Franz Schreker (originally ''Schrecker''; 23 March 1878 – 21 March 1934) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, conductor, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

s, Schreker developed a style characterized by aesthetic plurality (a mixture of

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

, Naturalism,

Symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sy ...

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

and

Neue Sachlichkeit The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the '' Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, w ...

timbral In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musical ...

experimentation, strategies of extended

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is call ...

and conception of total music theatre into the narrative of 20th-century music.

Formative years

He was born as Franz Schrecker in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

, the eldest son of the

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

court photographer Ignaz Schrecker, and his wife, Eleonore von Clossmann, who was a member of the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

aristocracy Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At t ...

Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...

. He grew up during travels across half of Europe and, after the early death of his father, the family moved from

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

(1888) where in 1892, with the help of a scholarship, Schreker entered the Vienna Conservatory. Starting with

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

studies, with

Sigismund Bachrich Sigismund Bachrich (23 January 1841 – 16 July 1913), aka Sigmund Bachrich or Siegmund Bachrich, was a Hungarian composer, violinist, and violist of Jewish origin. He was born in Žabokreky in 1841. He studied violin at the Vienna Conservat ...

and

Arnold Rosé Arnold Josef Rosé (born ''Rosenblum''; 24 October 1863 – 25 August 1946) was a Romanian-born Austrian Jewish violinist. He was leader of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for over half a century. He worked closely with Brahms. Gustav Mahler was ...

, he moved into the composition class of

Robert Fuchs Robert Fuchs (15 February 1847 – 19 February 1927) was an Austrian composer and music teacher. As Professor of music theory at the Vienna Conservatory, Fuchs taught many notable composers, while he was himself a highly regarded composer in hi ...

, graduating as a composer in 1900. His first success was with the ''Intermezzo for strings'', Op. 8, which won an important prize sponsored by the ''Neue musikalische Presse'' in 1901. His first opera, '' Flammen'', was completed in 1902 but failed to receive a staged production.

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 Zemlinsky's ''

Psalm XXIII Psalm 23 is the 23rd psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "The Lord is my shepherd". In Latin, it is known by the incipit, "". The Book of Psalms is part of the third section of the Hebrew Bible, and a boo ...

'' and Schoenberg's ''Friede auf Erden'' and ''

Gurre-Lieder ' is a large cantata for five vocal soloists, narrator, chorus and large orchestra, composed by Arnold Schoenberg, on poems by the Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen (translated from Danish to German by ). The title means "songs of Gurre", ref ...

''. His "

pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...

", '' Der Geburtstag der Infantin'', commissioned by the dancer

Grete Wiesenthal Grete Wiesenthal (9 December 1885 – 22 June 1970) was an Austrian dancer, actor, choreographer, and dance teacher. She transformed the Viennese Waltz from a staple of the ballroom into a wildly ecstatic dance. She was trained at the Vienna Co ...

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 ''

Der ferne Klang ''Der ferne Klang'' (''The Distant Sound'') is an opera by Franz Schreker, set to his own libretto. Begun in 1903, it was first performed by the Oper Frankfurt on 18 August 1912. It was the composer's breakthrough to fame, and was frequently pe ...

'', the opera he had been working on since 1903. In 1912, the first performance of the complete opera in Frankfurt consolidated his fame. In the same year, director Wihelm Bopp offered Schreker a provisional teaching appointment at the Conservatory where Schreker had studied, now the

Vienna Music Academy The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, abbreviated MDW) is an Austrian university located in Vienna, established in 1817. With a student body of over three thousa ...

. In early 1913 he was appointed full

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

. This breakthrough heralds a decade of great success for the composer. His next opera, ''

Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin ''Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin'' is an opera in two acts by Austrian composer Franz Schreker with a libretto by the composer. Composition history The work was composed from 1909 to 1912. Schreker revised it into a one-act version entitled ''D ...

'', 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. Schreker 1922 (Heinrich Gottselig)

The outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

interrupted the composer's success but with the première of his opera ''

Die Gezeichneten ' (''The Branded'' or ''The Stigmatized'') is an opera in three acts by Franz Schreker with a German-language libretto by the composer. Composition history Schreker wrote the libretto in 1911 at the request of composer Alexander Zemlinsky based ...

