Ernst Krenek
Die Nachtigall
Duration: 8'
Text von: Karl Kraus
Solos:
coloratura soprano
Instrumentation details:
2 fl - str
Krenek - Die Nachtigall for coloratura soprano and ensemble
Translation, reprints and more
Ernst Krenek
Krenek: Die Nachtigall for coloratura soprano, 2 flutes and strings - op. 68aOrchestration: for coloratura soprano, 2 flutes and strings
Type: Partitur
Audio preview
Work introduction
Karl Kraus turned to Aristophanes’ comedy The Birds for his play Wolkenkuckucksheim only a few years after Walter Braunfels had set the same Greek drama to music; the poem set to music in the aria Die Nachtigall originates in that work. Written while working on his twelve-tone opera Karl V, Die Nachtigall has Romantic touches, although it is atonal.
But Krenek also used tonal melodies (some of them approaching quotations) in fashioning a piece of virtuosic, technically extremely demanding music, which he presented to Lucy Siegrist, who commissioned it.