Max Derrickson

Ernst Krenek
(Born in Vienna, Austria in 1900; died in Palm Springs, California in 1991)

Little Suite for Piano, Op. 13a
1. Allemande – Moderato – (approx. 50 seconds)
2. Sarabande – Andante molto – (approx. 30 seconds)
3. Gavotte – Allegretto – (approx. 15 seconds)
4. Waltz – (approx. 40 seconds)
5. Fugue – Adagio – (approx. 60 seconds)
6. Fox Trot – (approx. 60 seconds)

Viennese composer Ernst Krenek came of age during the early 20^th Century, an extraordinary moment in Vienna’s musical history.  Even while the city still rang with the music of Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven, the progressive music of its contemporary composers (Mahler, Richard Strauss, Schoenberg, among many others) made Vienna a hotbed of new and old musical ideas.  Krenek composed his Little Suite in 1922 during his own experimental migration from writing in the late-Romantic style (as had Strauss and Mahler) toward atonal music.  He had also become entranced with the modern popular styles of jazz and dance music emerging from the United States.

The Little Suite’s original title was Eine kleine Suite von Stücken über denselbigen Choral, verschiedenen Charakters, Op. 13a (“A little Suite of pieces based on the same chorale, in different characters, Op. 13a”).  That “same chorale” was the one that Krenek allegedly used in its predecessor piano work, Op. 13, also written in 1922 and entitled Toccata und Chaconne (über den Choral ‘Ja ich glaub’ an Jesum Christum’) (“Toccata and Chaconne [on the Chorale, ‘Yes! I believe in Jesus Christ’]).”  The two pieces together, Op. 13 and 13a, create a modernized theme-and-variations diptych.  Remarkably conceived, and filled with wit and inventiveness, the diptych of the Toccata (Op. 13) and the Little Suite (Op. 13a), however, created political trouble for Krenek.  The alleged “Baroque Chorale” at the heart […] when Krenek’s little hoax was discovered in the 1930’s, the Nazi’s found […]  This little fraud, together […] Luckily, this excellent work survived in the hands of Krenek’s admirers.

Today the Little Suite stands successfully alone on its own merit, even without its Toccata partner-piece.  In fact, even though the Suite’s original title specified that it is based on the “fake” chorale tune, that tune is hardly recognizable.  Instead, it appears that Krenek is posing some deeper musical questions.  First, what makes for a “movement”?  While the likes of Mahler and Bruckner had been creating huge musical canvases, Krenek’s entire Little Suite is typically performed in less than five minutes in total, with each “movement” lasting merely between 15 seconds to about one-minute long, with the breaks between them barely a breath, or with no break at all.  And secondly, this Suite is built of six different dance forms, so, how long must a “dance” last to actually be a dance?  Tipping his hat […] – and adding perhaps the shortest Fugue ever penned.  Notice, too, how each movement migrates increasingly from tonality, such that by the time Krenek reaches the fifth movement, Fugue, he has essentially abandoned consonant melody and harmony. 

(1.) The first movement, Allemande, is almost outrageously chromatic, and yet, Krenek captures an air of dignity and reverence for this old dance form.  (2. and 3.) Likewise, the second and third movements, Sarabande and Gavotte, […] the last half of the 19^th Century) begins to unhinge all that refinement, however, with some delightful over-dramatics, and moves us from the Baroque to modernity.  (5.) Even in its atonal drifting, the Fugue […]  (6.) In the last movement, Fox Trot, Krenek returns to more harmonious writing with this 1920’s era dance.  Jaunty […] unassumingly philosophical, gem of a work.