In view of the quality of his music and the fascinating story of his life, it is somewhat surprising that Franz Schreker (1878-1934) is still largely unsung and unknown to most music lovers. Predominantly an operatic composer, his years of success ran from 1912 to around 1924, becoming the most-performed German opera composer during the years 1920-1923. With the 1924 production of Irrelohe his fortunes changed, and his subsequent persecution by the Nazis led to an almost total neglect of his music until the 1980s. Members of this forum may well be acquainted with Schreker (pronounced Shraycker), but if anybody who responds to Korngold and Zemlinsky has yet to encounter him, now would be a great time to start, as eight of his nine operas are or will shortly be available in decent recordings:
Flammen (1901-2) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Flammen-Katharina-Peetz/dp/B00005RTFD/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279646740&sr=8-2 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Flammen-Katharina-Peetz/dp/B00005RTFD/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279646740&sr=8-2)
Der ferne Klang (1903-10) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-ferne-Klang-Franz/dp/B00004T6KS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279646983&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-ferne-Klang-Franz/dp/B00004T6KS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279646983&sr=1-1)
Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin (1908-12) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Das-Spielwerk-die-Prinzessin/dp/B00009LW59/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279646740&sr=8-3
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Das-Spielwerk-die-Prinzessin/dp/B00009LW59/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279646740&sr=8-3)
Die Gezeichneten (1911-15) - http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=87825
(http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=87825)
Der Schatzgraber (1915-18) - http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product//60010.htm
(http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product//60010.htm)
Irrelohe (1919-22) - http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=9826 (http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=9826)
Der singende Teufel (1924-28) - currently unrecorded
Christophorus (1925-29) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Franz-Schreker-Christophorus-22Die-Oper-22/dp/B0007XHL2K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279646740&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Franz-Schreker-Christophorus-22Die-Oper-22/dp/B0007XHL2K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279646740&sr=8-1)
Der Schmied von Gent (1929-32) - recent performances at Chemnitz have been recorded for future release by CPO
In addition, two DVDs are available: the 1989 Hamburg Schatzgraber (http://premiereopera.com/dvd6872schatzgraber.aspx (http://premiereopera.com/dvd6872schatzgraber.aspx)) and the 2005 Salzburg Gezeichneten (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Berlin-German-Symphony-Orchestra/dp/B000FVQUN0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1279647365&sr=8-6 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Berlin-German-Symphony-Orchestra/dp/B000FVQUN0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1279647365&sr=8-6)). Both are well worth seeking out.
Glad that you are mentioning Franz Schreker, a composer that finally made me listen to opera, and I'm now the happy owner of the recordings you listed above. One of the greatest opera composers in the 20th century, but as you say; his fortunes changed and he was too long a forgotten composer... as so many others (Walter Braunfels for example). In my opinion, Schreker's music is highly individual, the sound-world of his mature works is unmistakable "Schreker".
Great to see that Der Schmied von Gent has been recorded! I guess CPO again will deliever the goods with a fine recording. By the way, where did you find that piece of information?
Der Ferne Klang recorded by Capriccio, a recording I prefer to the Naxos version.
But unfortunately it is out of print and automatically gets a price tag in the "stupid"-category.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ferne-Klang-Albrecht-Schnaut-Hermann/dp/B000001WVP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279657899&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ferne-Klang-Albrecht-Schnaut-Hermann/dp/B000001WVP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1279657899&sr=1-1)
Morten
I gather even the one major work that isn't operatic is related to his dramatic music, but I may be mistaken. Anyhow, what I know by Schreker I also rate highly. Thank you.
Albion: could you possibly rate the operas in order of 'must-getness'? Thanks!
Ah right, I'd forgotten the name of the orchestral work in question- the Kammersinfonie. Apparently also a "Romantic Suite". There's a release (reissues, I think...) mentioned in the July MDT on EMI of these two works by Schreker, several others also, along with Schmidt's Variations on a Hussar's Song and Busoni's Faust Studies (this latter a 1968 remaster). (http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product/NR_July10/6279732.htm (http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product/NR_July10/6279732.htm)) (Welser-Most and Conlon conducting in the Schreker, I think. It's unclear. The line that says " Kammersinfonie - Intermezzo op.8 - James Conlon" is pretty clearly Intermezzo Op. 8, not a movement of the Kammersinfonie. I don't like it much... or at all... when people enter things this way on Cddb.com either. Bother.) (Hrm. Yes- the Conlon I think were issued in 1999, etc. and wasn't the Kammersinfonie's first recording - was it the Romantic Suite's? ... Confusing... Reger Romantic Suite (good work, I seem to recall), Schreker Romantic Suite-- not the most descriptive title ... if better than "Symphony"!)
Eric
Schreker also has an early symphony (Op 1) in A Minor recorded by Peter Gulke and the Koln Rundfunk as well as a chamber symphony for 23 solo instruments recorded by Michael Gelin and the RSO Berlin. The Peter Gulke CD also has an interesting piece for Speaker & Orch: Das Weib des Intaphernes and a choral setting of Psalm 116.
L.A. Opera did Die Gezeichneten last season as part of Conlon's "Lost Voices" series resurrecting the operas of composers suppressed by the Nazis.
I certainly rate Schreker's orchestral stuff (the Kammersinfonie, or Chamber Symphony, is a tour de force of orchestral colouring), while finding the operas full of gorgeous music which I cannot recall afterwards. Which, say, three operas do friends think show him at his best, and why?
Allow me to eleborate a little: the Kammersinfonie has the great benefit of concision - in other words, the gorgeous late, late-Romantic wandering is not allowed to go on for a protracted period. Trouble is, the gorgeousness is of a rather generalised sort - one remembers the effects and impressions, but nothing more specific. When this is scaled up to a work of operatic length, the result, in my experience, is the problem of the law of diminishing returns: there's all this lovely music, but nothing really to hang on to. In contrast, most of Strauss' operas - like 'em or loathe 'em - are intensely memorable. (I find a similar problem with Zemlinsky's operas - but not with Korngold's!)
Is it me??
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 21 July 2010, 05:01
Which, say, three operas do friends think show him at his best, and why?
The first recommendation would have to go to
Die Gezeichneten. A good introduction to the music would be initial acquaintance with the
Prelude to a Drama, Schreker's extended version of the opera's Prelude (also incorporating music from Act III). The melodies are strongly defined and highly memorable, whilst the orchestration (with the composer's characteristic glimmering sonorities) is astoundingly virtuosic. As a drama, I think that
Die Gezeichneten is the most absorbing of Schreker's stage works - although most of the characters are pretty repulsive, they are keenly drawn in the music and the whole tale sweeps along towards a highly dramatic conclusion. The Salzburg DVD is fascinating and beautifully sung, but I would prefer a colourful Renaissance setting as envisaged by the composer. On disc, the Zagrosek peformance is the one to go for as it is uncut.
Next, I would suggest
Der ferne Klang. This sprawls a bit and is more low-key in terms of the synopsis, but the score is full of wonderful touches, the highlight being the incredible multi-layered second act set in "La casa di maschere" (essentially a bordello). To give an idea of Schreker's innovation, here is what the composer himself wrote:
"The following scenes - it is unimportant whether they are more or less intelligible - should be played and spoken with animation and the various sounds which penetrate through to the stage (the singing from above, the gypsy music, the music from the gondolas, the count's serenade) should mingle in such a way that the listener receives the most realistic impression possible of the setting and very nearly has the feeling that he himself is in the midst of this commotion".
I was lucky enough to attend the 1992 Opera North British premiere of the opera and, heard live, this act is one of the most amazing experiences I can remember.
Next in line would be either
Der Schatzgraber or
Der Schmied von Gent. The former has a beautiful score and the tale of stolen jewels and murders is absorbing, but a better recording is needed. The only available one has cuts and the soprano playing Els (Gabriele Schnaut) is pretty squally - nevertheless it is a tribute to the opera that it can withstand these problems.
Der Schmied von Gent is Schreker's final work. After the experimentally pared-down orchestrations of
Der singende Teufel and
Christophorus, Schreker's virtuosic writing returns with a vengeance - there are extended interludes, dances and pantomimes. Scenes are structured on canons and fugues and the chorus is more prominent than in any other of his works. It is described as a Zauberoper, and with it's scenes of Heaven and Hell, is a folk-tale elevated to spectacle. CPO's intention to issue the Chemnitz performances on disc is noted in numerous reviews.
The best possible introduction to Schreker's style would be through Chandos' first volume of orchestral music (http://www.chandos.net/details06.asp?CNumber=CHAN%209797 (http://www.chandos.net/details06.asp?CNumber=CHAN%209797)) which contains extended concert-versions of music from
Der ferne Klang,
Der Gezeichneten and
Der Schatzgraber. The performances and sound are first-rate.
