Franz Schreker
Franz Schreker (originally Schrecker;[1][2] 23 March 1878 – 21 March 1934) was an Austrian composer, conductor, librettist, teacher and administrator.[3][4] Primarily a composer of operas, Schreker developed a style characterized by aesthetic plurality (a mixture of Romanticism, Naturalism, Symbolism, Impressionism, Expressionism and Neue Sachlichkeit), timbral experimentation, strategies of extended tonality and conception of total music theatre into the narrative of 20th-century music.
Formative years
He was born as Franz Schrecker in
Career launch
Schreker had begun conducting in 1895, when he had founded the Verein der Musikfreunde Döbling. In 1907 he formed the Vienna Philharmonic Chorus, which he conducted until 1920: among its many premières were
His "pantomime", Der Geburtstag der Infantin, commissioned by the dancer Grete Wiesenthal and her sister Elsa for the opening of the 1908 Kunstschau, first called attention to his development as a composer. Such was the success of the venture that Schreker composed several more dance-related works for the two sisters including Der Wind, Valse lente and Ein Tanzspiel (Rokoko).
Success in opera
November 1909 saw the stormy premiere of the complex orchestral interlude (entitled Nachtstück) from
This breakthrough heralds a decade of great success for the composer. His next opera, Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin, which was given simultaneous premières in Frankfurt and Vienna on 15 March 1913 was less well received (the work was subsequently revised as a one-act 'Mysterium' entitled simply Das Spielwerk in 1915), but the scandal caused by this opera in Vienna only served to make Schreker's name more widely known.
The outbreak of World War I interrupted the composer's success but with the première of his opera Die Gezeichneten, in Frankfurt on 25 April 1918, Schreker moved to the front ranks of contemporary opera composers.[8] The first performance of Der Schatzgräber in Frankfurt on 21 January 1920 was the high point of his career. The Chamber Symphony, composed between the two operas for the faculty of the Vienna Academy in 1916, quickly entered the repertoire and remains Schreker's most frequently performed work today.
In March 1920 he was appointed director of the
End of career
Schreker's fame and influence were at their peak during the early years of the Weimar Republic when he was the most performed living opera composer after Richard Strauss. The decline of his artistic fortunes began with the mixed reception given to Irrelohe in Cologne in 1924 under Otto Klemperer and the failure of Der singende Teufel, given in Berlin in 1928 under Erich Kleiber.
Political developments and the spread of
In his lifetime he went from being hailed as the future of German opera to being considered irrelevant as a composer and marginalized as an educator.[3] After suffering from a stroke in December 1933, he died in Berlin on 21 March 1934, two days before his 56th birthday.
Although Schreker was influenced by composers such as Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, his mature style shows a highly individual harmonic language, which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages. Schreker also took musical inspiration from his close friend Arnold Schoenberg with the use of expressionist style.[4]
The Third Reich banned Schreker's music along with that of many other composers of Jewish origin. His early death in 1934 at the age of 55, together with the Nazi ban, prevented Schreker’s music from expanding outside of German-speaking Europe.[4]
Reputation today
After decades in obscurity, Schreker has begun to enjoy a considerable revival in reputation in the German-speaking world and in the United States. In 2005 the
Selected works
Operas
- Flammen, Op. 10 (1901/02)
- Der ferne Klang (1903–1910)
- Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin (1908; 1909–1912); revised as Das Spielwerk (1915)
- Die Gezeichneten (1911; 1913–1915)
- Der Schatzgräber (1915–1918)
- Irrelohe (1919–1922)
- Der singende Teufel (1924; 1927–1928)
- Christophorus (oder Die Vision einer Oper)(1925–1929)
- Der Schmied von Gent (1929–1932)[9]
Orchestral works
- 1896: Love Song for string orchestra and harp (lost)
- 1899: Scherzo (unpublished)
- 1899: Symphony in A minor, Op. 1 (unpublished, final movement lost)
- 1900: Intermezzo for string orchestra, Op. 8 (later incorporated into the Romantische Suite)
- 1900: Scherzo for string orchestra
- 1902–1903: Ekkehard: Symphonic Overture, Op. 12
- 1903: Romantische Suite, Op. 14
- 1904: Phantastische Ouvertüre, Op. 15
- 1906–1907: Nachtstück (from the opera Der ferne Klang)
- 1908–1910: Der Geburtstag der Infantin: Dance-pantomime for chamber orchestra after Oscar Wilde's The Birthday of the Infanta
- 1908: Festwalzer und Walzerintermezzo
- 1908: Valse lente
- 1908–1909: Ein Tanzspiel (Rokoko)
- 1913: Vorspiel zu einem Drama
- 1916: Chamber Symphony
- 1909/1922: Fünf Gesänge for low voice and orchestra (T: Arabian Nights, Edith Ronsperger)
- 1922: Symphonic Interlude (from the opera Der Schatzgräber)
- 1923: Der Geburtstag der Infantin: Suite for large orchestra
- 1923/1927: Vom ewigen Leben for soprano and orchestra (T: Walt Whitman)
- 1928: Kleine Suite for small orchestra
- 1929–1930: Vier kleine Stücke for large orchestra
- 1932–1933: Das Weib des Intaphernes: Melodrama for speaker and orchestra (T: Eduard Stucken)
- 1933: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (Liszt) – transcribed for orchestra
- 1933: Vorspiel zu einer großen Oper "Memnon"
Choral music
- 1900: Psalm 116 for 3-part women's chorus, orchestra and organ, Op. 6
- 1902: Schwanensang for mixed choir and orchestra, Op. 11 (T: Dora Leen)
Chamber music
- 1898: Sonata for violin and piano
- 1909: Der Wind for clarinet, horn, violin, 'cello and piano
Principal publisher: Universal Edition
References
Notes
- ^ a b c "Schreker, Franz" (in German). Deutsche Biographie. 21 March 1934. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- ^ "Schreker (Schrecker), Ehepaar". musiklexikon.ac.at (in German). Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- ^ a b Johnson, Aaron J. (2008). "Franz Schreker". OREL Foundation.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-300-15430-6.
- ^ "Programme notes for a concert of Schreker". Archived from the original on 20 December 2007.
- ^ Roberge, Marc-André (January 1983). "Franz Schreker (1878–1934): de la gloire à la renaissance en passant par l'oubli" (PDF). Sonances.
- ^ Hailey, pp. 55 -- 57
- ^ Celestini, pp. 214 - 222
- ^ "Müde fährt der Schmied gen Himmel" on Kultiversum.de. Retrieved on 5 April 2013
Sources
- ISBN 978-3-7024-6967-2. (In German)
- Hailey, Christopher (1993). Franz Schreker, 1878–1934: a cultural biography. CUP Archive. ISBN 978-0-521-39255-6.
External links
- Free scores by Franz Schreker at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Franz Schreker – Life, Work, and Quotations
- Secrets of the grotto "Die Gezeichneten" (The Marked Ones) by Franz Schreker, played at the 2005 Salzburg festival, got critic Peter Hagmann hot under the collar
- List of Works (German)
- Deutsche Musik der Gegenwart (German) — 1922 essay by critic Paul Bekker about Franz Schreker's place in contemporary German music (Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine)
- Franz Schreker Foundation official website