Im Digitalisierungsprojekt „Ernst Krenek lectures online: die musiktheoretischen Vorträge eines Exil-Österreichers“ wurden die im Archiv der Ernst-Krenek-Institut-Privatstiftung aufbewahrten Manuskripte und Typoskripte zu Kreneks Lehrveranstaltungen, Vorträgen und Radiosendungen in einer kuratierten Auswahl online verfügbar und durchsuchbar gemacht, sowie mit begleitenden historischen und biographischen Informationen kontextualisiert.
Digitalisiert wurden rund 90 Schriftgutobjekte mit einem Gesamtseitenumfang von rund 800 Seiten. 75% dieser Objekte sind Manuskripte, die restlichen 25% sind Typoskripte, wobei die Hälfte der Dokumente in deutscher, die andere Hälfte in englischer Sprache verfasst sind. Diese Dokumente stammen aus dem Nachlass Ernst Kreneks und stehen im Zusammenhang mit seiner Lehr- und Vortragstätigkeit sowohl in akademischen Institutionen als auch in Rundfunksendungen.
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In diesem Vortrag – gehalten im Herbst 1938 an der Wesleyan University – erläutert Krenek die Beziehung zwischen Tonalität und den alten musikalischen Formen, insbesondere der Sonaten-Form, deren innere Struktur von Funktionsharmonik und Tonarten-Beziehungen durchdrungen ist. Frühe Atonalität hatte auch eine Auflösung der herkömmlichen Formen zur Folge, und erst in Schönbergs Zwölftontechnik wird wieder eine musikalische Sprache möglich, die eine innere formale Einheit aufweist.
There are especially three statements, which I wish to make the
main issues of the present discussion.
The first would be that the Sonata-form is the standard form of tonality
and as such bound to the conditions of tonality. As tonality or tonal music
I am comprehending the music inaugurated in Their
harmonic organization through the dominant-effect and the tonal cadence.
By the second thesis I wish to point out that the efforts of resolveing
the problem of the form by in the realm of atonality by reestablishing
the Sonata-form or other traditional forms
aim.
Thirdly, I will try to demonstrate that only the twelve-tone-technique
was able to
adequate idea of the form.
In referring to number one, I think I can be very brief. History proves
that the Sonata-form is connected with tonality in the above mentioned
sense, as the Sonata-form did not develop before the 18th century, 100
years after the establishment of tonality. The same is proved by the ana-
lysis of the formal idea of the It
solution of the tension between the two polarically opposed zones of
Tonica and
three harmonic elements are not conceivable outside of tonality it
is clear that the Sonata-form itself is possible only as far as the prin-
ciples of tonality are ruling. Tonica, Dominant and Subdominant are the
essential elements of the tonal cadence which I consider
bolic model of all possibilities of tonal music. From the simple eight-
bar period to the monumental dimensions of a huge symphony everything
in tonality can be explained as a more and more extended presentation
of the tonal cadence.
It is true that the appearance of the post-classical sonatas, for instance
the symphonies of of
by its very free harmonic structure. The reason is to
be found in the fact that tonality in reaching its acme in the Sonata-
form created the germ provoking its slow but unavoidable decompostion.
The development-part of the Sonata where the return from the Dominant-
region to the Tonica is performed needed increasingly
steps remote from the primitive key, and the practice of working up
the thematic material by dramatic gestures, in connection with
the growing dimensions, led to the necessity of developing the remote
harmonic elements
the temporary domination of foreign keys. Finally also the basic steps
of Dominante and Subdominante are often replaced by the Mediant or
the minor-parallel or some other steps.
the close neighborhood of
unity of the Sonata-form quite unexpectedly, and many of the
phenomena which signify the dilution of the Sonata-form in the later
19th century
boldness.
The evolution of tonality in the late romantricism led to
musical language which under centain assumptions can be called atonality.
I believe it was especially the increasing use of intermediate dominants which
weakened the key-consciousness in such a degree that finally the key
ciple
tions anticipating this evolution completed afterwards by his followers.
involved by his step in regard of the form. Anyway he did not even try to
than by well-established insight. The first exhibits of atonal music are
with the tradition by the prevailing use of the three-part form of the classical
Andante-movement. I wish to play as example the first of these three pieces.