I have Der ferne Klang, which, I suppose, is the most famous of Schreker's operas. All I can say is, try as I might, I can't remember a thing from it. I have the two Chandos CDs and I find Schreker more successful (sometimes) in some of the pieces on them. But overall, I think he is a creator of moods and colours, but ultimately falls at the hurdle of memorability.
Robert Layton, writing in Gramophone magazine, in a review of Irrelohe says this:
My only reservation is that although there is a great deal of highly imaginative material and a sophisticated orchestral resource, Schreker's music is predominantly a succession of finely realized atmospheres: melodic inspiration of a strongly individual profile is less in evidence though there are inspired passages...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 21 July 2010, 07:41
overall, I think he is a creator of moods and colours, but ultimately falls at the hurdle of memorability.
I think that Schreker's operas are peculiar in that they
are primarily "moods and colours" and this is precisely why they are such powerful theatre - very much along the lines of Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk. They come into their own in live performance but are more elusive on disc. Without any visual stimulus, repeated listening is vital: themes and orchestral details which may initially pass by unnoticed gradually penetrate and lodge in the mind.
...but Wagner is intensely memorable!
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 21 July 2010, 07:57
...but Wagner is intensely memorable!
He certainly is! I find Schreker also memorable, but with a bit more listening effort involved. I suppose he is one of those many composers whose music 'sticks' with some people but not others. Critics, like everyone else, have their personal tastes and enthusiasms:
Victor Carr (Classics Today) on Draeseke's 3rd Symphony - "Essentially what we have here is an attempt at brilliant, masterful thematic development of musical ideas that, for all their complexity, are of limited, or even negligible interest."
Andrew Clements (The Guardian) on the CPO Holbrooke disc - "Holbrooke's music tended to the dark and brooding in a style somewhere between late Dvorák and early Delius; it's good at atmosphere, less good at generating memorable themes."
I disagree with both of the above comments, but another listener's judgement is just as valid as mine as it is their personal experience. Incidentally, I find most of the Tudor mass settings (Tye, Taverner, Ludford, Fayrfax, etc), the Bach cantatas, and whole swathes of Haydn and Mozart incredibly unmemorable - I enjoy hearing them at the time but 30 seconds later I might as well have been listening to a dripping tap for all that I can recall!
Of course, in the end it is a matter of personal experience of the music. However, I do trust some commentators more than others, e.g. Robert Layton and Malcolm (Calum) MacDonald.
Incidentally, one eminent musicologist wrote in a private e-mail to me (you'll have to trust me on this one!) on hearing Draeseke's Tragica recently for the first time:
Have listened to Draeseke 3; goodness what we hear. It's got that whackiness of Berlioz, all those melodramatic diminished 7ths in the 'storm-tempest' in the finale. The trumpet fanfares and fragmentariness of Mahler (to come), then suddenly you hit a frightfully four-square classical passage. Damned hard to play, poor piccolo at the very end, why do they make them play top Cs ppp ?? An exciting work. That scherzo with all its Dvorakian syncopations too. Like the way the opening comes back at the end.
In addition, Records International summed up the cpo recording of the Tragica as follows:
Draeseke's most famous symphony now receives its first modern recording as the first isssue in a complete series of the composer's symphonies. Dating from 1886, this work deserves a place alongside those of Brahms due to its impressive weight and seriousness, its memorable themes and their working-out and its impressive momentum, especially in the pulsating finale. The symphony's subtitle comes from its second movement Grave, as fine a funeral march as any since the Eroica but the remaining three are all dynamic and upbeat.
You pays yer money...
It might be a matter of passing interest to some who don't already know that Schreker's name, which is usually mispronounced "Schrayker" (as it looks) was really Schrecker and the only reason why it is spelt without its second "c" is because it appears that way on his certificate of birth, a fact which is down to a misunderstanding at the office in Monaco where his birth was registered, due presumably to the registrar's lack of knowledge of correct spellings of certain Austrian surnames. Bruno Schrecker (b.1928), who was for more than three decades the cellist of the Allegri Quartet, suffered no such fate; he has spelled his name correctly all his life and it has accordingly not generally been mispronounced.
As you were...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 21 July 2010, 09:47
Of course, in the end it is a matter of personal experience of the music. However, I do trust some commentators more than others, e.g. Robert Layton and Malcolm (Calum) MacDonald.
Incidentally, one eminent musicologist wrote in a private e-mail to me (you'll have to trust me on this one!) on hearing Draeseke's Tragica recently for the first time:
Have listened to Draeseke 3; goodness what we hear. It's got that whackiness of Berlioz, all those melodramatic diminished 7ths in the 'storm-tempest' in the finale. The trumpet fanfares and fragmentariness of Mahler (to come), then suddenly you hit a frightfully four-square classical passage. Damned hard to play, poor piccolo at the very end, why do they make them play top Cs ppp ?? An exciting work. That scherzo with all its Dvorakian syncopations too. Like the way the opening comes back at the end.
In addition, Records International summed up the cpo recording of the Tragica as follows:
Draeseke's most famous symphony now receives its first modern recording as the first isssue in a complete series of the composer's symphonies. Dating from 1886, this work deserves a place alongside those of Brahms due to its impressive weight and seriousness, its memorable themes and their working-out and its impressive momentum, especially in the pulsating finale. The symphony's subtitle comes from its second movement Grave, as fine a funeral march as any since the Eroica but the remaining three are all dynamic and upbeat.
You pays yer money...
That first sounds like the fairly characteristic writing style of ... erm, anyway.
Definitely like the way the opening comes back at the end too, indeed several of those first comments seemed well-put... (To be a little more specific about just what I like best about the coda for those who don't know the work, as with Brahms 3's not-the-same recall, it's a most flexible quote, more an ecstatic reminiscence - I may have to listen again to be quite sure of myself in making that statement, but I think I'm right there :) )
(The finale upbeat? ... maybe.) ... and I still prefer the cello sonata, string quintets, viola alta sonatas and 3rd quartet, but after I've come to like the symphony more and more too.
Leon Botstein, who has done so much for unsung music with his American Symphony Orchestra (what other orchestra in the last ten years has done Rubinstein's Ocean Symphony and Pfitzner's Violin Concerto?) will stage Schreker's "Der Ferne Klang" as part of the 2010 Bard SummerScape Festival.
http://fishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape/2010/ (http://fishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape/2010/)
Here's your chance.
I'll look forward to a report from one or more of you in America...
Quote from: ahinton on Wednesday 21 July 2010, 10:18
It might be a matter of passing interest to some who don't already know that Schreker's name, which is usually mispronounced "Schrayker" (as it looks) was really Schrecker and the only reason why it is spelt without its second "c" is because it appears that way on his certificate of birth, a fact which is down to a misunderstanding at the office in Monaco where his birth was registered, due presumably to the registrar's lack of knowledge of correct spellings of certain Austrian surnames.
According to Christopher Hailey's excellent biography "It is, incidentally, on the published score of the [116th] Psalm [1901] that one first encounters the spelling of Schreker without the second 'c'" (p.15). He elaborates in a footnote: "The reasons for Schreker changing the spelling of his name are unknown. It is possible that Schreker wanted to avoid the connotation of Schreck (Fright) which 'Schrecker' might give. It should be noted that 'Schrecker' is pronounced with a short 'e' and 'Schreker' with a long German 'e', like the long 'a' in English." (p.30, fn 35)
The Schreker Foundation (http://www.schreker.org/neu/engl/biogra/essay/essay.html (http://www.schreker.org/neu/engl/biogra/essay/essay.html)) also states that the change of spelling was a conscious decision on the composer's part: "Several of his early works and most of his songs were published (by this time Schreker had dropped the second "c" in his surname), and his Intermezzo won first prize in a competition sponsored by the Neue Musikalische Presse."
So "Shrayker" would appear to be the correct and fully-intentioned pronunciation.
I remember hearing Schreker's 'Der Schatzgraber' on R3,back in the mid 80's. The singer in the lead role had a simply glorious voice. When the opera was finally released commercially. The first Shrecker opera,I believe,ever to be commercially released,the singer used had a horrible voice. One critic describing her voice as being like a scythe. Having used a scythe a couple of times I know exactly how he felt.
I had cassette tapes of this performance for a while,unfortunately,an indifferent radio cassette player,chewed the perishing things up. I think Lothar Zagrosek may have conducted it. The performance was c. 1985-86. Does anyone here know who the singer was? The performance was very good,and it realy would be rather nice if someone would release it commercially,one day.
NB: According to the Schreker foundation website,it was an ORF Vienna Radio Production,broadcast on May 23rd 1985.
Schreker! Sorry about the spelling mistake.
Quote from: Pengelli on Wednesday 21 July 2010, 16:25
I remember hearing Schreker's 'Der Schatzgraber' on R3,back in the mid 80's. The singer in the lead role had a simply glorious voice. Does anyone here know who the singer was? The performance was very good,and it realy would be rather nice if someone would release it commercially,one day.
