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Songs of Franz Schreker and Alexander Zemlinsky Now Available on Bridge Records

Apr. 29, 2008

On May 1 Bridge Records releases Songs of Franz Schreker, a collection of the Austrian composer's song cycles that offers significant insight into the particular nature of his dramatic gift. The new recording features mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck, baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, and pianist Russell Ryan. Known primarily as an opera composer, Schreker's songs were his first works to develop the unique relationship between vocal expressivity and interpretive sonority that evoked rather than explained emotional states; a style that established his place in Viennese musical modernism.

Earlier this year Bridge Records released a collection of song cycles by Alexander Zemlinsky. Songs by Zemlinsky features mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck and pianist Florian Henschel. For Schreker and Zemlinsky, the art song provided a laboratory for experimentation with the accepted musical grammar. The intimate and easily organized performances made it easier to experiment; and while the poetic texts offered the opportunity to take formal harmonic risks, the verses provided comprehensibility where it otherwise would have been confusing for the listeners.

Because of its experimental and offensive nature to some, the music of Schreker and Zemlinsky was thus labeled ‘Entartete Musik' (degenerate music) by the Nazi regime and forced into near oblivion as a result. These composers play an integral part in James Conlon's Recovered Voices initiative, an ongoing concert and opera series dedicated to the resurrection of the music of composers suppressed by the Nazis.

For more information on the life and works of Franz Schreker and Alexander Zemlinsky, please visit www.universaledition.com.

To purchase Songs of Franz Schreker and Songs by Zemlinsky, go to www.bridgerecords.com.

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