# Stefan Wolpe



## gregorx

Stefan Wolpe was born in Berlin in 1902, and died in New York City in 1972. He was a pianist, composer, writer, teacher and artist.

Wolpe studied at the Berlin Conservatory where he displayed an excellent command of harmony, counterpoint and piano. However, he fit in with no one school of music and his early years consisted of writing for avant-garde stage productions and Dadaist poets. As it was for many in 1933, Germany was no longer a safe place to be. Wolpe began an exile that took him to Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and Austria, before finally fleeing Europe for Palestine in 1935.

There a transformation in Wolpe's music took place as he was drawn to classical Arabic music. This, along with his unique take on twelve-tone, did not go over well with the other Europeans in exile or with the Palestine Conservatoire where Wolpe taught; his contract was not renewed. Wolpe, the constant outsider, left Palestine for New York in 1938.

Wolpe's music confounded New York critics, escaping the usual categorizations of 12-tone, neo-classism or even experimentalism. His music was an organic evolution of those forms that developed the techniques of spatial proportions and organic modes, replacing traditional space with an abstract space where sound moved freely and independently.

In the 1950s, Wolpe, now an American citizen, was still largely ignored by the musical establishment. He had, however, gained ground with the art community, attending meetings of the Eighth Street Club. The artists there saw a clear relationship between Wolpe's spatial concepts and the concepts of the cubist movement. Wolpe was now exploring ways to merge his ideas with classical twelve-tone, further developing the idea of organic modes as a way to include expressive associations in his music.

In the 1960s, by this time thoroughly plugged into American musical life, Wolpe was discovered by a new generation of composers and performers who considered him the new standard bearer for traditions from the Bauhaus and the Second Viennese School. Wolpe entered the most prolific period in his life. Even though Parkinson's disease limited his ability to notate music and a fire destroyed his papers and art collection, Wolpe pressed on composing his last piece shortly before his death.

_Don't get backed too much into a reality that has fashioned your senses with too many realistic claims. When art promises you this sort of reliability, this sort of prognostic security, drop it. It is good to know how not to know how much one is knowing. One should know about all the structures of fantasy and all the fantasies of structures, and mix suprise and enigma, magic and shock, intelligence and abandon, form and antiform.
_
- Stefan Wolpe


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## gregorx

Some orchestral music:

Stefan Wolpe: Passacaglia for large Orchestra op. 23 (1937)






Stefan Wolpe: Symphony (1956)


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## gregorx

Chamber music by Stefan Wolpe:

Stefan Wolpe: Quartet (1950/1954)






Stefan Wolpe | Konzert für neun Instrumenten, Op. 22






Stefan Wolpe - Chamber Piece n.1 (for 14 instruments) (1964)






Stefan Wolpe: Piece for Trumpet and 7 Instruments (1971)


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## gregorx

And some music for piano:

Stefan Wolpe Passacaglia for solo piano (1936/revised 1971)






Stefan Wolpe Form for Piano (1959)


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## Mandryka

Much appreciated. He's not a composer I've ever listened to but I know the name because of Cage and Feldman. Thanks for creating this thread.


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## millionrainbows




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## Bwv 1080

Probably my favorite SW pieces:


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## flamencosketches

millionrainbows said:


>


This looks great. I'm going to seek it out


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## elgar's ghost

I have a few works of his - my favourite recording is of two mini-operas he wrote in the late 1920s:


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## millionrainbows

flamencosketches said:


> This looks great. I'm going to seek it out


The piece "For Stephan Wolpe" by Feldman is the highlight here. It's for chorus and vibraphone. A vibraphone or "vibes" as most jazz fans know, is a metal xylophone-like instrument played with padded mallets. It is less strident than a xylophone, and has a softer, more sustained, dark sound. Combined with the softly intoning voices of the chorus, it creates a dark, mesmerizing, funereal effect.
A similar piece is "Rothko Chapel." You can really get 'in the zone' with this, in a darkened room.


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## flamencosketches

millionrainbows said:


> The piece "For Stephan Wolpe" by Feldman is the highlight here. It's for chorus and vibraphone. A vibraphone or "vibes" as most jazz fans know, is a metal xylophone-like instrument played with padded mallets. It is less strident than a xylophone, and has a softer, more sustained, dark sound. Combined with the softly intoning voices of the chorus, it creates a dark, mesmerizing, funereal effect.
> A similar piece is "Rothko Chapel." You can really get 'in the zone' with this, in a darkened room.


Right, I love Rothko Chapel, another great piece for chorus and vibes (w/ celesta and viola) and I might expect a similar "vibe" from this one.


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## Bluecrab

Bwv 1080 said:


> Probably my favorite SW pieces:


I've listened to his piano and choral music for years, but had never heard this string quartet until now. It's a really nice work. Thanks for posting it.


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## gregorx

Giving Mr. Wolpe a little bump here on the anniversary of his birth, 25 August 1902. Here are a couple of pieces that are from his earlier period. _Suite from the Twenties_, is dated 1926-1929, years when he was still in Berlin. I think Stravinsky might have appreciated this one.






Wolpe wrote _Yigdal Cantata_ in 1945 when he was living in New York. I think Bach would have approved.


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## millionrainbows

Happy Birthday, Wolpe-man!

I periodically pull out this CD, and today would be a good day as well.


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## gregorx

Stefan Wolpe's birthday is coming up, and since he has still not made the composers index and you could never find him otherwise, I thought I'd push him up to the front page.

Am listening to a work from 1963 - Trio in Two Parts


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