1985-05-23, Konzerthaus, Großer Saal Wien
Franz SCHREKER Der Schatzgräber
Josef PROTSCHKA (Tenor/tenor)
Jan Frank DANCKAERT (Bass/bass)
Magdalena PATTIS (Mezzosopran/mezzosoprano)
Heidi EISENBERG (Mezzosopran/mezzosoprano)
Jutta GEISTER (Alt/alto)
Anton SCHARINGER (Bass/bass)
Kurt RYDL (Bass/bass)
Wilfried GAHMLICH (Tenor/tenor)
Alfred MUFF (Bariton/bariton)
Manfred HEMM (Bariton/bariton)
Alfred SRAMEK (Bariton/bariton)
Franz Xaver LUKAS (Tenor/tenor)
Ana PUSAR (Sopran/soprano) Peter JELOSITS (Tenor/tenor)
Heinz ZEDNIK (Tenor/tenor)
Wiener Singakademie
ORF-Symphonieorchester (Orchester/orchestra)
Dirigent/conductor: Lothar ZAGROSEK
More information on the singer in question can be found here: http://anapusar.com/zivljenjepis_e.htm (http://anapusar.com/zivljenjepis_e.htm)
There are several other important radio broadcasts: I've tracked down non-commercial recordings of the revised version of
Das Spielwerk (ORF, 26th February 1984) and the 1989
Singende Teufel from Bielefeld. It would also be wonderful to see the 2004 production of
Irrelohe from the Volksoper.
Thank you,I did find some of that,but I didn't find the bit about the singer. Thanks. With a voice like that,she's a bit,erm.......unsung!! The orchestral playing was superb too. I wonder what the odds of performances like this being commercially released are? Who I should lobby? I notice that some radio stations seem to be releasing stuff from their archves,but I don't know,offhand,whether ORF,are?
NB What would be the best way of tracking down a non commercial recording of this.......for my own personal use,of course. (The only other person I know who would listen to it,anyway, would be my 78 year old mum!) Also,would you say the revised version of 'Das Spielwerk' is superior,in any way,to the cpo?
Unfortunately I've not come across the 1985 Schatzgraber recording, but in view of their ongoing Schreker series, it would be wonderful if CPO could license it for commercial release.
I'll have another listen to Spielwerk and let you know!
It's always awful when you lose a recording like that. I shall have to email or write to cpo,and query them about it. They have released some older recordings,haven't they? On an infinitely more positive note,when I listened to that broadcast back in 1985,commercial recordings,let alone dvd's of Schreker,were just 'pie in the sky'.
Not only are deleted recordings of Schreker demanding truly ridiculous prices - the seminal 1993 biography by Christopher Hailey, published by Cambridge University Press, is seemingly now one of the rarest books on the planet. In August 2009 it was tenth in the list of most sought-after biographies in America and accordingly has fallen prey to the usual price-inflation (http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=ANYeutO8G7OPN.OK2OezYa3ItZ4_8567981027_1:1:84&bq=author%3Dchristopher%2520hailey%26title%3Dfranz%2520schreker%252C%25201878%2D1934%2520a%2520cultural%2520biography%2520music%2520in%2520the%2520twentieth%2520century (http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=ANYeutO8G7OPN.OK2OezYa3ItZ4_8567981027_1:1:84&bq=author%3Dchristopher%2520hailey%26title%3Dfranz%2520schreker%252C%25201878%2D1934%2520a%2520cultural%2520biography%2520music%2520in%2520the%2520twentieth%2520century)).
I obtained a review copy back in 1993 and would urge any other members who possess a copy to treasure it accordingly!
There are a surprising number of Schreker-related videos on YouTube, ranging from the sublime:
Prelude to a Drama (Die Gezeichneten) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70q0F9g9X5A&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70q0F9g9X5A&feature=related)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meEhIddbJ0A&feature=related
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meEhIddbJ0A&feature=related)
The Chamber Symphony (unfortunately incomplete) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaCLZcHJqD4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaCLZcHJqD4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V1d4mKGeUM&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V1d4mKGeUM&feature=related)
to the, erm, not so sublime:
Die Gezeichneten in Palermo -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4jLr1dPrrY&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4jLr1dPrrY&feature=related)
well worth exploring!
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 21 July 2010, 14:44
I'll look forward to a report from one or more of you in America...
Just returned from the two hour drive from Bard College, having seen the American staged premiere of "Der Ferne Klang". (I believe the concert premiere was in 2007 at Lincoln Center, by these same forces.)
Owning two recordings of this work, as well as several of his other operas, I've felt that "Der Ferne Klang" was the most likely of Schreker's stage works to succeed in revival. I wish I could report a stunning success, but...
The relative lack of success must be laid at the director. While not exactly a Eurotrash production, the director's heavy-handed point of view reduced the first act to a grotesque Expressionist freak show, while the second act portrayal of the sleazy night club/pleasure island was so awash in spotlights and glitter that viewing it was, in the most literal sense, a painful experience. We ran into some friends who were down from Vermont. Their opinion after the second act was the same as my wife's: over the top...just over the top.
Only the subdued staging of third act really let the music ring home, providing at least an effective ending.
The production spared no expense, which may explain why the opera never crossed the Atlantic: it requires a huge chorus, on-stage orchestras, and several complete costume changes for the aforementioned chorus. In short, it's a costly show.
The American Symphony Orchestra under Mr. Botstein was splendid, and the cast uniformly excellent. As an ensemble production it far exceeded either of the two commercial recordings. Soprano Yamina Maamar was a very fine Grete and, decked out to kill in the night club scene of act two, just to die for. As the characters vied for her amorous affections in the song contest, I sort of wished I could offer my own entry, too.
Quote from: john_boyer on Monday 02 August 2010, 03:07
The relative lack of success must be laid at the director.
Oh dear - why do Schreker and Korngold seem particularly prone to the 'excessive' school of stage production? I went to Germany in 2002 specifically to see
Die Gezeichneten in Stuttgart and
Der Schatzgraber in Frankfurt. The first was not really set in any period at all, but I remember a stage full of mirrors and water channels, and that there was blood - lots and lots of blood;
Schatzgraber was shorn of its picturesque medieval setting and seemed to be taking place during a carnival for the stylistically-challenged, with characters wearing a bewildering array of 'imaginative' outfits (very much along the lines of Marietta's troupe in the 2001 Strasbourg
Die tote Stadt).
The best Schreker production I have ever seen was the 1992 Opera North production of
Der ferne Klang - the sets were comparatively realistic, as was the direction, and the music was allowed to carry the story. With these composers, the luxuriant aural experience is surely stimulating enough without adding visual overload.
Quote from: Albion on Monday 02 August 2010, 07:49
Oh dear - why do Schreker and Korngold seem particularly prone to the 'excessive' school of stage production?
Hard to believe, but this was only the second staging of a Schreker opera in the western hemisphere, having been beat by only a short time by Los Angeles Opera's production of "Die Gezeichneten" in April.
As I said, it was not one of those nonsensical productions where the staging is completely at odds with the music and story. Quite the contrary, it stuck to the period. The director clearly did is homework, but I think he was too eager to show the results of that homework. Having learned of the world of Expressionist drama and painting that Schreker lived in, he was too willing to try to incorporate this into every scene.
The first act begins with Fritz, the composer-protagonist, dragging the props for the opening scene on stage using a sort of oxen yoke. "Good grief," I thought, "we're laying on the Symbolist imagery rather thick, aren't we? This is the symbolic burden of domesticity that our young artist wishes to escape." Happily, things settle down to a more naturalistic vein, and indeed the costuming and sets were mostly naturalistic throughout.
The director, however, could never quite get away from wanting to link the production to a style of theatre that it now very dated. German Expressionism still reads well, but to see it staged is another matter. So, in the following scene when the Grete's father and his drunken friends arrive, many of the friend are disabled and disfigured soldiers, amputees who hobble about on crutches or drag themselves on little carts. Their faces are covered in grotesque, mask-like make up. In short, they are living characters from a George Grosz painting. It's a nice link to the Vienna avant-garde of 1912, but it doesn't play well on a modern stage. It was just a bit over the top.
In the wandering scene from the second half of the first act, Grete's musing are rather cleverly transferred to a silent movie house. We face the audience, which is dimly seen behind a scrim on which the movie is projected, which we can see in reverse. It's a clever scene, and the movie the Grete is seeing clearly parallels the very story of the opera we are watching. Unfortunately, we begin paying more attention to the movie than to Grete's comments about her feelings. This would have been fine had this little story-within-a-story ended when it ought to have. Instead, during the whole scene where Grete meets the procuress, we are still in the movie house, now seeing a newsreel of First World War images. Now instead of highlighting the drama, the scrim is pure distraction. (One of my Vermont friends complained of the anachronism of the 1912 story versus the 1914-18 newsreels, but the director in his notes said that he had set the beginning of the story in 1919 to allow for this. This is legitimate, since it's still within the correct historical period.)
