Name Alexander Krein | Role Composer | |
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Albums Songs from the Ghetto and Other Chamber Music Similar People Jonathan Powell, Lore Lixenberg, Jascha Heifetz, Joseph Spooner, Dieter Klocker |
Alexander krein symphony no 1
Alexander Abramovich Krein (Russian: aleksandr abramovich Krein; Aleksandr Abramovich Kreyn; 20 October 1883 in Nizhny Novgorod – 25 April 1951 in Staraya Ruza, Moscow Oblast) was a Soviet composer.
Contents
- Alexander krein symphony no 1
- Alexander Krein Prologue Les Esquisses de la Jeunesse No1
- Background
- Studies and career
- Style
- Selected works
- Songs
- References
Alexander Krein - Prologue (Les Esquisses de la Jeunesse No.1)
Background
The Krein family was steeped in the klezmer tradition; his father Abram (who moved to Russia from Lithuania in 1870) was a noted violinist. All of the seven Krein brothers received their first musical training from him and became musicians; Alexander and Grigori made names for themselves as composers, David gained a strong reputation as a violinist. Of the three Krein family composers, Alexander, his brother Grigori, and Grigori's son Julian, it is Alexander who composed the most music and thus to whom the most attention has been paid. After decades of posthumous neglect, however, his very name seems to have disappeared from international reference books.
Studies and career
In 1896, at the early age of 14, Alexander Krein entered the Moscow Conservatory where his studies included cello classes with Alexander von Glehn and composition lessons with Sergei Taneyev and Boleslav Yavorsky. His first works were published by P. Jurgenson in 1901. During the years immediately prior to the 1917 Revolution, he was on the faculty of the People's Conservatory in Moscow. In 1917, he was appointed as director of the artistic wing of the Muzo-Narkompros, the music section of a newly formed ministry of arts and aducation. Throughout the 1920s, Krein was widely regarded as the leader of a Jewish national school in Russia (which included his brother Grigori and his nephew Julian). Among those he influenced were minor composers such as Sinovii Feldman. After the formation of the Soviet Union, he held a variety of official and semi-official music administration posts. He died April 1951 in Staraya Ruza. His son, Alexander Kron, was a Soviet playwright.
Style
Krein's pioneering spirit had led him to incorporate the intonations and styles of both sacred and secular Jewish music into a relatively advanced idiom that was as influended by French impressionism as it was by the music of his friend Alexander Scriabin. Krein's own Jewish heritage was a constant source of inspiration; there are a number of instrumental works whose titles bear quite obvious witness to this, such as the Caprice Hebraique, Op. 24, and the Jewish Sketches for clarinet and string quartet. In 1921, he composed Kaddish for tenor soloist, choir, and orchestra. From the mid-'20s on, he also wrote music for plays given by Moscow's Jewish Drama Theater. There is also a large amount of music that is either purely classical in design or Soviet in nature. In the latter category are works like the revolutionary opera Zagmuk (1930), the Threnody in Memory of Lenin (1925), and the somewhat amusingly titled U.S.S.R., Shock Brigade of the World Proletariat (1925).
Selected works
- Sei mir Schwesterlein (1916)
- Wo bist du? (1917)
- Eine Trane (1915–1916)
Songs
Aria - op 41
Five Preludes - op 3: II Lento - Meno mosso
Five Preludes - op 3: IV Andantino
Jewish Sketches - Op 12: II Andante con anima - allegretto grazioso - primo tempo
Elegy - op 16
Jewish Sketches - Op 12: III Allegro moderato
Five Preludes - op 3: III Andantino
Jewish Melody - op 43
Five Preludes - op 3: I Andante
Poeme-quatuor - Op 9
Jewish Sketches - Op 12: I Lento - piu mosso - primo tempo
Five Preludes - op 3: V Lento - Poco piu mosso - A tempo
Dance no 4
Esquisses hebraiques - op 12: III Allegro moderato
Three Songs From the Ghetto - op 29: Be for Me a Mother
Three Songs From the Ghetto - op 29: Tears Welled Up
Esquisses hebraiques - op 12: II Andante con anima
Three Songs From the Ghetto - op 29: Where Are You?
Two Hebrew Songs - op 39: Lullaby
Two Hebrew Songs - op 39: May
Esquisses hebraiques - op 12: I Lento