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.
Textfehler und Schreibfehler wurden übernommen.
Fehlende i-Punkte, Umlautzeichen etc. werden stillschweigend ergänzt. Geminationsstriche werden aufgelöst. Leerzeichen und Abteilungszeichen werden standardisiert.
Fehlende Interpunktion wird nicht ergänzt. In Zweifelsfällen wird das den Rechtschreibregeln entsprechende Interpunktionszeichen erfasst. Striche werden immer als Bindestriche erfasst.
Es werden ausschließlich englisch Anführungszeichen verwendet. Es wird vorlagegemäß zwischen einfachen und doppelten Anführungszeichen unterschieden.
Die Silbentrennung wird vorlagegemäß übernommen.
Der Text wird in Seiten, Textfelder (Paragraphen, Überschriften, Seitenzahlen, Notizen) und Zeilen segmentiert.
Im Jänner und Februar 1970 war Ernst Krenek Regent’s Lecturer an der University of California, San Diego, wo er eine Serie von vier Vorträgen hielt unter dem übergeordneten Titel: „A Composer Viewing This Century’s Music“. Die Vorträge wurden jeweils Mittwoch abends gehalten und waren einer weit gespannten Themenpallette gewidmet.
Ernst Kreneks dritter Vortrag als Regent’s Lecturer an der UCSD, gehalten am 4. Februar 1970. In der ersten Hälfte des Vortrags setzt sich Krenek mit der Beziehung von Komponierenden und der Gesellschaft auseinander, und welche stilistischen Entwicklungen sich aus dieser Beziehung im Lauf der Musikgeschichte ergaben. Die zweite Hälfte ist vor allem ökonomischen Fragen und Problemen der Komponierenden im 20. Jahrhundert gewidmet.
In the early
a diploma-carrying composer, general preoccupation with
sociological problems started among the practitioners of
any sector of the musical trade
subsided ever since.
therein, or the absence of such function are favorite subject
matters of permanent discussion, oral or printed.
It seems that this has not been the case in earlier periods.
One certaily does not read much about sociological problem
in the historical accounts of the centuries before the nineteenth.
All that seemed to matter was the artistic quality of the music as
determined by the experts - composers, performers, theorists,
critics - who measured the relative accomplishments by stan-
dards immanent to the art itself. Apparently it was assumed
without question that music always public
as music was understood to be a form of communication among
human beings.
It may be well, however, to notice that a somewhat different
attitude seems to have prevailed during the Middle Ages. A
symptom of this may be seen in the fact that in the classification
of the so-called seven liberal arts music was grouped together
with the abstract arts of measurement and proportion - that is,
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, which we today would call
exact science, and not with the arts of communication:
grammar, rhetoric and logic. Looking at the formidable com-
plexities of fourteenth and fifteenth century music one is
tempted to think that these works were not really meant to
be understood or
customed to relate the recipient to
One might suspect that the ideal recipient of those involuted
musical edifices was God in whose honor
involutions of Gothic masonry in which that music was heard.
Of course, this was religious music, that is, just one sector of the
entire realm of music. But it was identical with art music, or what
we nowadays call "serious" music. The secular music of that
age was only marginally
the standards that were traditionally set up for the high-level
church music, although
chansons and other ensemble pieces by composer such as
and rhythmic complexity are concerned. It is hard to tell
what kind of response such pieces found, whether there was any
public
the less exacting specimens of secular music, which would cor-
respond to what we now call "entertainment" music, certainly
had their
articulation demand
to communicate something or other and thus evoke a definite
response in those who are exposed to it as listeners seems
to be a product of the Renaissance. The most obvious result of
this change in the pychology of the recipients is opera. Here
music becomes a medium through which general human ex-
perience is given eloquent articulation in the direct form.
From here on the listener expects that music will tell him
something - be it, on the most primitive level, simple acoustical
information, like the imitation of bird calls, the rhythmic pounding
of galopping horses, or other more or less entertaining descriptive
tricks - or, on a higher level, supply magic insight into emotional
depths that without music might remain obscure.
But secular music has not remained operatic - it has
become what was called "absolute", that is not explicitely
associated with extra-musical content, in other words, purely
instrumental music text
become more and more autonomons. Its changes and developments
were distated by internal evolutionary processes rather than
by changes in the expectations of the listeners, notwithstanding
the materialistic theories that try to demonstrate such changes
to be caused by mutations of the social structure. We don't believe
that the Concerto grosso form that
scene well into the eighteenth century was replaced by the symphony
because of public demand due to some dislocation in the texture
of society, although it may be possible from our distant vantage point
to discover some parallel evolutionary changes in various fields
and ponder the secrets of their synchronization in history.