The second act was a sort of Expressionist nightmare version of a Busby Berkeley extravaganza, a clever take on a flapper era pleasure palace. Like the first act, it almost worked but was sabotaged by the over-the-top lighting, which left the audience blinded. Yamina Maamar, though, was a sight for sore eyes.
The third act, as I mentioned, was the most subdued and most emotionally affecting.
But what do I know? The production has already gotten good reviews from the AP wire and the Boston Globe, so perhaps others came away with the desire to see more Schreker:
AP
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j15TfK5AAlnSkrZ3WKU95DEla7AgD9HA5CCO1 (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j15TfK5AAlnSkrZ3WKU95DEla7AgD9HA5CCO1)
Globe
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/08/02/schrekers_distant_sound_still_resonates/ (http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/08/02/schrekers_distant_sound_still_resonates/)
Many thanks for the detailed description. It sounds as though a lot of thought had gone into the staging, but it had been executed perhaps with a bit too much enthusiasm. I would dearly love to have seen both the LA
Gezeichneten and the Bard
Der ferne Klang, together with the 2004 Vienna Volksoper
Irrelohe, the 2010 Zurich
Der ferne Klang and the Chemnitz
Der Schmied von Gent! They all sound as though they at least attempted interesting, atmospheric and fundamentally workable stagings - I am really surprised that none of them seem to have been siezed on by the DVD companies, especially as Schreker is (deservedly) undergoing something of a resurgence in Europe and the US.
Quote from: john_boyer on Monday 02 August 2010, 14:50
But what do I know? ... perhaps others came away with the desire to see more Schreker
I hope the experience hasn't put you off this wonderful composer. Each of Schreker's operas is very individual - I would recommend persisting and exploring (and hoping for better and better productions). In the meantime I would certainly recommend getting to know his music on disc.
From what I understand, our L.A. Opera Ring des Nibelungen production lost money, due more to the costuming and staging by Achim Freyer than anything else. Even the singers themselves abhorred it. When will these Eurotrash producers and directors learn that if we go to see the Ring we want to see some damn Wagner not a flingin' paper-mache Lion King costume show, fer cryin' out loud?
Quote from: Albion on Monday 02 August 2010, 16:06
I hope the experience hasn't put you off this wonderful composer. Each of Schreker's operas is very individual - I would recommend persisting and exploring (and hoping for better and better productions). In the meantime I would certainly recommend getting to know his music on disc.
Good grief, no! I own two recordings of "Der Ferne Klang", as well as "Irrelohe", "Schatzgraber", "Gezeichneten", and "Christophorous".
Meanwhile, more raves, this time from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/arts/music/03klang.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/arts/music/03klang.html)
and the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704702304575403743629857722.html?KEYWORDS=HEIDI+WALESON (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704702304575403743629857722.html?KEYWORDS=HEIDI+WALESON)
Has Schreker conquered America?
Wow, reviews to die for! Maybe I should have gone, but I chose another unsung, Donizetti's Maria di Rohan at Caramoor. And Bard's theatre has a/c while poor Maria was outside on a sweltering 97 degree evening...
Let's hope the Schreker revival continues...
David
Are there any concertante works in his orchestral output?
Quote from: JimL on Tuesday 03 August 2010, 04:10
Are there any concertante works in his orchestral output?
I'm fairly sure not...
Quote from: john_boyer on Tuesday 03 August 2010, 01:04
Good grief, no! I own two recordings of "Der Ferne Klang", as well as "Irrelohe", "Schatzgraber", "Gezeichneten", and "Christophorous".
Has Schreker conquered America?
Sorry, I misinterpreted "perhaps others came away" as meaning that you didn't - and, to compound the error, I didn't remember that you'd already stated earlier in your post that you had recordings!
I would strongly recommend the CPO set of
Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin, which is very powerfully performed by the Kiel company (again, the production shots in the booklet look very tantalising). I started listening again last night to
Christophorus and was amazed anew at the profundity and assurance of Schreker's stylistic development during the 1920s.
I would also encourage anybody interested in Schreker to hunt out the following discs of his orchestral and vocal music:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Symphony-No-1-Franz/dp/B000026D1Z/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1280816406&sr=8-22 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Symphony-No-1-Franz/dp/B000026D1Z/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1280816406&sr=8-22)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Orchestral-Works-Franz/dp/B000001SXM/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1280816480&sr=1-14 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schreker-Orchestral-Works-Franz/dp/B000001SXM/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1280816480&sr=1-14)
The early symphony is cast in the Brahms and Bruckner idiom, but is quite lovely (unfortunately the final movement is lost). Other highlights on these discs are the gripping melodrama
Das Weib des Intaphernes (a sort of precursor to
Sophie's Choice) and the beautiful Whitman settings which make up
Vom ewigen Leben.
Let's hope that Schreker
is taken up with enthusiasm in the US. It's a very big market!
Schreker's Irrelohe is due to be performed in Bonn during November and December 2010 - does anybody know if this is a revival of the 2004 Vienna Volksoper production or an entirely new staging?
Apparently, it is going to be a new production of Irrelohe at the end of the year in Bonn.
Earlier in this thread, Alan asked for the three 'top' Schreker operas/ recordings - just a few further thoughts.
I would have to say that Die Gezeichneten (in the uncut Decca recording) has to top the list - I think that this is quite simply Schreker's masterpiece. It is also the finest recording which any Schreker opera has ever received.
If a decent enough commercial recording existed, my next vote would go to Der Schatzgraber. Unfortunately the Capriccio set (Hamburg, 1989) is savagely cut and badly afflicted by Gabriele Schnaut's fearsome wobble. I've just ordered from the US an off-air recording of the 1968 ORF performance and will report back on the quality.
In view of the much-publicised recent premiere in the US, next must be Der ferne Klang in the 1989 Marco Polo/ Naxos recording. This is uncut, unlike the rival Capriccio version (which also features the redoubtable Ms Schnaut). I'm currently also exploring various off-air recordings of this seminal piece from 1955-2006.
A very strong recommendation must go to Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin on CPO. The Kiel performance is really quite splendid (their best effort out of the three operas recorded). Listening to it again this last week I was tremendously impressed, more so than I recall previously.
Der Schmied von Gent is due out soon from CPO and may well (as they say) rocket up the charts. What we badly need is a first-rate uncut recording of Schatzgraber.
Two questions,since you're obviously very enthusiastic about this composer. Do you think Schreker is a major opera composer? Do you think any of his opera's are on a par with Richard Strauss? Just out of interest that's all. I know that some commentator's seem to think that his music hasn't the same psychological insight. What do you think? His 'star' certainly seems to be rising,again.
Quote from: Pengelli on Monday 09 August 2010, 22:52
Do you think Schreker is a major opera composer? Do you think any of his opera's are on a par with Richard Strauss?
The answer to the first questions is unhesitatingly 'yes'. This is of course an entirely individual response to Schreker's music and as such cannot easily be elucidated, but I would consider his trilogy of greatest successes (
Der ferne Klang,
Die Gezeichneten and
Der Schatzgraber) to be fully worthy of international acclaim. My personal view is that these works are inspirationally and technically of the highest musical and dramatic standard.
Instead of a detailed direct comparison with Strauss (a proposition which I don't think is realistically possible), it might be helpful to colour in some of the historical background to these two great composers and perhaps that will tell us something about why Richard Strauss is generally (but certainly not universally) acknowledged as a major operatic composer whilst Schreker is little more than a footnote in operatic history. I think that our knowledge and perception of Schreker has been fundamentally fractured by historical misfortune. For much of the twenieth-century he was unknown outside him homeland, a situation not unlike that of Janacek who only found international renown through the advocacy of the late Charles Mackerras. To quote Christopher Hailey,
Franz Schreker was among that cultural wreckage deemed irrelevant to the post-war order of business. He and his music had played virtually no role in musical life anywhere in the world since the early thirties, and his greatest triumphs lay still further in the past. Because he had not survived the war, indeed had died before the nightmare of National Socialism had really begun, he seemed to belong more wholly to another, now foreign age.
To compare Schreker's career with that of Strauss is very instructive. Strauss was already established as a leading international figure by 1900 - as conductor and composer of innovative orchestral works. His conducting career took him all over the world, thus introducing him to foreign audiences. As an operatic composer, his works were similarly taken up internationally - in Britain, he was lucky to find an ardent champion in Thomas Beecham. His years of startling operatic innovation (with
Salome and
Elektra) occurred before 1914. Of course the First World War put a virtual embargo on his music and by the time conflict was over he was largely seen as passe, but nevertheless by the 1920s Strauss was very much an institutional figure both in Germany and abroad - his 60th birthday in 1924 was widely celebrated. Strauss was also fortunate to outlive another world war and become even more of an institutional figure.
