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Stefan Wolpe

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Stefan Wolpe was a German-born American composer. He was born in Berlin in 1902 to Jewish parents and studied with, among others, Franz Schreker and Ferruccio Busoni. Around 1923 he came into contact with the Bauhaus and with the Dadaists, and he set a poem by Kurt Schwitters to music. In 1928 his first opera, Zeus und Elida, premiered in Berlin. As a socialist he also wrote pieces for trade unions and communist theatre groups, in a more accessible style with influences from jazz and popular music.

Music and breakthrough

After the Nazis seized power in 1933 he had to flee as a Jew and a communist. Via Vienna, where he took lessons from Anton Webern, he went to Palestine, where he wrote simple songs for kibbutzim and wanted to bring together Western, Eastern and Arabic music. In 1938 he settled in New York. From 1952 to 1956 he headed the music department of Black Mountain College, where Enactments for Three Pianos, among other works, came into being. His style remained eclectic: sometimes twelve-tone, sometimes diatonic, sometimes based on Arabic scales.

Influence

Wolpe was also an influential teacher. His students included Morton Feldman, David Tudor, Gil Evans and George Russell, so both avant-gardists and jazz musicians. He befriended Abstract Expressionist painters in New York. Elliott Carter said of his music that he does everything wrong and that it still turns out right. Wolpe developed Parkinson's disease in 1964 and died in 1972.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a short chamber piece by Wolpe, for example from Four Generations. Notice how sharply and unpredictably the notes alternate, and try to hear where jazzy rhythms crop up.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Categories: Artists