Ernst Krenek – Complete Symphonies
NDR Radiophilharmonie; Alun Francis; Takao Ukigaya
cpo 777 695-2
Ernst Krenek’s orchestral music receives loving attention from Takao Ukigaya on this four disc package recorded 1993–2006. The Viennese composer’s atonal language connects to Schoenberg and Berg; he tries to inherit the symphonist mantle of his fiancée Anna’s father, Gustav Mahler. His Symphony No.1 in nine linked movements is a wide-ranging exploration departing from previous symphonic concepts. Krenek’s orchestration is idiomatic; solo winds and strings of the Hanover Radio Symphony shine particularly in the third movement. The composer’s predilection for counterpoint is especially clear in the eighth movement, as is his quirky side in the final movement’s disintegration into Webernesque whispers.
Ukigaya and the Hanoverians deliver a masterful performance of the sprawling Symphony No.2 (1922). Krenek’s own metaphor for this work is of a giant trying to get out of a cage. (Perhaps the “giant” was the 22-year-old Krenek himself, struggling with his teacher, the more conservative Franz Schreker!) The Third Symphony (also 1922) is more economical; Krenek parodically sneaks in a popular march-like melody, foreshadowing the eclectic Potpourri Op.54 (1927) also on this disc. The last two symphonies composed in the late 1940s develop logically from the earlier works. The Symphony No.4 disc is conducted by Alun Francis; both it and Krenek’s Concerto Grosso No.2 are given capable readings, with beautiful pacing in the processional of the latter’s Adagio leading to its moving climax.