Schreker, on the other hand, was largely unknown even in Austro-Germany until the premiere of
Der ferne Klang in 1912. He had not conducted internationally in the previous decade and had very little in his composition portfolio. The coming of war in 1914 meant the cancellation of productions of
Der ferne Klang not only in Germany (Leipzig, Munich and Frankfurt) but also in Breslau, Prague and Paris. Thereafter his career was almost exclusively confined to Germany and Austria. Even in the years of his greatest success, 1920-1923, there were no foreign productions. Instead of travelling abroad conducting his music, Schreker taught composition at the Berlin Hochschule. By the time
his style was perceived as passe (basically after the 1924 production of
Irrelohe) Schreker had built up no audience outside the German or Austrian opera houses. He was a composer of large, complex, expensive-to-mount operas - and little else. Schreker never became a treasured institution in Austria or Germany - caught up in the increasingly vocal anti-semitism of the 1920s his operas were criticised as unsuitable for a nation in recovery: in 1921 a savage and widely-publicised attack by Alfred Heuss of the
Zeitschrift fur Musik saw the contemporary success of Schreker as dependant not on the quality of his music, but upon the sharp practices of his publisher (Universal Edition) and the power of Paul Bekker, Germany's leading music critic and champion of Schreker. To quote Heuss
It is out of the spirit of this system - and certainly not out of 'visions of sound' - that the main figures of Schreker's operas are born: whores, murderesses, people sick with perverse sensuality, 'branded souls' of the most varied kind; these are the sorts that are inflicted upon the German people in dozens of performances. The German people are sure to make a wonderful recovery with this art which the Schreker press forces upon them as the pinnacle of modern opera.
This view of Schreker's work was not uncommon in Germany. His work was deemed 'corrupting' and he was seen as fair game for grossly insulting personal attacks. When he died in 1934 Germany saw him as very much a part of the discredited Weimar Republic and therefore something to be rejected. Even his publisher bowed to the prevailing pressure and published an obituary which negated his achievement:
There was no way that Schreker's unreal phantasmagorias could have endured in the face of real compositional evolution. It was his fate that in an age of Impressionism he became mired all too one-sidedly in the peripheral region of timbral phenomena.
State-inspired anti-semitism also played its part. Such was the growing apprehension about the situation in Germany that many of the composer's friends had already left Berlin when he died, and those that remained were too afraid to attend his funeral. Nevertheless, his widow received condolences from such figures as Anton Webern:
It is so comforting for me that only recently, on my 50th birthday, I received from Franz Schreker a sign of friendship that gave me great joy: his picture with extremely kind words of dedication. It will be preserved in hallowed memory in my heart, as will all the beautiful things of the past that I assiciate with Franz Schreker; and above all his immortal works.
It is difficult to think of another composer (except perhaps Shostakovich) whose career was so blatantly shaped by overwhelmingly powerful external political events. Schreker lived through one of the most turbulent times in Austro-German history as gilded imperialism gave way (through cataclysm) to liberal but unstable Republic which in turn gave way to cultural philistinism and state terror. As with Strauss, the technical virtuosity of his music demands the highest standards of performance - unlike Strauss, his works have very rarely been that fortunate in the recording studio. When these standards are met (as in the Decca
Die Gezeichneten and the two Chandos Sinaisky discs) I think that Schreker's music undoubtedly has the most extraordinary power to move and amaze us.
Albion - your post here is most interesting and welcome; I think that you have illustrated the differences between the reputations of Strauss and Schre(c)ker - and the reasons for them - very convincingly.
One could perhaps consider the fate of Schre(c)ker's near contemporary (in terms of both birth and death years) and fellow Austrian Jew Zemlinsky, whose work fared little better for many years and arguably for not dissimilar reasons. That said, where would you place their younger contemporary and compatriot Berg, whose death occurred between theirs, in terms of international recognition? Also, Schönberg who, like Schre(c)ker and Zemlinsky, was born in the decade after Strauss and who outlived Strauss by a couple of years, gained some international recognition through his work as a conductor (albeit not on the scale that Strauss did), but the reputation of his work still suffered for many years (though admittedly not as badly as did Schre(c)ker's), even if that might in part have been as a consequence of the "bogey-man" image that lived on in the minds of some people until many years afte his death and indeed still lives on to some extent today, despite our vastly greater familiarity with his work as a whole; relocating to America, as did his younger compatriot Korngold but none of the other composers mentioned here, seems ultimately to have done him few favours.
Quote from: ahinton on Tuesday 10 August 2010, 09:44
where would you place their younger contemporary and compatriot Berg, whose death occurred between theirs, in terms of international recognition? Also, Schönberg who, like Schre(c)ker and Zemlinsky, was born in the decade after Strauss and who outlived Strauss by a couple of years
Alas, my knowledge of the Second Viennese School is very limited, not helped by the fact that my musical sympathies lie more with the post-fin-de-siecle opulence of Korngold, Strauss, Schreker and Zemlinsky. I wouldn't really consider myself in any way qualified to assess Berg, Schoenberg or Webern either individually or by contemporary comparison although I certainly enjoy some of their (mostly earlier) works. Perhaps other members with greater knowledge of these composers can offer a critique!
Quote from: Albion on Tuesday 10 August 2010, 13:37
Quote from: ahinton on Tuesday 10 August 2010, 09:44
where would you place their younger contemporary and compatriot Berg, whose death occurred between theirs, in terms of international recognition? Also, Schönberg who, like Schre(c)ker and Zemlinsky, was born in the decade after Strauss and who outlived Strauss by a couple of years
Alas, my knowledge of the Second Viennese School is very limited, not helped by the fact that my musical sympathies lie more with the post-fin-de-siecle opulence of Korngold, Strauss, Schreker and Zemlinsky. I wouldn't really consider myself in any way qualified to assess Berg, Schoenberg or Webern either individually or by contemporary comparison although I certainly enjoy some of their (mostly earlier) works. Perhaps other members with greater knowledge of these composers can offer a critique!
I was thinking in the present context in terms of your ideas about their reputations and the fate of their work rather than of the music itself!
Quote from: ahinton on Tuesday 10 August 2010, 13:52
I was thinking in the present context in terms of your ideas about their reputations and the fate of their work rather than of the music itself!
Again, my knowledge is probably too limited to offer very much of any use, but I think in general that the Second Viennese School has an undeserved reputation for difficulty - to cite just a few works, Berg's Violin Concerto and
Wozzeck, and Schoenberg's Variations, Op.31 (a work I studied at university) should in all honesty be very accessible and rewarding to most informed listeners. There is a persistent myth that these composers simply wrote music 'without melody' and that with hindsight they represented a dead-end in twentienth-century musical evolution (echoes of Schreker's obituaries) - this is of course utter nonsense. If their compositional techniques are at all discredited today this does nothing to nullify their very real achievement but rather reflects on humanity's age-old knee-jerk rejection of the work of previous generations. Hopefully, they will come to be seen as essentially romantic (that is, emotionally-motivated) composers inhabiting an excitingly different harmonic world. I think basically that their position will be secure - but also that a lot of damage is done when a composer's critical 'reputation' is taken on trust by lazy listeners who have never bothered to acquaint themselves with the actual music. Well, I did warn you that I hadn't got much to contribute! ;)
Well, I've listened extensively to the music of the 2VS and I have to say that I find its ideas - when taken to their logical conclusion - lead to a musical dead-end. Schoenberg's Op.31 is never going to be 'accessible' because it speaks an alien language; by contrast, Berg preserves enough musical language that is accessible in his VC for it to be appreciated. Sure, this language can be learned, but for me that's the point - it doesn't come at all naturally...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 10 August 2010, 21:35
Well, I've listened extensively to the music of the 2VS and I have to say that I find its ideas - when taken to their logical conclusion - lead to a musical dead-end. Schoenberg's Op.31 is never going to be 'accessible' because it speaks an alien language
so for "alien language" should we read "(comparatively) easy listening"?
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 10 August 2010, 21:35
by contrast, Berg preserves enough musical language that is accessible in his VC for it to be appreciated. Sure, this language can be learned, but for me that's the point - it doesn't come at all naturally...
Would you say the same for the language of Berg's Chamber Concerto?
The point here is that there is can ultimately be no such thing as a universal definition of "accessible"; accessible to whom, how, when, why and by what means?
The piano concertos of Mozart were written in what was once for me an "alien language" because the innocent Boulez/Stockhausen/Nono etc. ears of my youth were simply not accustomed to the absorption of such music and I had no idea what to do with it...
With CPO due to issue the 2010 Chemnitz Der Schmied von Gent, the Schreker completist might like to know that his 1928 opera Der singende Teufel is also available, as an off-air (or in-house) recording made during the 1989 Bielefeld production. Unfortunately the work was reduced from four acts to three, but the performance and recording are nevertheless more than acceptable (once you get over what sounds like somebody typing during the introductory organ Prelude). Very much in Schreker's later, more acerbic, style, the discs are well worth the extremely modest outlay:
http://www.operaaddiction.com/cd10343.html (http://www.operaaddiction.com/cd10343.html)
What a fascinating site, Albion - slightly off topic, but I see they have a recording of Thuille's opera "Lobetanz", not something I ever expected to get the opportunity to hear!