'', in Frankfurt on 25 April 1918, Schreker moved to the front ranks of contemporary opera composers. The first performance of ''

Der Schatzgräber ''Der Schatzgräber'' (''The Treasure Hunter'') is an opera in 5 parts: Prologue, Act I, Act II, Act III and Epilogue by Franz Schreker with a libretto by the composer. Composition history Schreker wrote the libretto for the opera in the summer ...

'' 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 Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and between 1920 and 1932 he gave extensive musical tuition in a variety of subjects with

Berthold Goldschmidt Berthold Goldschmidt (18 January 190317 October 1996) was a German Jewish composer who spent most of his life in England. The suppression of his work by Nazi Germany, as well as the disdain with which many Modernist critics elsewhere dismissed hi ...

Alois Hába Alois Hába (21 June 1893 – 18 November 1973) was a Czech composer, music theorist and teacher. He belongs to the important discoverers in modern classical music, and major composers of microtonal music, especially using the quarter-tone scal ...

Jascha Horenstein Jascha Horenstein (russian: Яша Горенштейн; – 2 April 1973) was an American conductor. Biography Horenstein was born in Kiev, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), into a well-to-do Jewish family; his mother (Marie Ettinger) came fr ...

, Julius Bürger,

Ernst Krenek Ernst Heinrich Krenek (, 23 August 1900 – 22 December 1991) was an Austrian, later American, composer of Czech origin. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including ''Music Here and Now'' (1939), a study ...

Artur Rodziński Artur Rodziński (2 January 1892 – 27 November 1958) was a Polish-American conductor of orchestral music and opera. He began his career after World War I in Poland, where he was discovered by Leopold Stokowski, who invited him to be his ass ...

, Stefan Wolpe,

Zdenka Ticharich Zdenka Ticharich (Zdenka von Ticharich) (26 September 1900 – 15 February 1979) was a Hungarian pianist, music educator and composer. Life Zdenka Ticharich was born in Budapest. She studied with István Tomka at the National School of Music, ...

and

Grete von Zieritz Grete von Zieritz (10 March 1899 – 26 November 2001) was an Austrian-German composer and pianist. Life Grete von Zieritz was born in Vienna, Austria into a noble family, and grew up in Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz. She received her first piano le ...

numbering among his students.

End of career

Schreker's fame and influence were at their peak during the early years of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...

when he was the most performed living opera composer after

Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...

. The decline of his artistic fortunes began with the mixed reception given to ''

Irrelohe ''Irrelohe'' is an opera in three acts by the Austrian composer Franz Schreker, libretto by the composer. Composition history Schreker wrote the libretto in a very short time (just a few days) in 1919.Christopher Hailey: ''Franz Schreker, 1878–1 ...

'' in Cologne in 1924 under

Otto Klemperer Otto Nossan Klemperer (14 May 18856 July 1973) was a 20th-century conductor and composer, originally based in Germany, and then the US, Hungary and finally Britain. His early career was in opera houses, but he was later better known as a concer ...

and the failure of ''

Der singende Teufel ''Der singende Teufel'' is an opera in four acts by Franz Schreker with a German-language libretto by the composer. Composition history The work was composed during 1927-28 to a libretto written in 1924. Originally entitled ''Die Orgel'', accord ...

'', given in Berlin in 1928 under

Erich Kleiber Erich Kleiber (5 August 1890 – 27 January 1956) was an Austrian, later Argentine, conductor, known for his interpretations of the classics and as an advocate of new music. Kleiber was born in Vienna, and after studying at the Prague Conservato ...

. Political developments and the spread of

anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

were also contributory factors, both of which heralded the end of Schreker's career. Right-wing demonstrations marred the première of ''

Der Schmied von Gent ''Der Schmied von Gent'' is a "Grand magical opera" in three acts by Franz Schreker with a German-language libretto by the composer after the story ''Smetse Smee'' by the Flemish author Charles de Coster. Composition history The work was composed ...

