Wolf, H: Verschwiegene Liebe (No. 3 from Eichendorff-Lieder)

The larger-than-life Régine Crespin, made only one song recital record for Decca, of music by Schumann, Wolf, Debussy and Poulenc. This is the first time the entire recital has been made available on CD.

As her career progressed, Crespin became associated with certain roles – Kundry, Sieglinde, Brünnhilde, Tosca, the Marschallin – but she was prodigiously versatile, thanks to her years in the French provinces. An intelligent singer who understood how to make the texts count, Crespin also had tremendous success in non-operatic repertory. Her 1963 Decca recording, with conductor Ernest Ansermet, of Berlioz’s Les Nuits d'été and Ravel’s Shéhérazade, is regarded as among the best available. In its original French, her candid and entertaining autobiography is called La vie et l'amour d'une femme, which is also the French translation of Schumann's song cycle Frauenliebe und -leben. Indeed, Lieder by Schumann and Wolf were important parts of her recital repertory, and she brought the same depth of meaning to their German texts as she did to her Wagnerian roles. Of course French, being her native language, evoked a most immediate and intimate response from this singer.

This release marks the launch of an Eloquence series of notable recitals of songs and opera arias by some of the great voices of Decca and Deutsche Grammophon.

The music of late-romantic Viennese composer Franz Schreker was largely forgotten by the end of World War Two, but there has recently been a revival in interest in his work. Fundamentally a theatre composer, he is most famous for his operas, but he composed in other genres and this 2-CD set shows his fine capabilities in orchestral and vocal music.

His only symphony (Symphony in A minor) was written when he was a student at the Vienna Conservatory, and hints at the talent that would emerge in later years. The symphony was not performed until 1999, a hundred years after it was written, because the manuscript had long been lost. When it was rediscovered the last movement had disappeared and that is how it is now performed. The richly-textured choral/orchestral setting of Psalm 116 was Schreker’s graduation piece and shows the influence of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem. Another early work is the romantic Schwanengesang Op.111 for mixed chorus and orchestra, to a text by his friend and regular librettist Dora Leen. The exotic monodrama Das Weib des Intasphernes, his last dramatic work, uses a text by Eduard Stucken based on a horrifying Persian fable. It demonstrates his ability to embody words with maximum harmonic and textural intensity, similar in many ways to the gifts of Hugo Wolf, and in fact Schreker orchestrated two of Wolf’s Eichendorff Leider. His ability with orchestral colour can be seen in the sensuous Funf Gesänge, set to five poems based on the Arabian Nights, with its imaginative use of harps, celesta and muted brass. The last two pieces are dances. Festwalzer und Walzerintermezzo is very reminiscent of Johann Strauss and is based on the Austrian National Hymn. Tanzspiel links his 20thcentury style with the graceful design of Baroque and Neoclassical forms.

Das Weib des Intaphernes was Franz Schreker’s last completed dramatic composition and is based on a ballad by Eduard Stucken. This 3CD set illustrates the “Unknown Schreker” and is available at a special price.