Thank you for the link.
Quote from: khorovod on Saturday 14 August 2010, 13:24
Thank you for the link.
My pleasure! Discs are made to order so there is a slight delay, but ordering is easy and they are very efficient.
In anticipation of CPO's release of the 2010 Chemnitz production of Schreker's final opera Der Schmied von Gent I've spent the last couple of days listening to an off-air recording from German radio. In this extremely well-sung and played performance, the opera comes across as one of Schreker's very finest works. It's failure in 1932 clearly had nothing to do with the quality of the work itself but was politically and racially motivated - at the Berlin premiere there was an ovation until Schreker himself appeared before the curtain at which point boos and catcalls rang through the auditorium.
As one of Schreker's more unfamiliar operas, it might be helpful to give a brief synopsis of this colourful tale:
Smee is a blacksmith in 16th-century Ghent who mocks the occupying Spanish invaders. Denounced by a rival, he loses his business and is about to drown himself in the river Lys when the Devil tempts him with the offer of seven years good fortune in exchange for his soul. Smee accepts, but when the seven years of wealth are nearly over he is fearful about keeping his part of the bargain. Just then a couple with a baby arrive at the forge and Smee cheerfully replaces one of their donkey's shoes without charge. Of course, the couple turn out to be Mary and Joseph and for his generosity Smee is granted three wishes. He outwits three devils (a hangman, the Duke of Alba and Satan's mistress Astarte) and saves his soul but dies exhausted from the struggle. Here a further problem arises - neither Hell nor Heaven want to have anything to do with him, so Smee sets up a booth outside the gates of Heaven selling food to new arrivals (including his old friends from Ghent). When his wife arrives and is admitted through the gates she alerts Joseph to Smee's predicament. After weighing the blacksmith's good deeds against his bad ones, Smee is eventually granted entry into Heaven.
After the acerbic style of Christophorus and Der singende Teufel, for his final work Schreker returns to a generously melodic style and his customary fully scored texture rich with brass and percussion. Unusually amongst his works, there are a large number of brief orchestral interludes and dances, whilst the chorus has far more to do than in any other of his operas. Although the musical style is eclectic, ranging from tunes of folk-like simplicity to a grandiose finale at the gates of Heaven, the vigour and above all the colour of Schreker's score carries all before it. Apparently the actual staging at Chemnitz was somewhat chaotic, but it would be hard to imagine a more dedicated musical performance - honours go to Oliver Zwarg as the blacksmith Smee who is on stage virtually without break for three long acts. Frank Beermann draws great sounds from the orchestra (the Robert Schumann Philharmonie) and gets the pacing of this Breugel-esque work just right: the CPO release should be a real winner!
The plotline is very intriguing. Was the libretto by Schreker? I believe,most,if not all of them were written by the composer,himself. This is certainly a different kind of opera from 'Der Schatzgraber'. (I know that Schreker's writing has been criticised,but it seems allot more interesting and coherent than Michael Tippetts stuff,which the critics used to drone on endlessly about). His orchestration has a leaner more astringent sound,you say,in his later opera's,but this is more melodic,even quite tuneful,perhaps.
Would you say his music sounds anything like that of say Rudi Stephan,in his wnderfully compact 'Music for orchestra',(A sort of steely,sinewy,but tuneful version of Richard Strauss),or a bit more so? I don't like my music 'too acerbic',to be honest. I love Franz Schmidt's music, for instance,but his,'Book of the Seven Seals' always has me reaching for the off button part way through. Conversely,Brian's 'Gothic Symphony',despite his reputation for gruffness,always has me singing along,right through to that marvellous hushed ending.
Just wondering,that's all!
Quote from: Pengelli on Thursday 26 August 2010, 17:01
The plotline is very intriguing. Was the libretto by Schreker? I believe,most,if not all of them were written by the composer,himself. Would you say his music sounds anything like that of say Rudi Stephan,in his wnderfully compact 'Music for orchestra',(A sort of steely,sinewy,but tuneful version of Richard Strauss),or a bit more so?
For the first time since
Flammen (1902) Schreker did not write his own libretto - he adapted the text of
Smetse Smee taken from a collection entitled
Flemish Tales (1858) by Charles De Coster (1827-1878). I'm afraid that I don't know any of Stephan's music, but (to misquote from the above) I would possibly describe
Der Schmied von Gent as a sort of steely, sinewy but tuneful version of Franz Schreker! ;)
I like your dry sense of humour,Albion. I did ask for a comparison!
You certainly know your stuff! I just wanted to know,because splasing out on an opera you don't know,can be an expensive mistake. In fact your posts have made me re-evaluate Schreker. I had some idea that he went on composing opera's along the lines of 'Der Schatzgraber',the only one I am really that familiar with.
Also,another plus point,'Der Schmied von Gent',has a 'happy ending',(of sorts). And there I was thinking Schreker was all sumptuous orchestration and late romantic gloom! Well,maybe not gloomy all the way through,but misery all round for the characters involved! The sort of thing that puts me right of the hideously overrated Puccini,even if I liked all that vacuous warbling,anyway! (Rossini's more fun!).
I like happy endings!
Quote from: Pengelli on Friday 27 August 2010, 20:54
I did ask for a comparison! I just wanted to know,because splasing out on an opera you don't know,can be an expensive mistake.
I don't honestly think that a comparison would really be very much help - at this late stage in his career Schreker's musical expression was so idiosyncratic. Judging from your response to
Der Schatzgraber you certainly won't be disappointed by
Der Schmied von Gent.
Thank you anyway! All the more a shame that he died when he did. I shall put this one on my list. It will be a rather interesting contrast to Humperdinck's 'Donroschen' opera,which cpo are due to release. (Another one on my 'list). Life after 'Hansel & Gretel',or should I say,'Konigskinder',eh?
To be fair,it's a bit unfair to compare the two. Both were craftsman,in their own right. But it just goes to show exactly how progressive Strauss & Schreker were.
I just wonder what Schreker would have done with a libretto like 'Schwanda the Bagpiper'? The mind boggles!
Quote from: Albion on Thursday 26 August 2010, 07:24In anticipation of CPO's release of the 2010 Chemnitz production of Schreker's final opera Der Schmied von Gent I've spent the last couple of days listening to an off-air recording from German radio.
The anticipation proved rather protracted. Well, at last I can ditch the radio broadcast - the two-disc CPO set of
Der Schmied von Gent is an absolute winner, taken from the run of performances at Chemnitz -
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41-3lFbAqUL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Although Schreker vowed to make this a more 'populist' opera than
Der singende Teufel (1924-28), this is certainly not a simplistic score by any means, with great demands placed especially on orchestra and (very heavily employed) chorus: the level of musical artistry on display in this performance is wonderful. If you already love Schreker's music, you probably already have this new recording on order - as a musical experience I think it represents a triumphant return to the form (but not the highly-charged romantic idiom) of
Der Schatzgraber. CPO's presentation is excellent, with good essays which are not too convoluted in translation.
:)
Vocal scores available for download from the Internet Archive -
Der ferne Klang (1903-10) - http://archive.org/details/derferneklangope00schr (http://archive.org/details/derferneklangope00schr)
Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin (1908-12) - http://archive.org/details/dasspielwerkundd00schr (http://archive.org/details/dasspielwerkundd00schr)
Das Spielwerk (1915) - http://archive.org/details/dasspielwerkoper00schr (http://archive.org/details/dasspielwerkoper00schr)
Die Gezeichneten (1911-15) - http://archive.org/details/diegezeichneteno1916schr (http://archive.org/details/diegezeichneteno1916schr)
Der Schatzgräber (1915-18) - http://archive.org/details/derschatzgrber00schr (http://archive.org/details/derschatzgrber00schr)
Der Schmied von Gent (1929-32) - http://archive.org/details/derschmiedvongen00schr (http://archive.org/details/derschmiedvongen00schr)
:)
Schreker is a giant. I have no doubt that those overly critical assessments ar written by those who have not spent time withe librettos AND the music. Schreker's ability to write music that brings life to the psychology behind the words has been equalled but never surpasses IMO. Anyone even slightly interested in Schreker should read Christopher Hailey's biography. It's a fascinating and illuminating examination of the slow evolution of one music's most original voices.
Sorry to add a dissonant voice: for me, the problem with Schreker is memorability - I can certainly remember the general idiom and 'flavour' of many of his operas, but find that there is little that sticks in the mind of a specific nature. Unlike Richard Strauss, a true giant by comparison, some of whose works I absolutely adore (Die Frau ohne Schatten, Rosenkavalier, Daphne, to name just three) and can remember with ease. (BTW I don't like all of Strauss - e.g. some of the later, more 'conversational' operas). No doubt it's my fault, but I have tried and tried with his operas and been left every time with a sense of severe disappointment.
