Paul von Klenau

Paul August von Klenau (11 February 1883 – 31 August 1946)[1] was a Danish-born composer who worked primarily in Germany and Austria.[2]

Klenau was born and died in Copenhagen. His teachers included Otto Malling, Max Bruch, Ludwig Thuille and Max von Schillings.[3]

Klenau was among Arnold Schoenberg's advocates during the 1920s, and Schoenberg attended a concert of his music conducted by Klenau in 1923 in Freiburg.[3]

Also according to Schoenberg,[4] Klenau once defended his use of the twelve-tone technique as the basis of an opera (Klenau's output includes three twelve-tone-based operas in all, the first from 1932–33[3]) as an example of National Socialist art, making an analogy of the row with the leader that everything else in the piece needed to follow. (This, and a political analogy made by Socialist composers, Schoenberg equally derided as "nonsense." He refers to Klenau as "the German composer, Paul von Klenau".)

Klenau's musical output, some of which is undergoing recording revival, includes nine symphonies,[3] three string quartets, and a setting (1919) of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke"[3] among other works.

References

  1. ↑ Randel, Don Michael (1996). The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 452. ISBN 0-674-37299-9. Retrieved 16 March 2009.
  2. ↑ "Naxos Biography of Klenau". Retrieved 10 March 2009.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Barnett, Rob (August 2007). "Review of Die Weise". Retrieved 10 March 2009.
  4. ↑ Schoenberg, Arnold. (1947.) Is it fair?, originally published in Music and Dance in California and the West, Hollywood, California, 1948. Reproduced in Style and Idea, pp. 249-50. (1975 edition.) New York: St. Martin's Press; Belmost Music Publishers. ISBN 0-520-05294-3.

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