E There are obviously three parts, the last one recapitulating the first one
without the small development section following the first establishment of the
theme. Instead of it there is a coda which finishes the piece. In the classical
model of this form the middle part would require a new theme in a
different key, the dominant or the major or minor variant of the main
tonality or something similar. By such means the middle part is contrasted
to the two other parts. As in
the first and the third part it is obviously not possible to build up the con-
trast of the middle part by the change of the tonality. In fact, the con-
trast is created only by the character of the middle part: thourough-
going quick movement instead of the broadly extended lines of the other
parts, less thematic consistence than in the other sections. Yet, by
creating the contrast in this way not only the
change of tonality (which to do he is compelled by having voted for
atonality), but also the idea of confronting openly different
themes which was not at all necessary. On the contrary, the middle
part is even very much
of the main part. There is not only the idea of the quick movement
anticipated, but nearly everything what is going on in this mid-
dle part turns out to be a sort of development of the opening motive
of the whole piece. I believe
ment was that the intention of creating a clear ABA form was
overshadowed by the care of securing a clearer structural unity
within a musical language deprived of the implements which
used to provide unity in the former tonal language.
This intention of establishing a most striking unity is the
guiding principle of
says in a most interesting
twelvetonetechnique: "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."
This is true not only for
for his earlier tonal compositions,
and the
needed more than ever in the keyless atonal region. Before it was
found, the
pieces. It was not possible to unify larger extensions without the
means of tonality. The unifying idea which was elaborated nearly
twenty years after the first atonal experiments is the twelvetone-
technique.
It is very interesting that
at once in order to try out really new formal concepts. It seems to
me that even now his mind is still occupied with the possibilities of
restoring the sonata-form within the new idiom and by using his new
technique. Anyway, the most important works of his later period, like
the
as I presume also his just finished
to the Sonata-form. As I do not know his theoretical standpoint in this
matter I can not say that I disagree with him. But I should say that I do
not believe that the real values and the specific abilities
ton technique are
Besides these efforts to reestablish the sonata-form
revive some other old forms. I will show you as an example the minuet
of his E Of course,
priece is fully realized, there can be no objection
that the structural pecularities due to the application of the twelvetone
technique are much more important than the realization of the minuet-
scheme. The strict and most elborated use of the different patterns
of the series leads to a great deal of intricate contrapuntual relations
and accords quite different from the kind of accords existing between the
elements of a tonal piece. E Of cause, the composer proved that it is
to
least the minuet-character might be called somewhat distorted. But it
seems to me that more could be won for the innovation of the formal
accords without being haunted by outmoded formal schemes.
his
nique since about six years, I chose too the variation-form in order to try
out some new formal idea. It seems to me that the variation-form
altogether is somehow the basic formal concept of this style, because
of repeating the idea of the ever transformed basic patterns on a
large scale. The formal idea of my E
of course, there will be a great deal of other possibities of deriving new
formal concepts from the pecularities of the structure offered by the
twelvetone -technique. It seems to me that this proceedings are promising
enough because the main idea of the sonata-form was also derived from
the structural qualities of tonality as I pointed out before.
I believe that on the one hand there is behind the twelvetone-
technique some spiritual background which would remain neglected
if one would try to apply this technique on traditional formal
schemes by using it as a so-to-speak ready-made device. Just when
that such an idea claims more and other things than the remodeling
of classical forms which has been unified enough by its own means.
On the other hand I believe it sound to consider the twelvetone-
technique only as a special case of realizing this new unifying
idea, although the most systematically
of that
field than that which is filled to day by the tvelvetone-technique.
For my opinion
of such relations as I showed in the
piano-piece of Schoenberg to the high
degree of
severity reached in the twelvetone-
technique. But when we learned to
use all implications of this technique
for the enlargement of our formal concepts we should be able to proceed
without loosing the unifying idea, on the contrary, in applying it
in a more refined and flexible way
technique will remain the most suitable means for teaching
composition in the new idiom, in furnishing a logically connecting
link
freedom of