Krenek: Piano Music, Vol. 1

Featuring

Stanislav Khristenko
Ernst Krenek
Franz Schubert

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Composition History

Krenek's first piano sonata, from the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's collapse, shows both a Schreker-influenced neo-Romantic style and an emerging neo-Classical concern for abstract musical structures.

Composition History

Krenek completed two unfinished movements of Schubert's Piano Sonata in C major, D840, believing he could supply what Schubert might have done by using his knowledge of Schubert's style.

Recording & Production

This album was recorded in Studio 2, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich, from March 12-14, 2014, with Ulrike Schwarz as the balance engineer and Bernhard Albrecht as producer and editor.

Composer Biography

Ernst Krenek, despite his creative achievements, felt a profound sense of creative exile, stating in 1975, 'I don't know where I belong,' as he was not fully acknowledged as either an American or an Austrian composer.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Krenek's musical philosophy was profoundly shaped by Eduard Erdmann, a concert pianist and composer, who taught him to analyze music from purely musical vantage points, rather than vague terms of pleasantness.

Composer Biography

Ernst Krenek, born in Vienna in 1900, grew up in a house overlooking the original gravesites of Beethoven and Schubert, and his childhood routine included walking paths Beethoven had walked.

Composer Biography

Krenek's composition teacher, Franz Schreker, conveyed aesthetic principles influenced by Debussy, Max Reger, Richard Strauss, and Scriabin, which spoke to a mood of fin-de-siècle decadence.