Biography
Ernst Krenek was born on 23 August 1900 in Vienna and studied composition from 1916 with Franz Schreker, whom he followed to Berlin in 1920. After early works shaped by Mahler and Strauss, he turned in the 1920s to jazz-inflected "Zeitopern"; "Jonny spielt auf" (1927) became a European sensation and made him the most widely performed opera composer of his generation. From around 1930 he moved toward Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, using it in "Karl V." (composed 1932/33) to write what is considered the first full-length twelve-tone opera in music history. After the 1938 annexation of Austria, Krenek emigrated to the United States, whose music the Nazis had already branded "degenerate"; he taught at Vassar College and Hamline University, among others, before settling in Palm Springs. Throughout his life he moved between styles – from late Romanticism through neoclassicism and twelve-tone technique to electronic music – leaving behind well over 200 works, including more than twenty stage works. He died on 22 December 1991 in Palm Springs, California.
On Stagelog
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