At any rate, secular music has undergone rather dramatic
changes ever since the seventeenth century, but its audiences have
not modified their expectation that music should communicate
some sort of a message to which they
tically, and, it must be said, composers have consistently shared
this attitude with a very few exceptions we have heard about in
the present timme, exceptions that may well be explained by the
predicament that we experience today.
The predicament consists, plainly spoken, in the fact that
the contemporary composer does not have as many paying cust-
omers as he not only wishes to have, but also needs in order
to keep alive and active.
sociological,
which the relation of the composer and his public unfolds basically
turns about this complaint. Among the numerous explanations
offered the most plausible is twofold: on the one hand it is a
matter of quantity in that public music
has grown immensely during the last twohundred years
on the other hand the composers felt themselves more
rapid and drastic changes of their musical language.
The size of the potential audience has at least theor-
etically become identical with the total population of
the civilized world since after the social upheavals due
to industrial and other revolutions the consumption of
art has ceased to be the prerogative of privileged developed the ambition to
aspire the
the enjoyments previously reserved for the ,.
In order to satisfy this new and quantitatively increasing
demand the musical world had to develop an adequate
organization, and in order to channel music to the new
customers the modern commercial apparatus of distribution
was created - publishers, concert organizations, agents, opera
houses, and
the nature of the commercial mind that it will not rest at peace
before it has made all potential customers active buyers of
the product that it promotes, and
that it meets, it will blame the product for not
to the desires of the customer. The fact is that in our century, if
not even somewhat earlier, the new music at any given time
did not conform to then prevailing tastes of the commercially envisaged
ideal, that is,
That this seems to have been different in the good old days may
be inferred, for instance, from the observation that concert pro-
grams consisted almost entirely of new compositions. What
we nowadays call the standard repertoire, the treasury of well-
known, tried and tested warhorses, did not exist. It also was
customary, still in
every year or so a exclusively of his in which he displays
present exclusively his own works and try to provide added
attraction by inserting one or two new items he had written
especially for the occasion,
to the nineteenth century the musical language had not
changed as rapidly and thoroughly as it did later.
The request for originality in art seems to accentuate itself
in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
the degree is
by the principle that it ought to remain perceivable as a
deviation from the convention and not to be experienced
as an
he depicted the inordinate rage of a character named Osmin
by assigning the middle part of his aria to
from the principal tonality than would have been standard
procedure for that part of an aria. He
was careful to chose
to his esthetics, even the outrageous must be expressed within
the limits of the pleasing and rational. This statement clearly
reveals what limitations of his originality a composer was willing
to take upon himself, but it also reveals that he was able to
expect the appreciation of his finesses by an audience that
was so conversant with conventional procedure that it would
readily notice
uate its significance.
As the nineteenth century went on, connoisseurs of such cap-
acities were found less and less in a steadily growing general aud-
ience. Eventually such perspicacity limited
experts -
of the composer who study his scores with the aid of analyses
provided by him, perhaps a few critics and scholars. And it
is these groups who exert a silent and only subsonsciously felt
pressure onto the composer prodding him toward further exper-
imentation, a pressure that augments his own urge to try
new untrodden ways.
push him into the lonely vacuum of which he frequently com-
plains. They do not respond to his innovations any longer be-
cause they are not any longer aware of any convention to
which the innovations could be related.
The composer frequently comforts himself by rationalizing
that he is ahead of his time, that the mentality of the public at large
will eventually catch up with him. This way of thinking is supported
to some extent by historical evidence. The progressive composers
and critics love to quote gleefully devastating contemporary
reviews in writers
denounced as
to unmask the perpetrators of such
ludicrous dunces although some of these conservative critics, as for
instance point out
unpopular with
new music - such as
been successful even while it was new, in spite of isolated rantings
of stupid critics. Probably both viewpoints have merits, and
history can, as we have seen, easily be interpreted to support either
one with impressive evidence. The term "Zukunftsmusik" - music of
the formulated
stood only at some later time, but that he was confident that
the future would belong to him and his work.
