Krenek turned to the method of composing with twelve-tones in the late 1920s. In this video, I analyze Ernst Krenek’s Suite for Cello Solo, op. 84. Krenek’s Cello Suite was composed in 1939 nearly a year after he moved to the United States. The cello suite consists of five movements and is based on a single twelve-tone row and its transformations: retrograde, inversion, and retrograde inversion. Each of the first four movements uses only one of these transformations: I = prime; II = inversion; III = retrograde; and IV = retrograde inversion. In the fifth and final movement, Krenek uses all four forms of the prime row, using a segmental approach. By using this approach, Krenek creates a new melodic and thematic structure to conclude his cello suite.
Select Bibliography:
Krenek, Ernst. Studies in Counterpoint: Based on the Twelve-Tone Technique (New York: G. Schirmer, Inc.,
1940).
Stewart, John L., Ernst Krenek: The Man and His Music (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1991).
About the Author:
Philip Stoecker is Professor of Music at Hofstra University. His research interests include the music of Thomas Adès, Alban Berg, George Perle, and Arnold Schoenberg. His co-edited book with Edward Venn, Thomas Adès Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2021), was awarded the 2022 Outstanding Multi-Author Collection Award from the Society for Music Theory. He was awarded the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend to support his revised edition of Schoenberg’s Fundamentals of Musical Composition. He served as Secretary of the Society for Music Theory (SMT), Co-chair of the Autographs and Archival Documents Interest Group of the SMT, and President of the Music Theory Society of New York State.