Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria

Austrian composer Franz Schreker (1878-1934) and his music were consigned to oblivion by the Nazis. The teacher of musicians of the stature of Ernst Krenek and Alois Haba, Schreker also conducted the premieres of works by Zemlinsky and Schoenberg, and his operatic masterpiece Der ferne Klang (“The Distant Sound”) was a key influence on the music of Alban Berg. In his day he was the most renowned composer of German opera, more successful even than Richard Strauss, and yet his fall from grace was as rapid as was the Nazis’ rise to power. He was removed from his post because of his Jewish origins, and his works were later included in the catalogue that accompanied the infamous “Entartete Musik” (“Degenerate Music”) exhibition. Under severe strain, Schreker suffered a stroke and died shortly after. His rich legacy is finally enjoying its due revival.

Schoenberg’s arrangements of other composers’ music are often neglected, overshadowed by the many masterpieces of musicological significance his catalogue boasts, yet they were an area to which he devoted a considerable amount of time, transcribing all kinds of music, from popular Viennese songs to operetta excerpts and Strauss waltzes, as well as scores (re)composed by Zemlinsky and works by Bach and Brahms.