AUDIO
Der ferne Klang
SCHREKER
OEHMS OC 980
OPER FRANKFURT IS ARGUABLY the “right” company to produce this Der ferne Klang recording, because Austrian composer Franz Schreker (1878-1934) had a special connection with this opera house. It was here that he scored his first big success with this opera, followed by the premiere of his complete version of Die Gezeichneten, two of his most definitive works. His musical idiom is decidedly Late/Post Romantic, yet uniquely his own, beguiling in its lush and translucent tone colours. His style can also extend into an intensely expressionistic and harmonically adventurous, if unsettling, musical soundscape. At the height of his fame during the early years of the Weimar Republic, Schreker was the most performed opera composer after Richard Strauss. He was also a noted pedagogue, as director of Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik, and counted Berthold Goldschmidt and Ernst Krenek as his students. But by the late 1920s, with the rise of National Socialism and its inherent antisemitism, Schreker, who was Jewish, lost his academic appointments and his compositions were banned. Sadly he descended into obscurity, suffered a stroke and died at the age of 56.
It was only in the 1980s, through Decca’s “Entartete Musik” series, that Schreker reemerged from a decades-long obscurity. His revival gathered momentum both in Germany and America. Salzburg Festival’s striking 2005 Die Gezeichneten garnered critical and audience accolades, reaffirmed by the more recent Warlikowski production in Munich, which made a powerful (if nightmarish) impression on me in 2017.
Given the opera’s unfamiliarity, here is a hugely abbreviated synopsis. Fritz, a young composer, and the beautiful Grete are in love. But before settling into marriage, Fritz wants to search for “the distant sound” which resonates in his head, a sound that he sees as the inspiration for composing a great work. After he leaves, circumstances force Grete to become a courtesan. Fifteen years pass, and when Fritz returns to Grete, he discovers she is now a common streetwalker. Nevertheless, they find happiness in each other’s arms. Suddenly, Fritz realizes that “the distant sound” was within him all the time. He joyfully writes a new ending to his work. But it is left unfinished when he dies in the arms of Grete.
Thankfully, Oper Frankfurt’s production of was revived before CO VID shut everything down, and it is now commercially available on CD. It features a strong ensemble cast led by tenor Ian Koziara and soprano Jennifer Holloway as the two lovers. Both sing beautifully, with Koziara taking top vocal honours for his free, beautiful, never stentorian, ringing tone. Holloway is equally