Attempts toward making modern music a matter of
the present instead of the future were made during the period of
neo-classicism, between
in Gebrauchsmusik, music for use,
gained many followers. It was based on the idea that serious
music had become an object of passive admiration rather than
of vital concern, that it had alienated the public by requiring
it to marvel at its high-brow complexities. The new trend
was toward music-making instead of listening to it. Consequently
a type of music was promoted that would be easy enough
to be handled by a moderately equipped layman, "Spiel-
musik", that is music for play, geared to the capacities and
tastes of communities of juveniles, such as boy-scouts and
others, their tools being recorders and guitars. These people
were fiercely anti-romantic and despised any music written
between
aspirations were more romantic than anything else, for
the good old days when society was one big happy family and the
lion lying down with the lamb. As an example of such paradi-
saical conditions they liked to quote
pily grinding out a new cantata for every Sunday to the delight
of an equally happy community of eager consumers. It was con-
veniently forgotten that he had trouble enough with his board of
supervisors who found his music frequently
and unpalatable.
The revival of the Concerto Grosso style was based on the
same wishful thinking that by restoring the outward appearance
of seventeenth century music one could also restore the
harmonious social organization that supposedly had existed
at that time, supported
composer and his public. Although much of the music generated
on these premises turned out to be rather dry, academic and
pedantic,
hands of appel
play some contemporary stuff, for its
performance does not demand anything beyond the traditional
skills sounds
Couriously enough adventures
temporary music, the really progressive one, had to endure eventually
brought it to a point where its practitioners
out for a more direct rapport with the listener. During the neo-
classicistic era the new music as embodied in atonality and
twelve-tone technique was severely isolated from
at large. This was accepted as an inevitable fate in the countries
of totalitarian rule because no matter what their dominant
ideology proclaimed to be the truth, they had to repress any
kind of art that would reveal and underscore the essentially
precarious condition of human existence and encourage pro-
test against existing conditions. But this type of ad-
vanced music was not much better received in the so-called free
world. It was tolerated, but not welcome.
has astonishingly changed during the last twenty years.
Not that the attitude of the famous general audience, the
mass of customers had changed. But within the profession, among
the composers, a total about-face took place. The new generation of
young composers were not any longer interested in the
folkloristic or neo-classical exercises of their predecessors.
They had discovered
I shall discuss my
however, not much had changed.
become any more popular with the established institutions than
the new music of
of frustration caused by this isolation have sparked the
introduction of the element of action into the production
and performance of music. Music then becomes a Happening.
It incorporates action of extra-musical nature which is
not only to be heard in its acoustical results, but also seen
while it is carried out. The listener, or witness, is encouraged
to emerge its
a chair, and invited at least to move around or even to
participate in some ways in the proceedings. Obviously
such goings-on corrode the traditional concept of the work
of art as being a rationally constituted unit of thought,
as a premeditated piece of construction. The elements of
chance and improvisation take over. It is clear that this
tendency involves an element of protest against traditional
values und displays intentionally an anti-establishmentarian
attitude. No matter how sincerely one might sympathise with
such an attitude,
most outrageous Happenings are not likely to bring
ment down - in fact, they are most popular as sensational
titillation with the most solid members of the Establishment -
and less overboarding
of the non-aggressive art, they are usually very disappointing in terms of
intellectual or any other interest.
Let us now take a look at the machinery
determining the social and economic position of the composer. In
modern times the source of power in this machinery is the concept of
Copyright, that is, as is well known, the principle that the originator
of the work of art is entitled to fair compensation by the users
of his work - a concept related to the idea of the patent in
science and industry. It is a relatively novel idea. In the only in and
gained worldwide recognition only in the nineteenth century.
Prior to the establishment of this principle and the setting
up of the organisations necessary to enforce it the composer
was usually compensated for his labors by a one-time fee
and had to produce and deliver his products to his employer,
frequently according to the latter's specifications.
for instance lived and worked during the greater part of his life
under these conditions and fared very well. His social status at the
court of the princes Eszterházy was far from exalted - he ranked
more or less on the same level as the chief cook or the master
of the stable, but this did not prevent him from becoming fabulously
successful. It seems that hundreds of his works were printed during
his life time by numerous publishers in many countries, which
is astonishing in itself, because at that time there was not a trace
of what we today call publicity: no newspaper reviews, no trade
magazines, no broadcacts - only word of mouth propaganda.
sphere had no complaints about his position. It is remarkable that
when he became a free
adjust to the
conditions
happy situation. In the first place it was his bad luck that his
employers, the archbishops of
than the princes Eszterházy. But It was also
inclination to chafe under the restrictive aspects of his position,
but also the unrest of the late eighteenth century that prompted
him to kick against the pricks.
he was not very successful in his fight against society. Again One
forceful personality, continuing the
and materially secure position of the composer in society.
