Schreker: Umsonst Op. 3, No. 5

Franz Schreker was founder and director of Vienna’s Philharmonic Chorus and most of his choral compositions featured here, have been recorded for the first time. The recording is rounded off with choral works by Schreker’s teacher, Robert Fuchs, his contemporary Walter Braufels and choral arrangements of three Schreker songs by Clytus.

Franz Schreker is best known as an opera composer but his songs offer significant insights into the particular nature of his dramatic gift. The heart of Schreker's vocal expressiveness is in the elasticity of his phrasing, a quality that encourages interpretive flexibility on the part of the singers. The superb Austrian artists, baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck, bring that and more to this outstanding recital of rarely heard songs