Ernst Krenek Manuscript and Letters to Will Ogdon

Title: Ernst Krenek Manuscript and Letters to Will Ogdon

Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0700

Contributing Institution: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego

Languages: English

Physical Description: 0.25 Linear feet (1 archives box)

Date (inclusive): 1938-1985

Abstract: Two photographs, one typewritten manuscript of Krenek's book Music Here and Now, and four folders of letters from Krenek to Will Odgon, written between 1943 and 1985. The letters include references to music composition, occasional advice on career and personal matters, and happenings within Krenek and Odgon's musical circles.

Creator: Krenek, Ernst, 1900-1991

Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.

Ernst Krenek Manuscript and Letters to Will Ogdon, MSS 0700. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.

Not available.

Ernst Krenek (1900-1991) was a Vienna-born composer of Czech ancestry. An active composer for more than seven decades, Krenek had a role in many of the century's significant musical movements, from atonality to neoclassicism and from jazz-influenced writing to total serialism. He enjoyed early popular success in Europe with his opera Jonny spielt auf ( Johnny Strikes Up, 1926), but under increasing pressure from the Nazi regime, he immigrated to the United States in 1938, where he developed credibility as a major modernist and instructor. Krenek taught music at various universities, including Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota from 1942-1947, and became an American citizen in 1945. His students included Will Ogdon (who followed him from the University of Wisconsin to Hamline, and in in 1955, completed the first important analytical study of Krenek's music as his doctoral thesis), George Perle and Robert Erickson. Krenek moved to California in 1947, where he continued to write and compose music. In 1965, when the department of music at UC San Diego was first being developed, Krenek made a recommendation for Ogdon or Erickson to be appointed as first chair. Ogdon was selected, and he quickly recruited Erickson; Krenek's influence over his former pupils can be seen in the department's early focus on composition as the foundation of music curriculum. Krenek authored several books, including Music Here and Now (1939), a study of Johannes Ockeghem (1953), and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music (1974).

Two photographs, one typewritten manuscript of Krenek's book Music Here and Now, and four folders of letters from Krenek to Will Odgon, written between 1943 and 1985. The letters include references to music composition, occasional advice on career and personal matters, and happenings within Krenek and Odgon's musical circles.

Daniel Oliver Correspondence with Ernst Krenek, MSS 43. Ernst Krenek Correspondence with Albert Goldberg, MSS 132. Ernst Krenek Letters to Robert Holliday, MSS 396. Ernst Krenek Letters to Mildred Kayden, MSS 713.

All related materials cited available at Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.