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Stefan Wolpe: Suite im Hexachord. Second movement, “Pastorale” (1936)

From the album Music for Any Instruments

Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972) is a lamentably under-appreciated German composer who throughout his creative life sought to synthesize the most advanced strains of European musical modernism with other, more popular elements, whether political songs, Middle Eastern traditional music, or Afro-American jazz.

In the 20s Wolpe encountered Ferruccio Busoni and H. H. Stuckenschmidt, and spent some time at the Bauhaus, where he was deeply influenced by the school’s utopian and inter-media aesthetics.  In 1933 Wolpe studied with Anton Webern, whose highly analytic approach to twelve-tone composition is reflected in much of Wolpe’s later work.  After emigrating to the U.S. in 1938, Wolpe took a series of teaching positions in the eastern part of the country, including Director of Music at Black Mountain College from 1952 to 1956.  He remained in the U.S. for the rest of his life.

Suite im Hexachord, written for oboe and clarinet, is a fine example of Wolpe’s ability to infuse the supposedly severe and “intellectual” method of twelve-tone composition with playfulness and lyricism.

January 04, 2010, 10:23am