I believe he is the only composer to have composed electronic music, total serialism and foxtrot aswell!

@@9827george I dig "Jonny Spielt Auf", especially the parts with the singing iceberg.

absolutely

Unless you have another source, I find everywhere written that Krenek was a student of Franz Schreker, not Heinrich Schenker (see e.g. brahms.ircam.fr/ernst-krenek). This is completely different, and I am not sure about the break you mention.

Dear friend, you are perfectly right. It was a slip of the pen. For sure, I meant Franz Schreker, the composer of "The fer cry", a wonderful "Kammersinfonie" among othjers and not Heinrich Schenker, the man who proposed a structural approach of the tonal music, which at that time did not convince many outstanding theorists, among whom Schoenberg himself. The disruption is acknowledged by many biographic sketches and can be evidenced when you lsiten for instance to the complete series of string quartets, since his mood changed drastically during the composition of one of them (I have no time to hear them right now; it could be the 4 th, I guess). But it is also quite clear that this neoromantic 'pastoral' inspiration was short, and he turned to a neoclassic/jazz style, which inspired him "Johny spielt auf", a gigantic success which was the very symbol of "degenerated music" for the nazis. This major episode usually hides this short romantic transition period but it is quite clear at least that he swiched from the convincing atonlity of eg his two first quartets to neo-classicism, then at the very beginning of the 30's to Schoenberg's serialism. Up to his dead in 1990, he went on composing with rules of ho is own, but which had solid roots in Schoenberg's principles. he never adopted the "generalized" serial technique of the so-called "Darmstadt" school.

@@gerardbegni2806 You wrote Schenker consistently in all your commentaries of Krenek's works (those I have seen), so perhaps you should correct them :) Are you sure that his change of style was a break from Schreker's influence?

I am Indeed quite sorry. For sure, It is Schrecker, not Schenker. It happens that in musical theory and analysis, we often have to use Schenkerian analysis - and if we disagree, we should explain why. Schrecker is a word very close to Schenker, and Schecker is not often quoted (to say the least), so the "slip of the pen" is quite easy. The story of Krenek's break is quite complex before the 30's. Clearly, he was a very gifted composer who was looking for a way of its own. The break from Schreker took place as soon as Kreenek published his first quartet. Actually, this quartet is excellent and can be compared to Schoenberg or Berg's ones. Schecker was not even informed when this quartet was premiered Some years after, Krenek travelled to Swiss for winter vacation; here, he realized that the artistic and musical atmosphere in Vienna was too heavy for him, and he turned to a muxch lighter, quasi Schubertian style. This is quite clear in the quartet I was spaeking about to you (probably the 4th, but I am not so sure), which was sketched in the train and completed in Swiss. Then, when moving to Paris,he changed once more under the influence of Stravinsky, 'Le groupe des six' and jazz. One of the key results was 'Johny spielt auf', the model of 'Entartret Musik' for the nazis. Then, in the 30's, he switched again to serialsm in Schoenberg's style (quite far from Webern) and kept that style up to the end, with an evolution of his own, needless to say. You can find a critics from a serial point of view of his 6th quartet (striclty serial) in Leibowitz, "Technique de la musique de 12 sons"( I am not absolutely sure of the word 'technique' and have no ways to check it here, but it seems to me that this is the title of this book which I intensively used)

@@gerardbegni2806 Thank you for these very detailed explanations!