Perhaps members can direct to, say, three sections in three different operas which would make me change my mind...
I certainly would read Hailey's book on Schreker - if I could lay hands on a copy! The collection of essays edited by Hailey on Berg (with a brilliant and illuminating opening paper by the editor) is a 'must read' for anyone interested in that period. However the Schreker book, despite being published in 1993, now seems especially hard to find. None of the libraries to which I have access possess a copy, and book dealers seem to be requiring that a chap stump up just short of £300 for a copy. Blow that, and I shall hope it turns up in a jumble sale.
In the meantime, tee hee, I castigate our renowned hero-member for seeking to elbow this thread from Schreker to Strauss and thus being in violation of his own rules! Yes, Alan, Strauss is certainly more 'memorable' (how, for anyone with a soul, could he not be?). However I stick my neck out and suggest that Schreker was a more ambitious, creative and progressive composer, and thus offers rewards of a different kind. Whoosh!
The sort of comment I had in mind for Schreker is this (from the Penguin Guide's review of Irrelohe):
<<It is imagnative music, highly sophisticated in its use of the orchestra, but in a succession of effectively realised atmospheres rather than being strongly melodic in inspiration.>>
(Emphasis added)
That, for me, is the problem with Schreker - supposedly the archetypical late, late Romantic opera composer. If there's no strong melodic inspiration, most of the point is lost.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 04 May 2012, 08:04
Sorry to add a dissonant voice: for me, the problem with Schreker is memorability - I can certainly remember the general idiom and 'flavour' of many of his operas, but find that there is little that sticks in the mind of a specific nature. Unlike Richard Strauss, a true giant by comparison, some of whose works I absolutely adore (Die Frau ohne Schatten, Rosenkavalier, Daphne, to name just three) and can remember with ease. (BTW I don't like all of Strauss - e.g. some of the later, more 'conversational' operas). No doubt it's my fault, but I have tried and tried with his operas and been left every time with a sense of severe disappointment.
Perhaps members can direct to, say, three sections in three different operas which would make me change my mind...
Schreker is not a tunesmith; no crime there. Respighi wasn't either. For me Schreker is highly memorable, and the dramatic thrust of his operas seems inexorable. I still wonder how many critics have actually sat down with the librettos along with the recordings. I cannot find fault with Die Gezeichneten, whereas I find Daphne and Die Frau interminable. Perhaps just a matter of taste.
Quote from: minacciosa on Monday 07 May 2012, 01:28
Respighi wasn't either.
Really? Respighi's
Roman Trilogy has tunes by the bucket-load. Unlike anything I've heard by Schreker...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 04 May 2012, 08:04Sorry to add a dissonant voice: for me, the problem with Schreker is memorability [...] That, for me, is the problem with Schreker - supposedly the archetypical late, late Romantic opera composer. If there's no strong melodic inspiration, most of the point is lost.
Quote from: minacciosa on Monday 07 May 2012, 01:28Schreker is not a tunesmith; no crime there. [...] For me Schreker is highly memorable, and the dramatic thrust of his operas seems inexorable. I still wonder how many critics have actually sat down with the librettos along with the recordings. I cannot find fault with Die Gezeichneten, whereas I find Daphne and Die Frau interminable. Perhaps just a matter of taste.
The problem perhaps lies precisely in the supposition that Schreker
is archetypal, and in the assumption that Strauss and Schreker had exactly the same musico-dramatic aims in mind. They were very different characters and, though the general opulence of their scores and the lavishness of their demand for orchestral players may indicate superficial similarities, in compositional style they were actually further apart than is generally acknowledged. It seems to me that Strauss's magnificent melodic writing (more markedly in the latter operas), often hanging like a glorious tapestry on the surface of a text, is clearly intended to be (and succeeds in being) the 'main event' in the theatrical/ listening experience, with any subtleties in the text coming second in importance, whereas with Schreker (usually acting as his own librettist) the music grows out
from the text and it's character-psychology much more minutely, resulting in a closer and more inter-dependant relationship between the two disciplines of libretto and setting (outside the operas, and using texts by other writers, Schreker displays exactly the same approach in
Vom ewigen Leben and
Das Weib des Intaphernes). There is plenty of melody in Schreker, but usually not the long-breathed type perfected by Strauss - instead much of it is motivic, and quite often harmonic or colouristic gestures 'stand in' for such a melody. Whether or not you regard these devices and their execution as memorable or strong enough materials to construct extended musical and/ or dramatic experiences is patently subjective (in Schreker's case I do). Incidentally, the same comparison could perhaps be (admittedly) loosely drawn between Korngold and Zemlinsky. There is room in this wide world of music for all of these splendid composers to have their ardent advocates without being drawn into artificial ratings-wars.
:)
I think you have drawn a very apt comparison between Schreker and Strauss, John - extremely helpful indeed. And your references to Zemlinsky and Korngold in this connection are entirely apt also - in fact I find exactly the same problem with Zemlinsky as I do with Schreker - i.e. a lack of the kind of melodic memorability that, it seems to me, is essential in late Romantic opera. Of course, the work that started all this is (arguably) Pelléas which I love in, for example, the exquisitely sung and played Karajan performance, but which bores me to tears in performances which major less on aural beauty and more on psychology and when sung by unattractive voices. Now here, maybe, is one of my objections to the Schreker operas that I've heard - namely, that there are some horrendous performances on some of the available recordings - e.g. the awful Gabriele Schnaut in the Capriccio Schatzgräber.
However, I'm going to give Schreker another go and will report back in due course...
Albion's characterisation of Schreker and Strauss, and the way of distinguishing between them, is both spot on and very illuminating. Thanks for devoting obviously careful thought to it. And I hope this settles for ever any futile dispute about one composer being 'better' (or 'worse'!) than the other. Thank gawd we have both of them I say!
Quote from: petershott@btinternet.com on Monday 07 May 2012, 20:57
Albion's characterisation of Schreker and Strauss, and the way of distinguishing between them, is both spot on and very illuminating. Thanks for devoting obviously careful thought to it. And I hope this settles for ever any futile dispute about one composer being 'better' (or 'worse'!) than the other. Thank gawd we have both of them I say!
I do hope my comments are not construed as applying rankings to Schreker and Strauss, or for any composer. You have said it best: I'm glad we have ether both. I just wish the performance board were more equally distributed among these wonderful voices (Zemlinsky, Schmidt, Korngold, Schreker et al). Doubtless we would think differently of them as well as canonic composers if we heard more variety more often.
Q: Where does Alban Berg fit in as an operatic composer in relation to Schreker?
I've just been listening to the first CD of Die Gezeichneten (the Decca recording under Zagrosek). It is very well sung, wonderfully well played by the orchestra and beautifully recorded. And the music is gorgeous and interesting throughout - but oh for a tune to seal the deal: just as one gets to the climax of Act 1, the moment's gone and I'm left gorged, but somehow frustrated. Still, thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 04:06
I've just been listening to the first CD of Die Gezeichneten (the Decca recording under Zagrosek). It is very well sung, wonderfully well played by the orchestra and beautifully recorded. And the music is gorgeous and interesting throughout - but oh for a tune to seal the deal: just as one gets to the climax of Act 1, the moment's gone and I'm left gorged, but somehow frustrated. Still, thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile.
WHat's the big deal about a tune? It's not that kind of opera. However, there is at least one. Act 3, "Ah, welche Nacht".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKlvGTAbmas
This ain't Bel Canto. Thankfully.
Quote from: minacciosa on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 06:57
What's the big deal about a tune? It's not that kind of opera. However, there is at least one. Act 3, "Ah, welche Nacht".
Rather confirms my point, not yours!
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 08:06
Quote from: minacciosa on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 06:57
What's the big deal about a tune? It's not that kind of opera. However, there is at least one. Act 3, "Ah, welche Nacht".
Rather confirms my point, not yours!
That's one more than
Pelleas!
Ah, but Debussy was a genius...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 08:06
Quote from: minacciosa on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 06:57
What's the big deal about a tune? It's not that kind of opera. However, there is at least one. Act 3, "Ah, welche Nacht".
Rather confirms my point, not yours!
It would confirms your point if one views all operas from the standard of equality of intent and execution. My point is that not all operas are vessels for tunes, rather the melodic flow is dictated by its material and the aesthetic of the composer. It's interesting that the homespun criticisms leveled at some Schreker operas are rarely aimed at Berg's operas, works that are equally arid in their paucity of stereotypical opera tunes. For these two composers (and others like the aforementioned Respighi) that kind of criticism is wrong because it approaches the works from a perspective that all operas should display the same qualities and satisfy the same expectations without regard to the highly individual orientations and intent of their composers. You cannot judge an apple from the perspective of a persimmon.