Only in our century the idea of the Copyright has found
general, if reluctant recognition. is curious,
not to speak of proprietors of taverns or nightclubs with musical
entertainment - do not hesitate to pay for the use of light,
and heat,
agent to dishwasher, but find it outrageons that the com-
poser whose music they use wishes to be compensated. Even
after the principle of proper remuneration was grudgingly
acknowledged, the notion still persisted that royalties
were rather a sort of a tip for especially pleasant services
than
The idea of a systematical exploitation of the Copyright be-
came interesting for the composer as soon as his work was
likely to have many repeated performances at distant
places over indefinite periods of time.
to write quickly a new aria for a singer of his acquain-
tance for a flat fee of a few dollars in order to pacify
the corner y store
staggering unpaid bills, and the singer would use the aria
in her next concert, and perhaps never again.
less times all over the world, their successors did not
want to be cheated out of their just reward like their famous
ancestors.
Obviously it is impossible for the individual composer to
control innumerable, or even a few performances of his
works in five continents. arround
society societies were formed in the various countries
which developed the apparatus necessary for collecting the monies
due to the composers. It is easy to see that this is a business as
formidable as it is picagunish, for it means
from the big symphony orchestras whose programs are published in
the newspapers and thus are easily controlled, but also from humble
community concerts where one or two short pieces of a member of
the society may have been played, and also from the innumerable
night clubs where
many and which songs were played how many times every night.
These monies are not only to be collected, but also to be distributed
fairly among the members of
eties which are tied together by mutual agreements and exchange
their membership lists.
gistering all necessary data and channeling the resulting dollars and
cents to their rightful recipients seven
the whole we have to acknowledge that the performing right
societies are doing a most creditable job. been acknowledged by all of them that
their operation worthwhile and even possible results from the
mass production and mass performance of entertainment music.
But it has been acknowledged within all of these societies that
tunities and working
be subsidized by the lucky entertainers. Very little is
heard about corruption or
annoying red tape is no worse than that of other comparable
organisms.
In order to have performances to be controlled by his
performing right society, the composer's music must be avail-
able to prospective interpreters, and this is where the publishers
enters the picture. He is in a difficult position because
even the most successful composer will inevitably feel that
his publisher has not done enough for his work. Especially observes more prosperous
greater fame and prospesity than himself, he will ascribe
their success to the
of the publisher and reproach him for not applying these
gifts to his own output.
By the way, the notion that the publisher disposes of in-
credible, perfectly magic powers also exists in the heads of these
adversaries of new music who firmly believe that there is a con-
spiracy of critics, agents, interpreters, broadcasters and what not
nursed and maintained with the inexhaustible funds of male-
volent with
of an innocent public the indegistible modern stuff.
Strangely the question why the publishers should waste their riches
in this manner while they could make more and easier money
by peddling the music that seems
never asked nor answered.
The expectations which the publisher
doomed to disappoint are based on his peculiar relationship
to the work he has acquired. If somebody buys a painting for
ten dollars and sells it for tenthousand, the painter who originally
sold it does not share
are not interesting as objects of investments, for one can not hang
them on the wall or hide them in the basement and wait till the market
has gone up. One can not own a piece of music as one owns a statue.
So far it has not been noticed that electronic music offers a pos-
sibility of a similar kind: a rich man could commission a com-
poser to produce an electronic tape of no copies would be
he would be the sole owner so that whoever wanted to hear
this work would have to be invited by the owner.
At any rate, the publisher does not own the work as an
art dealer does. It is entrusted to him for exploitation, and the
composer depends for his income on that exploitation. Nowadays
the main vehicle for making the musical work a source of income
is the public performance with admission fee. In the old days
the sales of printed copies, in the jargon of the trade somewhat
prominently
Even vocal scores of operas met an astonishing demand.
