Ernst Krenek - Symphonies Nos. 1 & 5 (Takao Ukigaya)

Information

Composer: Ernst Krenek

• (01) Symphony No. 1, Op. 7
• (10) Symphony No. 5

NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
Takao Ukigaya, conductor

Date: 1995
Label: cpo

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

Listening now to Ernst Krenek’s bracing First Symphony (1921), one can readily understand what electrified the audience at its premiere in March 1922. Never a conventional symphonist, his initial excursion into the Austro-German tradition’s most hallowed form was highly unusual, comprising nine sections which sound less thematically interrelated than they really are and range in duration from 50 seconds to eight minutes. Playing continuously, this is not, however, a single-movement structure. Rather it feels like one in which the traditional elements of a symphony are in the process of separating out, particularly the climactic fugue. Conceived by a 21-year-old, the First Symphony is just as precocious as Shostakovich’s somewhat better known First of four years later.

Krenek’s Fifth (1947-9) was not – as Eckhardt van den Hoogen’s notes claim – his last, although that drawn in 1954 from his opera Pallas Athene weint remained unnumbered. But then so were his Op. 34, scored for winds and percussion from 1924-5, and Kleine Symphonie of 1928 (hopefully CPO will give us all of these extras in due course). In Nos. 4 and 5 Krenek, like Schoenberg, endeavoured to attract American audiences by eschewing dodecaphony, but one can tell that his heart was not really in it. Audibly the work of a refugee from atonality, in places the Schulhoff-like Fifth does not so much lose its way as forget where it is going. The peremptory conclusion suggests ‘That’s enough of that!’, but orchestra and conductor are unstinting in verve and commitment, none the less. A fascinating issue.

-- Gramophone

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ernst Krenek (August 23, 1900 – December 22, 1991) was an Austrian, later American, composer of Czech origin. Born in Vienna, Krenek studied there and in Berlin with Franz Schreker before working in a number of German opera houses as conductor. In 1938 Krenek moved to the United States, where he taught music at various universities. He died in Palm Springs, California. Krenek's music encompassed a variety of styles and reflects many of the principal musical influences of the 20th century. His early work is in a late-Romantic idiom, turned to atonality around 1920, and became more relaxed in his later years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Krenek

***

Takao Ukigaya was born in Japan in 1953. He began his training as a conductor at 15 and continued his studies from 1975 with Kazue Kamiya in Tokyo and from 1978 with Herbert Ahlendorf at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. Ukigaya has conducted many orchestras, such as the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Hanover, the Berlin Radio Sinfonie-Orchester and the Philharmonia Hungarica. He has also worked as a guest conductor in Sweden, France, Canada and Japan. Ukigaya has recorded numerous CDs, including symphonies by Isang Yun and Ernest Krenek.
http://www.musikverein-neuruppin.de/interpreten/takao-ukigaya

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!