Symposium “The Gewandhaus Tickets have been Ordered” – Ernst Krenek in Leipzig
One can almost call Leipzig one of Krenek’s main cities. Not only were two of his most successful works, Jonny plays on (1927) and Travel Book from the Austrian Alps (1930), premiered there, but also his opera The Life of Orestes (1930, which has not been in the repertoire for a long time. Indeed, in early 1930, the still young composer was honored in Leipzig with his own festival week.
This led to artistic as well as personal connections being established, for example, with the director Walther Brügmann or the conductor Gustav Brecher, who were both active at the Neues Theater. But Krenek had a particular affection for Leipzig above all because Emmy Rubensohn hailed from the city of Bach. Emmy Rubensohn was the patroness of music in whose villa in Kassel Krenek lived during the mid-1920s and where he created Jonny. Throughout her life, she promoted her protégé, in that, for example, she helped get Orestes staged in Berlin’s Kroll Opera; or later, in that she, in conjunction with Alma Mahler, (unsuccessfully) attempted, pulling strings from New York, to have Krenek named Schoenberg’s successor at the University of California.
The symposium is incorporated in the exhibition “Curtain up for Emmy Rubensohn! Patroness of Music from Leipzig,” which opens on 10 November in the Mendelssohn Foyer of the Gewandhaus and closes with the “Large Concert” on 16 and 17 December.
- Matthias Henke
Symposium „Ernst Krenek and Leipzig”
from 10 to 11 November 2021
at Mendelssohn-Saal
Gewandhaus Leipzig
Augustusplatz 8
04109 Leipzig
Germany
Program
Wednesday, 10 November 2021
2.00 p.m. - Stefan Keym (Leipzig University):
Continuity and Change: Leipzig's Music Culture 1919-1933
3.00 p.m. - Clemens Zoidl (Ernst Krenek Institute Krems):
Krenek and the Bibliographic Institute Leipzig
3.45 p.m. - Ulrike Allmuth Behrendt (MDR Leipzig):
Krenek and the MDR
Thursday, 11 November 2021
11.00 a.m. - Stefan Engl (Wienbibliothek):
Elisabeth Stünzner – an important interpreter of Krenek’s songs
11.45 a.m. - Till Jonas Umbach (Siegen University):
The untapped Brügmann and Brecher Materials in Leipzig’s Stadtmuseum
12.30 p.m. - Anna Fortunova (Leipzig University):
Krenek’s songs after poems of Leipzig lyricist Hans Gerhard Goering
Musical interlude at 1.00 p.m. – Students of the College of Music and Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig (class of Prof. Kusnezow) play a selection from Ernst Krenek’s Goering Songs for voice and piano
Break
3.30 p.m. - Sara Beimdieke (Siegen University):
Travel Book from the Austrian Alps (premiered in Leipzig in 1929)
4.30 p.m. - Nils Grosch (Salzburg University):
In Leipzig and Berlin: The Life of Orestes
5.15 p.m. - Round table
End ca. 6 p.m.
Direction: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Henke
Admission free, please register: emmy-tagung2021@t-online.de
The exhibition and the symposium are part of the festival year “1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany” and is supported by #2021JLID – Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland e.V. with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), by Siegen University, the Ernst Krenek Institute Krems, and the Reinwald GmbH Leipzig.
Exhibition
CURTAIN UP FOR EMMY RUBENSOHN! Patroness of Music from Leipzig (1884–1961)
from 10 Nov – 19 Dec 2021 in the Mendelssohn Foyer of the Gewandhaus Leipzig.
Organizers and Sponsors