'' in Berlin in 1932 and

National Socialist Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

pressure forced the cancellation of the scheduled

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

première of '' Christophorus'' in 1933 (the work was finally performed there in 1978). Finally, in June 1932, Schreker lost his position as Director of the Musikhochschule in Berlin and, the following year, also his post as professor of composition at the Akademie der Künste. 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. After suffering from a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

in December 1933, he died in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

on 21 March 1934, two days before his 56th birthday. Although Schreker was influenced by composers such as

and

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

, his mature style shows a highly individual

harmonic A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', the ...

language, which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...

and polytonal passages.

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

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amad ...

mounted an incomplete production of ''

'', conducted by

Kent Nagano Kent George Nagano GOQ, MSM (born November 22, 1951) is an American conductor and opera administrator. Since 2015, he has been Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and was Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 20 ...

(and filmed), and the Jewish Museum in Vienna presented an exhibition devoted to his life and work. New productions of ''

'' were staged at the

Staatsoper Unter den Linden The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from ...

in Berlin and the Zurich Opera in 2010, as well as in smaller opera houses in Germany. ''

'' was performed at the

Volksoper The Vienna Volksoper (''Volksoper'' or ''Vienna People's Opera'') is an opera house in Vienna, Austria. It produces three hundred performances of twenty-five German language productions of opera, operetta, musicals, and ballet, during an annual s ...

in Vienna in 2004, at the

Bonn Opera Theater Bonn (also known as the Stadttheater Bonn) is the municipal theatre company of Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is an organization that produces operas, musicals, ballets, plays, and concerts. It operates several performance venu ...

in November 2010 then staged for the first time in France at the

Opéra National de Lyon The Opéra National de Lyon, marketed as Opéra de Lyon during the last decade, is an opera company in Lyon, based and performing mostly at the Opéra Nouvel, an 1831 theater that was modernized and architecturally transformed in 1993. The inaugu ...

in March 2022. Earlier that year a Schreker opera was staged in the USA for the first time: ''

'' at

Los Angeles Opera The Los Angeles Opera is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center. Leadersh ...

; and months after that came a second: ''

'' during the

Bard In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise t ...

Summerscape Festival.

Selected works

Operas

* '' Flammen'', Op. 10 (1901/02) * ''

'' (1903–1910) * ''

'' (1908; 1909–1912); revised as ''Das Spielwerk'' (1915) * ''

'' (1911; 1913–1915) * ''

'' (1915–1918) * ''

'' (1919–1922) * ''

'' (1924; 1927–1928) * '' Christophorus (oder Die Vision einer Oper)'' (1925–1929) * ''

'' (1929–1932) "Müde fährt der Schmied gen Himmel"
on Kultiversum.de. Retrieved on 5 April 2013

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 ''

'') * 1908–1910: Der Geburtstag der Infantin: Dance-pantomime for chamber orchestra after

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

's ''

The Birthday of the Infanta ''A House of Pomegranates'' is a collection of fairy tales, written by Oscar Wilde, that was published in 1891 as a second collection for '' The Happy Prince and Other Tales'' (1888). Wilde once said that this collection was "intended nei ...

'' * 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 ''

'') * 1923: Der Geburtstag der Infantin: Suite for large orchestra * 1923/1927: ''Vom ewigen Leben'' for soprano and orchestra (T:

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among t ...

) * 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 Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

) – 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 Sources * (In German) *

External links

*
Franz Schreker – Life, Work, and Quotations

"Die Gezeichneten" (The Marked Ones) by Franz Schreker, played at the 2005 Salzburg festival, got critic Peter Hagmann hot under the collar

— 1922 essay by critic

Paul Bekker Max Paul Eugen Bekker (11 September 1882 – 7 March 1937) was a German music critic and author. Described as having "brilliant style and ..extensive theoretical and practical knowledge," Bekker was chief music critic for both the '' Frankfu ...

about Franz Schreker's place in contemporary German music ()
Franz Schreker Foundation
official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Schreker, Franz 1878 births 1934 deaths 19th-century Austrian people 19th-century classical composers 19th-century male musicians 20th-century Austrian composers 20th-century Austrian male musicians 20th-century Austrian people 20th-century classical composers Austrian expatriates in Monaco Austrian male classical composers Austrian opera composers Austrian people of Czech-Jewish descent Austrian people of Jewish descent Austrian Romantic composers Male opera composers Composers from Linz Pupils of Robert Fuchs