Peter Schreier

Peter Schreier (29 July 1935 – 25 December 2019)[1] was a German tenor in opera, concert and lied, and a conductor. He was regarded as one of the leading lyric tenors of the 20th century.[2]

Peter Schreier
Peter Schreier at the opening of the Palast der Republik in Berlin in 1976
Born(1935-07-29)29 July 1935
Meissen, Germany
Died25 December 2019(2019-12-25) (aged 84)
Dresden, Germany
Education
Occupation
Organization
TitleKammersänger
Awards

Schreier was a member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor conducted by Rudolf Mauersberger, performing as an alto soloist. He became a tenor, focused on concert and lieder singing, well known internationally for the Evangelist parts in Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Passion. A member of the Berlin State Opera from 1963, he appeared in Mozart roles such as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, and in the title role of Pfitzner's Palestrina, among others. He appeared at the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, among others, as one of few singers from the German Democratic Republic to perform internationally.

Schreier made many recordings, especially of Bach's works as both a singer and a conductor, even simultaneously. He recorded many lieder including the song cycles by Schubert and Schumann. He was known for intelligent understanding of texts and their musical expression with intensity. Schreier received awards including the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, Léonie Sonning Music Prize.

Early life

Schreier was born in Meissen, Saxony, and grew up in the village of Gauernitz, near Meissen, where his father was a teacher, cantor and organist.[3] In June 1945, when Schreier was almost ten years old, and just a few months after the destruction of Dresden, he entered the boarding school of the Dresdner Kreuzchor boys' choir.[3][4] Its conductor Rudolf Mauersberger recognized his talent. He let him sing many solo alto parts and created compositions with his voice in mind.[3] Solo recordings from the time (1948–1951) were reissued on compact disc.[1]

Schreier was 16 years old when his voice broke, and he became a tenor, as he had passionately wished, because of the several Evangelists – all tenors – in J.S. Bach's Passions and in his Christmas Oratorio. After he had decided to become a professional singer he took voice lessons, privately from 1954 to 1956,[4] then at the Musikhochschule Dresden, where he also studied conducting.[1]

Career

Peter Schreier made his professional debut at the Dresdner Staatsoper in 1957, as the First Prisoner in Beethoven's Fidelio.[2] His breakthrough came in 1962 as Belmonte in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail,[1][5] and he also appeared as Tamino in The Magic Flute. In 1963, he became a member of the Berlin State Opera.[4] Starting in 1966, he was for many years an annual guest of the Vienna State Opera. That same year he made his debut in Bayreuth Festival as the young seaman in Tristan und Isolde with Karl Böhm as conductor. For 25 years, beginning in 1967, he took part in the program of the annual Salzburg Festival. In 1969, he starred as The Witch in Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, in a CD recording that featured the Staatskapelle Dresden. He performed more than 60 operatic roles.[6][7] It was important to him to sing the title role of Palestrina, the opera by Hans Pfitzner, not only in Munich but also in East Berlin — a controversial issue at the time in East Germany.

Schreier was one of few singers from the German Democratic Republic to perform internationally, including at the Metropolitan Opera.[2] He appeared regularly at the Vienna State Opera, where he sang 200 performances, beginning as Tamino in 1967, also as Belmonte, Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni, the title role of Idomeneo, Flamand in Capriccio by Richard Strauss, Lenski in Tchaikovsky's Eugen Onegin, Count Almaviva in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and Loge in Wagner's Das Rheingold.[8] His Wagner roles also included Mime in Siegfried.

He recorded Bach cantatas regularly with the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Erhard Mauersberger, with soloists including Adele Stolte, Annelies Burmeister and Theo Adam, such as the cantata for Pentecost Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172, in 1970.[9] He was the Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion in recordings conducted by both Rudolf and Erhard Mauersberger,[9] Karl Richter, Claudio Abbado and Herbert von Karajan. He recorded Bach's St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio with Helmuth Rilling.[10]

In June 2000, Schreier left the opera stage.[4] His last role at the Berlin State Opera was Tamino; he argued that he could no longer pretend to be a young prince. He ended his singing career on 22 December 2005, combining the functions of Evangelist and conductor in a performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio in Prague. He kept singing lieder, a genre he had pursued throughout his career, including the song cycles by Schubert and Schumann.[2]

From the early 1970s, Schreier was also a conductor with a special interest in the works of Mozart, Bach, and Haydn.[11] He conducted orchestra such as the Vienna Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic.[2]

Personal life

Schreier was married and lived in Dresden from 1945, in the district of Loschwitz.[2] He died in Dresden on Christmas Day, 25 December 2019, after a long illness.[6] He was survived by his wife, Renate, and two sons, Torsten and Ralf.[12]

