New edition of the Adorno-Krenek Correspondence and a new CD by the Cleveland Orchestra with Krenek’s 'Static and Ecstatic'
In addition to the new publications announced already in the last Newsletter – the CD Piano Music vol. 2 on Toccata and the recently released short story The Three Overcoats of Anton K. (edition memoria) – we are now happy to announce two more new publications.
In mid-September, the Suhrkamp Publishing House will be issuing a revised and expanded new edition of the correspondence between Ernst Krenek and Theodor W. Adorno, edited by Claudia Maurer Zenck. Krenek and Adorno shared a friendship that lasted many decades, a friendship that resulted in an extensive correspondence from 1929 to 1964. They met in person in Frankfurt in 1924, but it took a few years before their contact intensified.
The subjects of their correspondence encompass composition and music theory as well as sociology, philosophy, politics, and, of course, personal concerns. The letters are an important enrichment for the history, theory, and aesthetics of the music of the twentieth century.
Briefe und Briefwechsel - Band 6.I
Theodor W. Adorno/Ernst Krenek. Briefwechsel 1929–1964
Herausgegeben von Claudia Maurer Zenck
Suhrkamp Verlag
ISBN: 978-3-518-58753-9
More information
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In March, shortly before the outbreak of the corona pandemic, the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst performed two concerts in Severance Hall with Schubert’s “Great C-Major” Symphony, D. 944, and Ernst Krenek’s Static and Ecstatic, op. 214. The live recording of the two works is to appear in October on a CD on the orchestra’s own label: a program very rich in contrasts, yet, as Franz Welser-Möst remarked in an announcement, in this time of change the works have become for him “an unlikely but obvious twosome.”
Ernst Krenek wrote Static and Ecstatic in the time between 1971 and 1972 as a commission from Paul Sacher, to whom he dedicated the work “in friendship.” It was premiered on 23 March 1973 in Zurich by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Ernst Krenek himself. Krenek considered it one of his most important orchestral works. It consists of ten short pieces that are based on a twelve-tone row and modified forms. Half of the pieces are composed using serial techniques and display various stages of his serial development (static), the other half form a contrast to this with freely fashioned sections (ecstatic).
CD WITH THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA
Recorded live at Severance Hall, March 2020
Franz Schubert
Symphony in C major (“The Great”), D. 944
Ernst Krenek
Static and Ecstatic, Opus 214
TCO002
The Cleveland Orchestra and Musical Arts Association