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.
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In seinem Vortrag an der Boston University im Herbst 1938 skizziert Krenek die kurze Geschichte der atonalen Musik aus Perspektive von Arnold Schönberg und seiner Schüler, von der Übergängen der Spätromantik zu einem ungeregelt atonalen Stil zu den neuen strukturellen Möglichkeiten durch die Organisation des musikalischen Materials in Zwölftonreihen. Er betont in dieser Darstellung auch die Bedeutung von Schönbergs gründlicher Vorbereitung der Aufführungen neuer Musik in seinem „Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen“.
If one would identify the so called Viennese School of modern music with atonality and
twelve-tone technique it would be right only in a narrower, more technical sense. Actually
the issue which led this group of musicians through out their struggles, defeats and victories
is a much broader one. The main idea realized by
was to make music more music-conscious again, after the spectacular features of the high ro-
manticism which connected music more and more with extramusical conceptions. I remember only
the tendency of
significance. Later on the development of this tendency inaugurated a merely descriptive
kind of music. A most characteristic representative of this branch is for instance
the means of psychological associations. But it must be alleged that the spiritual level of
music was sensibly lowered by this sort of artistic methods.
However, the late romanticism contributed very much to the metamorphosis of musical
means. Looking for always more refined means, it accomplished the definite decomposition of
tonality which has been solidely established in the music of the earlier 19th century.
Thus one recognizes
spect to the material he is strongly connected with the late romanticism, in regard of the
technique he is linked with the last quartets of
set forth by
final victory of this man. On the other hand he was strongly influenced by
in
this time to bewilder his contemporaries by his gigantic symphonies. The first important
works of
sis announces itself already in the
crisis becomes obvious in the
soon the worldwide reputation of being a reckless destroyer of everything valuable in music
and a dangerous madman.
What did actually happen?
the sensibly submerged tonality to the so called atonality. That means technically that he
abolished the main implements of tonality: the perfect triad, the definite key and the har-
monic device of tonality, the tonal cadence. These elements have been the framework of every
European music since thehigh
music only by
vable that music should be able to exist outside of this sanctified framework. Even now, 30
years after these events, there are many people and especially critics who presume that
the proceedings of
attract the general attention by some criminal deeds because he felt himself unable to pro-
duce orderly music. Such meanings are proved
earlier works. In fact, his decision to enter the realm of atonality was due to his con-
viction that nothing worthwile could be created by using the exhausted means of tonality,
and he was entirely conscious of the tremendous responsibility connected with this step.
Especially in
stence against
followed by indignant protests, the most amazing uproar, still remembered by frightened
Viennese concert goers, started in occasion of an orchestra-concert given by
and his first pupils in
concert-hall, and the ambulance was called in to take care of injured people. The main riot
was caused by a lied by
his master. This composition which is famous for having evoked the biggest scandal in the
whole history of music (and therefore never performed again) is at the same time one of the
shortest pieces of the literature. It takes hardly more than one minute. But the wild evo-
lutions of the voice bringing out some very strange words, and the idea of using the full
strength of a huge orchestra for such a small thing chocked the listeners incredibly. Both
elements, the extravaganzas of sonority, the appaling contrasts and the shortness of the
composition are very characteristic for this first state of atonal music. The contracts are
due to the intention of this school to increase the intensity of emotional expression, the
shortness of the pieces to the fact that it was not yet possible to build up more extended
forms in a musical language deprived of all means which guaranteed the unity of such lar-
ger extensions in the realm of tonality. (2) Sie
E Schönberg op. 19)
field. In spite of his most exciting start he conserved imperturbably his fidelity to this
heritage of the romanticism. His so-to-speak anarchic tendency found its climax in the
king his music proof against every kind of theoretical objections. In his unparalleled
Master piece, the opera
elaborated classical forms, in spite of the unbroken intensity of dramatic expression.
In his last work, the
with the essential elements of tonal music.
establishing a formal unity by the means of thematic connection, of repetition or varia-
tion of certain elements, is completely avoided.
very intensely with the idea of endowing the new idiom with adequate implements for buil-
ding up more extended
followed by
flight from the surface of music to its inner layers is radical in such a degree that the
sounding matter is nearly annihilated. The highest tension of expression is obtained by a
minimum of means, by condensing musical developments to the smallest gestures.
