Ernst KRENEK: Piano Music, Volume Two
This first extended survey of the piano music of Ernst Krenek (1900–91) continues with a range of works showing his craftsmanship and imagination – and humour. The early Toccata and Chaconne, Op. 13, has its origins in a joke intended to pull the legs of musicologists and music critics, but it develops into a massive contrapuntal essay of astonishing ambit. Krenek’s treatment of Baroque and contemporary dances in the three early suites reveal a fondness for learned whimsy – and that wry dispassion informs even the elegiac and brittle Fifth Sonata, written a quarter-century later in American exile. The closing Sechs Vermessene are kaleidoscopic miniatures with an improvised quality, as if advanced musical modernism were meeting the freest of free jazz.
Stanislav Khristenko, piano
Listen To This Recording:
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Toccata und Chaconne über den Choral ‘Ja ich glaub’ an Jesum Christum’, Op. 13 (1922)
- I Toccata
- II Chaconne
- I Allemande
- Sarabande
- III Gavotte
- IV Waltz
- V Fugue
- VI Foxtrot
- I Andante
- II Andante sostenuto
- III Allegretto
- IV Andante sostenuto
- V Allegretto
- I Allegro moderato
- II Andantino
- III Allegro agitato
- IV Adagio
- V Allegretto
- I Allegretto con grazia
- II Andante appassionato
- III Introduction and Rondo
- No. 1
- No. 2
- No. 3
- No. 4
- No. 5
- No. 6
Eine kleine Suite von Stücken über denselbigen Choral, verschiedenen Charakters, Op. 13a (1922)
Zwei Suiten, Op. 26, No. 1 (1924)*
Zwei Suiten, Op. 26, No. 2 (1924)*
Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 121 (1950)
Sechs Vermessene, Op. 168 (1958)
*FIRST RECORDINGS
MusicWeb International :
‘Ernest Krenek certainly has a sympathetic campaigner in Ukrainian-born pianist Stanislav Khristenko. […]
I look forward to further volumes in what I hope will eventually become a complete cycle of Ernst Krenek’s piano music. Meanwhile, I must get myself up to speed with this rewarding composer’s catalogue of music.’
—John France, MusicWeb International