Ernst Krenek
School Music
Duration: -'
Krenek - School Music
Work introduction
Ernst Krenek wrote School Music between 1938 and 1939,
just after his flight from Vienna to the US. At the time the composer was
increasingly seeking to gain experience as a teacher, not least because as a little-known
musician in America, he saw teaching as the only opportunity to make a living. The
efforts to find a suitable post were soon successful. Amongst various other
activities, Krenek gave an overview of ‘modern music’ in the form of a lecture
series with example demonstrations, while in a further course on composition he
dealt with questions of twelvetone technique in greater detail. Though the
students had only limited previous training in the subject they were evidently
extremely interested in it. In autumn 1938 he started writing pieces for
various instruments that seemed suited to practical work with students. In these
works the ambition to come as close as possible to the past artistically was
accompanied by the desire to find a form of interpretation in composition and
playing technique that is appropriate to one’s own time. Krenek’s aim was the
‘development’of the ‘facility for musical understanding’ and, not least, the
‘awakening of the enjoyment’ of such ‘musical understanding’. The ten pieces
assembled under the title School Music
were thus intended to support the individual student’s conscious analysis of
music history through its various stages.