the unbelievable power to endow one single tone with the entire significance which, for
being set forth in some other, more eloquent style, would need perhaps a whole extended
movement. His music is, of course, very strange to listen to, and it was denounced as the
merely intellectual concoctions of a degenerate brains. In fact this music has a very deep
relationship to the very Austrian character, and it is not as bewildering as many people
believe that the man who created it belongs to the offsprings of an old aristocrate family
which used to live in a far remote place in the s
appaling silence of the high mountains, the fallacious peace of a dreadful and
threatening nature, will remember it by listening to the utterly refined, thin and strange
sounds of
ful folk-tunes which coined the image of
is more truth about d
to be a harmless easy-going people, drinking, singing, dancing all their lifetime, lucky
by their aloofness from all serious problems. This image was created by a commercialized
operetta-industry and fostered by Hollywood producers. The tragic features of the fate of
dictions,
But all of it is represented in the music of the Viennese school where fear and sadness
caused by the decline of a world of value and beauty found a most
ion. On the other hand, this music which is by no means national in the sense of a cheap
folk-lore business is the only one which continues
of the all-human, universal idea of classicism, and in this way
When investigating the possibilities of creating more extended forms in the new material
That is a technical procedure by which the composer should be enabled to comprehend a greater
number of the new elements as an orderly organized unity. It would take too much time and
lead us too
complex of this technique. Nonetheless its primitive idea is simple enough to be told in two
words and to be understood by everybody. As the harmonic facts which guaranteed the unity of
the form in tonal music are missing in the atonal field, it is obvious that one has to look
for another device serving the same purposes. The twelve tone technique finds it in the re-
gion of melody. The new unifying idea is built up by a twelve tone series, that means
a freely chosen succession of all twelve tones presented by the chromatic scale and contai-
ning each tone only once. This succession is the basic melodic pattern of the whole work
which is intended and will be kept unaltered throughout its entire extension. Every mathe-
matician can tell you how many millions of different successions can be built up by combi-
ning twelve different tones so we do not need to worry about being earnestly limited in fin-
ding out such twelve-tone series. On the other hand, there are many possibilities of derived
forms and transpositions of every single series so that one disposes of a lot of various com-
binations within every single work. As the series is kept unaltered during the whole compo-
sition which means
work, melodies, chords and so on, must necessarily be established by the patterns presented
in the primitive séries.
vice dwelling far below the layer of creative inspiration, but it does not indeed intend more
than to secure the technical unity of atonal music, its spiritual unity, if there is at all,
rests still upon the general character of the themes and its developments, upon the grandeur
of its ideas and finally the creative power of the genius who wrote it, like in every other
music.
When
ciation of the Viennese school was subjected to certain changes. In its pre-war features this
music had anticipated in some way the cataclysm which
therefore it had inspired its listeners with repugnance and awe. In the post-war re-
Viennese school was no more blamed because of its radical progressivity, because of its re-
volutionary destructive ideas, but denounced as old fashioned, as a product of
psychotic mentality, happily overthrown by a sounder attitude.
Whereas atonal music was blamed in its beginning for having spoiled the beauty of the roman-
tic epoc it is often despised today as a bad continuation of romantic traditions. In both
of these ob
manticism, but by destroying it, it
the intensity of expressing strong emotional feelings. It is just the rigidity of the con-
struction which guarantees, quite paradoxically, the freedom of this expression. Compared
with the streamlined features of the greater part of contemporary music the atonal composi-
tions might offer an appearance of introverted aloofness, of
and at the same time of old-fashioned intensity of feeling. Another curious ambiguousity
can be seen in the appreciation of this music from modern political viewpoints.
In the countries of its origin this music has been denounced as "Kulturbolschewismus". That
is an entirely meaningless slogan, but nonetheless effective enough to make the life of ato-
nal composers in their homelands intolerable. Yet if one would presume that this music which
in the eyes of its enemies has so obvious revolutionary qualities must be praised for instance
in
fascist countries as "Kulturbolschewismus" is exorcised by the sowiets as formalism and rot-
ten bourgeois business. But all that does not worry these composers. In spite of their small
number and their limited popularity they are conserving and advocating the ideas of the Vi-
ennese school, without loosing their confidence of being on the right way.
I personally did not belong to the Viennese school from the beginning although
born and brought up in
of important works. Therefore, and because I belong to a much younger generation than the
group of composers who were the first to build up this school, my approach to
behavior in its orbit are in some way different. In spite of using the twelve-tone-technique
since about six years, I do not believe that here the last word is said with respect to the
possibilities of composing in the atonal style. I think that a point will be reached where
a strict application of this technique will no more be needed in order to build up even more
extended forms. The achievements of this technique will become more or less self-evident and
we shall handle the new material with a greater freedom than now, without plunging back in
the chaotic state of its beginnings. But I believe that the twelve-tone-technique will re-
main a most valuable
the new idiom. It will replace, or rather continue, the exercises in the old medieval count-
terpoint which are until now the only and therefore the best method to acquire musical skill
and handicraft.
After the war the Viennese school did not remain long time gathered as a group on
the spot of their origin. Its main accomplishment in this time was the
formances of modern music. The concerts were not accessible but to the members, and besides
the general programm for the whole season it was never announced in advance which works
should be played in every single concert. Thus
to the same new work several times, presuming that if they would
foreseen they would not
30 and more for a difficult score - were open to the mem
to study the modern music thoroughly. Numberless unrivalled performances of every kind of
contemporary music took place, lot of later
Quartet started from this fanatically inspired workshop.
Today the Viennese school is scattered all over the world. Schoenberg who left
in
years ago, not more than 51 years old. It was the most sensible loss for the group. Myself,
I came over to this country last year and I decided to settle down here after
ned out to be not an adequate place for artistic activities of this sort. Some
other members of the school are living here and there, far remote one from the other.
Webern is the only one who is still living in
probably induced to remain silent. May we hope that all the migrations of these composers
might contribute to make their ideas and works better known and to spread the insight into
their earnest will of promoting the progress of our art.