# Franz Schreker



## Aramis

March 23, 1878 - March 21, 1934​
Recently listened to this:










DGDI is phantomime based on novel (not novel actually, but you know, who cares?) by Oscar Wilde known by the same title. The same, but in english. I'm too lazy to check what the original was titled. If you don't know what it means then learn german, you silly bum.

Anyway. I liked it and now trying to get his opera Der Farne Klang. It has nice plot.

I'm sure he is more popular than Mozart here. Share your views.


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## joen_cph

The orchestral works are in general fine and varied, wonderfully late-Romantic, with hints of Symbolism, psychoanalysis and more modern trends in them. The Birthday of The Infanta (with designs by Gustav Klimt, 1908) is perhaps more rapsodic in its style than, say, the vast "Vorspiel zu einen Drama", which is also a fine introductory, sort of love-on-the-beach piece. The Ekkehard Ouverture is likewise an impressive, if somewhat kitschy, example, finishing with appropriately cathedral-like organ music. The Romantische Suite is on a larger scale and a delight as well. But the Birthday of the Infanta also shows of his interest in leading cultural personalities of his time (Klimt, Wilde, Whitman etc.) and his general interest in the visual arts, which he shared with Schillings and Zemlinsky, who likewise wrote operas inspired by painting.

The two Chandos CDs with orchestral music conducted by Sinaisky are particularly good. The Birthday of the Infanta-disc you mention I´ve just been listening to now, and it is also splendid. The Hindemith work on the same disc, the ballet called The Demon, likewise has something interesting to it (I mainly know it from an old candide LP). The Memnon Prelude is spectacular. There is a fine recording by Kanneus of the Five Orchestral Songs, and several ones of hís Chamber Symphony, which is a more discreet work. Schreker music can also be found on youtube, for instance the eerie chamber piece "The Wind", which is worth checking out.

In fact, where Richard Strauss is over-represented as regards the record catalogue, I think, Schreker, his contemporary, is sadly the opposite, in spite of his popularity in his own days. Anyone liking Mahler, Strauss, Zemlinsky, Reger-when-he-has-a-melody, or Respighi-off-the-beaten-track-like-in-the-piano-concerti will find him interesting, I think.

A biography written by Christopher Hailey is available as a Google book, I just saw.


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## shsherm

I will be attending a performance of the opera "The Stigmatized" by the Los Angeles Opera. This is part of the recovered voices series being championed by the conductor James Conlon. He is attempting to bring back to public attention the music that was supressed by the Nazis and was subsequently forgotten. I am looking forward to this opera as I have not heard any music by Schreker. I wonder if the Nazis allowed any music by Tchaikovsky to be performed if they knew his sexual preference. I know that many great composers were murdered by them.


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## Weston

I just listened to Prelude to Memnon at work this week. I was going to start my own thread about Schreker, but found this quite recent one. (Well, I've always felt I was on Aramis' wavelength somehow.)

The prelude to Memnon is indeed a thrill ride. The Allmusic guide claims his works have spectacular moments that lack cohesion. Well, maybe they are not through composed - I don't know. But I find nothing jarring or non-cohesive about this orchestral prelude, which is more like a tone poem really The brass is astounding in the version I have on Naxos with Uwe Mund / Lower Austrian Tonkünstler Orchestra. It also contains the Romantic Suite, also very listenable if not quite as spectacular.

Weirdly, he was said to have been a close friend of Schoenberg, but you would never know on first hearing. I will be searching for more from this great second tier composer.

For anyone interested, _Der Geburtstag der Infantin_: Dance-pantomime after Oscar Wilde's_ The Birthday of the Infanta_ for chamber orchestra. The Birthday of the Infanta is a short story from Wilde's book of fairy tales, _A House of Pomegranates_.


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## shsherm

I did go to the Los Angeles Opera and saw a performance of "The Stigmatized". I had previously attended a performance of "The Dwarf" by Zemlinski. I thought that "The Dwarf" was a better opera. I would give "The Stigmatized" a B- or C+ at best. The music was quite good and similar to Richard Strauss. It was a very Viennese sound that Korngold might have written as well. The libretto was just so-so. I know that the opera was very popular at the time it was written and performed many times in Europe but the Los Angeles performance was the first in western hemisphere.


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## joen_cph

Interesting. May I ask - did they "modernize" the scenography/setting
or was it a relatively "historically correct" staging ? Or perhaps the
story was rather neutral in itself ? Here in Denmark they tend to 
experiment a lot with stagings - Mozart and Wagner being "reorganized" 
into something quite different overall concepts ...


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## shsherm

The staging by the LA Opera was a classical one but they had to work around the stage which was set for the ring cycle of Achim Freyer and had to deal with a tilt table which was in place. I didn`t mention that the singers were excellent even if I didn`t think the story was that great.


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## ToneDeaf&Senile

I'll just point out that YouTube's Berlin Philharmonic channel contains a snippet from *Schreker's "Chamber Symphony",* and very nice it is.


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## Weston

ToneDeaf&Senile said:


> I'll just point out that YouTube's Berlin Philharmonic channel contains a snippet from *Schreker's "Chamber Symphony",* and very nice it is.


We need a Thanks button for these forums. That_ is _a nice clip.


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## Weston

Hey, folks! Dredging up Franz Schreker again with what I hope is an easy question. In the clip below of Prelude to Memnon that I mentioned above, most of the first four minutes are filled with pleasant susurrating percussion effects, almost like river water lapping at mossy banks. What instrument or combination of instruments makes the sounds? They are very soothing.


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## myaskovsky2002

*Lack of enthousiasm!*

We are speaking here about one of the greatest composers of the XXth century.

His "The Stigmatized" is absolutely A+++++






I was lucky to buy from him two unpublished operas:

- The blacksmith of Gent (Der schmid von Gent)
- The singing devil (Der singeng teufel)

Both are very good, but the first one is awesome.

This guy was a genious.

The opera about Christophorus...was dedicated to Schönberg and contains some dodecaphonic passages.






I would say that Schreker was more an opera guy than a symphonic guy.

Now I have all his operas and almost all his works.

If you are curious, take a look here...this is my list of music.

http://www3.bell.net/svp1/

Martin


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## starthrower

This poor guy was ruined by Hitler. I've been reading about him in Michael Haas's Forbidden Music: Jewish Composers Banned By The Nazi's. http://forbiddenmusic.org/


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## Medtnaculus

Huge fan of this arrangement of his Kammersymphonie. The way it constantly morphs into something new is impressive and absorbing.


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## Joachim Raff




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