I was told by Parsifal more than a hundredthousand copies were sold
during the composer's life time alone - which was just a few
years after the completion of the Some
tastic numbers may be accounted for by the aura of sensation that sur-
rounded the work, but the Parsifal score is difficult enough to scare
even present-day amateurs - if there were any who care
an opera score at all. If our music lovers care to use their fingers, it
is more to turn dials or push buttons than to tickle the keys.
that still sells in large quantities in is mainly educational material
the old, classical and early romantic music, which owes this per-
sistent popularity chiefly to the fact that it is
ational material. Easy choral numbers
headings.
Performances which have become the main source of revenue
as far as new music is concerned are then the main target of the
publisher's promotional activity. The established
concert institutions are not a very promising
hunting ground since their audiences still
demand the same fare as sixty years ago - or
at least the managers think so. At that time
we were told, as I remember, that the audiences
consisted of old people who were reluctant to
accept the dramatic innovations of new music.
In the meantime one or two new generations must have taken
the seats of those oldsters, and yet
very much the same. I they ever had a different attitude
while they were young, the Establishment has apparently succeeded
in assimilating them sufficiently to make them docile cust-
omers of the old wares.
As far as public performances go, opera productions are
the most rewarding financially, because opera houses are seating
lots of people, admission is relatively high and royalty percen-
tages adequate. In
vision broadcasts are equally substantial because
these agencies are important users of new music - not so
much because their audiences are clamoring for it, but because
radio and television are
rendering a public and of
every sector of the population - even that strange minority
group that is interested in new music - and to
actively the progressive trend in the arts. They not only broad-
act this music, they also
have series of public concerts with new music,
they organize or sponsor festivals,
write new works for them,
what merits the
spect. In
their pleasure. Actually, they are not subject to any tax. They
pay a very modest license fee, which is
of appreciation for the service they are getting. While it is customary
to pay for a concert ticket, why then should the music we hear on
the radio be free? In
the radio program for nothing, because the music is essentially offered
only as a bait to keep the listener glued to his machine until the
message of the advertiser arrives, which is the sole purpose of the whole
operation. It is peculiar, however, that the listener actually believes
that he is getting something for nothing. Whenever the question arises
whether serious music and opera should be subsidized by
we hear some angry taxpayers protesting that they don't care for opera
and don't see why they should pay for the pleasure of those few
snobs who pretend to like it. These people seem to forget that they
are subsidizing the whole radio program
check stand at the supermarket, for the advertisers don't by any means
offer the splendiferous spectaculars out of sheer love for their customers,
but
price cigarettes, hand lotion, cereals
never look at TV have to pay likewise. But, of course, they are a hope-
less minority, nearly suspect of subversion.
As we know, there is a roundabout way of subsidizing art
through public funds, as long as private can channeled
office, and perhaps it is not so bad a system either, because the
sponsorship is more diversified und decentralized than under a
bureaueratic organization. In one of his conversations with
whatsoever for new music and that the agencies that com-
mission new music are buying up surplus symphonies just
as govermments are buying up surplus wheat and butter with-
out being really interested at all in having those products.
I think that there is a certain difference. The governments
may not be interested in wheat and butter, but they are very
keenly interested in the voting power of the masses of farmers that
produce those extra masses of wheat and butter. The makers of
symphonies and related items are very few, and they do not elect
the directors of the foundations that are willing to take care of the
surplus. It seems that there are quite a few people around who
are interested in listening to a new serial composition even by
the is
state. Therefore he should not feel guilty for not being able to com-
pete in the market place with the purveyors of more conventional
material. Not he is subsidized, but the
interested in new music. And this minority is the silent one -
for whenever new music appears by mistake or miscalculation
in the programs of the Establishment, it is the majority of the
conformists which pesters the
complaints and outraged protest. I have
Howerer, for the last ten years or so, new music has gained an
in-position all over the world - not with the established institutions
but with a new layer of in-between agencies: festivals, private
associations, small groups of performers and listeners at colleges,
radio stations and so forth. I feel that this is a very welcome
development, for it is by no means an axiom that any
and all music has to be demanded and digested by all people,
just as not every book published has to be read by everybody
in sight. To call this minority of appreciative listeners an
not relevant
Even so, their numbers are growing. Superficially looked
at, our period seems to show a bewildering array of com-
pletely heterogeneous musical styles. Actually, since
new international style has become more and more pronounced.
shows reveals that
how absurd and provocative it
new, is taken up by more and more composers, it almost
automatically becomes more palatable and acceptable to a
growing number of recipients. Thus our present silent minority
may, as time goes by, eventually gain a quite different status.
Then it will be time to look for something new.