Why, then, mention the tune in Act 3 if it's not that kind of opera?
Minacciosa makes a fair enough point as regards the composer's success in achieving what he wanted to achieve. The other side of the coin, though, is whether the piece works as a rounded work of art in the view of his audience. I must say that I very much enjoy the impression which Schrecker's music gives but that I can remember nothing of it once it has finished. Personally, I find that an unsatisfying experience. So for me, whilst Schrecker might have achieved admirably what he set out to do, what he set out to do isn't what I want from opera. That may make me shallow and unitellectual but there it is.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 14:13Why, then, mention the tune in Act 3 if it's not that kind of opera?
It
is worth mentioning and considering:
Ah, welche Nacht stands out quite markedly in
Die Gezeichneten as a whole - it is a long, baldy diatonic tune, sung mostly in unison and much more recognisable as the type of long-breathed, easily-assimilated melody one might expect in such a work. Interestingly, Schreker's text and the dramatic situation associate it with the intoxification and decadent artifice of the island of Elysium, and the simple-minded gullibility of the pleasure-seeking populace.
I don't think that Schreker's choice of idiom for this passage is coincidental. It is intended to stand apart from the main body of the (mostly parlando) composition in a way that suggests that the characters singing it and the situation they find themselves in are highly questionable and are clinging hopelessly to a dangerous unreality. With
Ah, welche Nacht Schreker confirms that he is more than capable of writing melodies (as he also proved in his early one-acter
Flammen, the early Symphony in A minor, the Chamber Symphony and, right at the end of his life, the
Vorspiel zu einer grossen Oper), but generally deliberately chose not to so in the operas unless to make a point.
There is no more reason why an opera should
have to have wall-to-wall melodies (to be successful in its own terms) than a work in any other genre - many symphonic composers have got along quite nicely without them. Schreker saw his operas first and foremost as psychological dramas: if a sixteen-bar regularly-phrased melody would not suit his (usually) very irregular characters he simply did not think it appropriate to put one into their mouths. By striving to avoid his audience focussing exclusively on music which would detract from the impact of his text and dramaturgy, it might be argued that Schreker produced his own type of verism.
Exactly.
Indeed, and that's fine and no doubt Schrecker does it all very well. I intend no criticism of him when I say that, despite all Schrecker's ingenuity and artistry which Albion has set out so lucidly, the end result does little for me except the enjoyment of the passing musical scenery. No doubt it's my loss but, given the relative popularity of Schrecker and Strauss and his melodies, it's a loss shared by many.
I understand - I think. I just don't find this sort of operatic project terribly successful in listening terms. BTW I'm not talking here of the need for wall-to-wall melodic writing (that would be to misrepresent my point); rather I'm talking about what I perceive not simply to be an artistic choice, but actually an aesthetic shortcoming on Schreker's part. In other words, there's an awful lot of sung conversation to sit through and very little to get hold of on the way. I think I understand the composer's intention, but the question is: does it work? And for me the answer is definitely not. It just induces a yearning for rather more recognisable melodic features on this richly orchestrated, but vocally uninteresting landscape.
The comparisons, incidentally, with Respighi do not pass water at all. Extensive melodic invention is to be found everywhere in his operas, both early (e.g. Semirama) and late (e.g. La fiamma).
Quote from: Albion on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 16:51
There is no more reason why an opera should have to have wall-to-wall melodies (to be successful in its own terms) than a work in any other genre - many symphonic composers have got along quite nicely without them.
I agree - if you extend this forward in time to include the modernists. However, since we have been talking here of
Die Gezeichneten (completed in 1915), perhaps you could name some examples of great symphonies (after all, it is greatness that is being claimed for Schreker's operas) written no later than this date which have got along nicely without a fund of melodic invention...?
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 18:17I agree - if you extend this forward in time to include the modernists.
Schreker may be considered ahead of his time. Why should he be 'locked' into a historical straight-jacket (arbitrarily placed c. 1915)?
???
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 18:17it is greatness that is being claimed for Schreker's operas
I'm not doing so - the term smacks too much of 'masterpiece'.
;)
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 18:17perhaps you could name some examples of great symphonies [...] written no later than this date which have got along nicely without a fund of melodic invention...?
Would it be relevant if I could, given the point about historical pigeon-holing?
:)
Methinks there is some wriggling going on here. My rejoinder would simply be that Schreker fails the test of memorability that would apply across the board to the finest compositions of his era - which is a perfectly natural framework against which to assess his music.
I don't want to get enbroiled this discussion, but I would like to say that I enjoy Schreker very much and I rate him highly as an opera composer. But then I also like Berg's Lulu and Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre.
Quote from: Mark Thomas on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 17:51
Indeed, and that's fine and no doubt Schrecker does it all very well. I intend no criticism of him when I say that, despite all Schrecker's ingenuity and artistry which Albion has set out so lucidly, the end result does little for me except the enjoyment of the passing musical scenery. No doubt it's my loss but, given the relative popularity of Schrecker and Strauss and his melodies, it's a loss shared by many.
Sounds like you're getting into that rating thing. Truthfully, who can say? Strauss had advantages that Schreker did not, such as not being Jewish, not having his works banned at the height of their popularity (which rivaled Strauss'). not having publishers remove his titles from their catalogues and refuse to supply material for performance, not having his life torn asunder by being sacked from an eminent position (which led to Schreker's early death), all which resulted in nearly seventy years of total silence during which Schreker was neither performed nor written about, so completely was he consumed by the Nazis' berufsverbot. Taking this into account makes it impossible to assess relative merits like popularity.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 18:00
I understand - I think. I just don't find this sort of operatic project terribly successful in listening terms. BTW I'm not talking here of the need for wall-to-wall melodic writing (that would be to misrepresent my point); rather I'm talking about what I perceive not simply to be an artistic choice, but actually an aesthetic shortcoming on Schreker's part. In other words, there's an awful lot of sung conversation to sit through and very little to get hold of on the way. I think I understand the composer's intention, but the question is: does it work? And for me the answer is definitely not. It just induces a yearning for rather more recognisable melodic features on this richly orchestrated, but vocally uninteresting landscape.
The comparisons, incidentally, with Respighi do not pass water at all. Extensive melodic invention is to be found everywhere in his operas, both early (e.g. Semirama) and late (e.g. La fiamma).
I have yet to hear it, thought what's there is quite enjoyable. Respighi is great, though an analogy with tennis comes to mind: as a composer he's like the player that has an incredibly whopping big serve that overshadows everything else in his game; nothing else comes close to that level of achievement. Such is Respighi, and orchestration is his big serve. And of course I love his major works.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 19:53Methinks there is some wriggling going on here.
Sorry, but I can't let this insult stand. I can assure you that there is no wriggling - perhaps my points have not been made with enough clarity. Whether or not Schreker's music deserves the accolade of 'greatness' is not within my remit to say - but I would emphasise that I, and many others (including other members of this forum), clearly
do enjoy it and regard it as significant and valuable and should not therefore be continually called upon to belabour 'defensive' points. More immediately, the continuing demand for unsung 'masterpieces' as opposed to unsung composers is quite wearying, especially when repeated attacks are somewhat gratuitously inserted into threads when the antipathy of the author has already been clearly articulated. To request that
perhaps you could name some examples of great symphonies [...] written no later than [1915] which have got along nicely without a fund of melodic invention is deliberately provocative and I would once more question its absolute relevance in a discussion which has sought to suggest that Schreker was in many ways an innovator.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 08 May 2012, 19:53My rejoinder would simply be that Schreker fails the test of memorability that would apply across the board to the finest compositions of his era - which is a perfectly natural framework against which to assess his music.
With respect, he fails it in your opinion (which is quite as it should be), but (fortunately for Schreker) your opinion is not universally held. I would have thought that it was patently obvious that if (hypothetically) an author in any discipline is writing ahead of his time and thus innovating he cannot be judged solely by the conventions of his immediate epoch: clearly the idea of the post-Romantic 'modernist' in Schreker appears to immediately negate his value. Nevertheless, his operas (
Der ferne Klang,
Die Gezeichneten and
Der Schatzgraber)
were enormously popular with post-1918 audiences who found in them a new voice.
Clearly this is going nowhere in terms of a wider discussion on Schreker and his music, other than "is he a 'good' or a 'bad' composer", which is a pity as other members of the forum clearly have interesting ideas and experiences which they might like to be able to share.
You are probably right, John. The discussion has undoubtedly run its course. Of course, I apologise sincerely that you felt insulted by my remarks. Be assured, though, that I will continue to acquire more recordings of Schreker's music and persist in my quest - also shared by many others - to find in him that which you obviously find so easily, but which remains for me, at present at any rate, totally elusive.
I think that's an appropriate pair of messages on which to close this discussion. Clearly Schrecker is one of those composers about whose music people feel passionately and about which opinion is divided. Thanks in particular to minacciosa, John and Alan for a vigorous debate which has shed light on it.