Schubert: Lieder (Orch. by Max Reger & Anton Webern)

Featuring

Marek Janowski
Christian Elsner
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin
Franz Schubert

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Performer Biography

Marek Janowski, the conductor of this album, has focused exclusively on the concert circuit since the late 1990s, after a long career in opera.

Historical Context

The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin), featured on this recording, dates back to the first days of music broadcasting on German radio in October 1923.

Compositional Technique

The orchestrations on this album transform Schubert's original Lieder (art songs with piano) into an entirely new genre: the orchestral lied.

Performer Biography

Christian Elsner, the tenor on this recording, is also an enthusiastic writer of children's books, including 'Lennie und der Ring des Nibelungen'.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Max Reger, a composer and orchestrator featured on this album, believed it was an "insult" to hear lieder with sparse piano accompaniment in a large concert hall after an orchestral piece.

Composition History

Anton Webern, another orchestrator on this album, created his orchestrations of Schubert lieder in 1903 as exercises while studying musicology at the University of Vienna.

Composer Biography

Max Reger, one of the orchestrators on this album, suffered a nervous breakdown in 1914, which would likely be diagnosed as burnout today, due to his brutal workload.