Orchestral Works Vol 2

(Dec 2001)
"This excellently played and conducted disc is a very welcome follow-up to Sinaisky's first volume…Katarina Karneus brings a sultry tone and ideally ardent delivery to these wonderfully decadent songs."

'As I have said the playing of the BBC Philharmonic under Sinaisky is superb and the recording is in the demonstration class'.
- International Record Review

Much admired by Schoenberg and Berg, Schreker's works are notable for their rich chromaticism and lush orchestration.

The first volume of Schreker's works (CHAN 9797), performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Vassily Sinaisky, has proved extremely popular and critical endorsement for the release was unanimous.

Vassily Sinaisky's previous recordings for Chandos include music by Glinka, Lyadov, Balakirev and Szymanowski, all of which have been well received.

The Austrian composer Franz Schreker achieved one of his earliest successes when his Intermezzo for String Orchestra, Op. 8, composed in 1901, won a competition. It was later incorporated into the Romantic Suite, Op. 14 (1903) where it forms the third of four movements.

Schreker had written a large number of songs with piano in the 1890s and early 1900s. The Fünf Gesänge (Five Songs) of 1909 stand apart from these: together with his opera Der ferne Klang (The Distant Sound) they form the first flowering of his fully mature style. Schreker's piano accompaniments already imply orchestral sonorities, and the orchestration of 1922 is so right and inevitable that, in retrospect, the piano version seems like a mere sketch for it. In the first song the singer seeks her beloved; in the second she laments his absence. The third song marks the spiritual low point of the song cycle, and in the fourth the singer evokes the beauty of autumn days and the fond memories they bring. In the final song she looks forward to her ultimate fulfilment in death.

Schreker's opera Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin (The Carillon and the Princess) was completed in 1911. The premiere took place on 15 March 1913 simultaneously in Frankfurt, where it was accorded a succès d'estime, and at the Court Opera in Vienna.

After completing the score of his most successful opera, Der Schatzgräber, in 1918, Schreker wrote a new libretto, Memnon, based on an Egyptian theme. Between writing the libretto in 1919 and his death in 1934, Schreker returned from time to time to the Memnon project but never managed to complete the opera. In the summer of 1933 he used the sketches as a basis for his Vorspiel zu einer großen Oper (Prelude to a Grand Opera).

'The BBC Philharmonic's playing is warmly expansive, and the recording captures every nuance of the ever changing textures.'
The Guardian on Volume One (CHAN 9797)

'Sumptuous late-Romantic music performed with tremendous passion and intensity by Sinaisky and the BBC Philharmonic in resplendent Chandos sound. More than any previous interpreters, Sinaisky succeeds in harnessing the ebb and flow of Schreker's musical invention with greater conviction, finally persuading the sceptics that this composer deserves serious consideration alongside his Viennese contemporaries Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Berg.'
BBC Music Magazine Critic's Choice (CHAN 9797)