Evaluation

Schreier was an extremely intelligent singer, with sympathetic feeling for the text.[13] Monika Grütters, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, summarised after his death that he was one of the most impressive voices from Germany ("eine der eindrucksvollsten Stimmen unseres Landes", who represented Germany in the opera houses of the world as a nation of culture ("für die Kulturnation Deutschland gestanden"), remembered as Evangelist in Bach's Passions, and having written music history in a career of four decades.[1]

Honours and awards

Discography

The German National Library holds recordings by Schreier, including:[25]

As singer

As conductor

Documentary films
  • Peter Schreier – Alles hat seine Zeit. 83 Min., directed and produced by Heide Blum. D 2006. OCLC 315720106

Literature
  • Gottfried Schmiedel: Peter Schreier für Sie porträtiert. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik Leipzig, Leipzig 1976 DNB-IDN 770150675
  • Peter Schreier: Aus meiner Sicht. Gedanken und Erinnerungen, Ostberlin 1983, 207 pages. ISBN 978-3552035355
  • Lewinski, Wolf-Eberhard von (1992). Peter Schreier: Interviews, Tatsachen, Meinungen. Munich, Mainz: Piper, Schott. ISBN 9783492182805.
  • Jürgen Helfricht: Peter Schreier – Melodien eines Lebens. Verlag der Kunst Dresden, Husum 2008, ISBN 978-3-86530-109-3
  • Renate Rätz: Schreier, Peter. In: Wer war wer in der DDR? 5. Ausgabe. Vol. 2, Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4.
  • Manfred Meier, Peter Schreier: Im Rückspiegel : Erinnerungen und Ansichten, recorded by Manfred Meier, Wien: Steinbauer 2005, ISBN 978-3902494047.

References
  1. "Tenor Peter Schreier ist tot". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg. 27 December 2019. Archived from the original on 26 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  2. "Leading German tenor Peter Schreier dies at 84". bbc.com. BBC News. 26 December 2019. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  3. Tewinkel, Christiane (29 July 2015). "Der Neonhelle". Der Tagesspiegel (in German). Berlin. Archived from the original on 26 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  4. Boisits, Barbara (2019). "Peter Schreier". Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon online (in German). Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  5. Mauró, Helmut (26 December 2015). "Einfach einer der Größten". Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). Munich. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  6. "Dresdner Tenor-Legende Peter Schreier im Alter von 84 Jahren gestorben". mdr.de (in German). Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. 26 December 2019. Archived from the original on 26 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  7. "Opera tenor and conductor Peter Schreier dies at 84". dw.com. Bonn. dpa, AFP, AP. 26 December 2019. Archived from the original on 26 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  8. "Tenor Peter Schreier ist tot". Vienna State Opera (in German). 26 December 2019. Archived from the original on 28 December 2019. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
  9. "Erhard Mauersberger & Thomanerchor Leipzig & Gewandhausorchester Leipzig / Rudolf Mauersberger & Dresdner Kreuzchor / Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works". Bach Cantatas Website. Archived from the original on 14 April 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  10. "Helmuth Rilling / Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works / Recordings – Part 7". Bach Cantatas Website. Archived from the original on 24 August 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  11. "Darstellende Kunst – Mitglieder: Peter Schreier". Akademie der Künste. Berlin. 2019. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  12. Tommasini, Anthony (31 December 2019). "Peter Schreier, 84, Elegant German Tenor Who Also Conducted, Dies". The New York Times.
  13. Warrack, John; West, Ewan (1996). "Peter Schreier". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Oxford University Press. p. 464. ISBN 9780192800282. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  14. "Biographische Datenbanken: Schreier, Peter". bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de. Berlin: Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung. 2019. Archived from the original on 28 December 2019. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  15. "Robert-Schumann-Preis Preisträger". schumann-zwickau.de. Stadtverwaltung Zwickau. 2019. Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  16. Baumgartner, Gabriele; Hebig, Dieter, eds. (2012). "Peter Schreier". Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR. Band 1+2. Walter de Gruyter. p. 813. ISBN 9783111699134.
  17. "Solisten-Archiv: Peter Schreier". Dresdner Philharmonie. Archived from the original on 23 May 2019. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
  18. "Preis der Europäischen Kirchenmusik". kulturpreise.de. Cologne. 2013. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
  19. "The Bach Prize". ram.ac.uk. Royal Academy of Music. 2019. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  20. "Hugo-Wolf-Medaille für Tenor Peter Schreier". stimme.de. Heilbronner Stimme. 17 August 2011. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  21. "Mendelssohn-Preis geht an Reich-Ranicki und Schreier". Leipziger Volkszeitung (in German). Leipzig. dpa. 7 July 2011. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  22. "Dresdner Kammersänger Peter Schreier erhält Bach-Medaille". Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten (in German). Dresden. dpa. 9 September 2015. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  23. "Tillich überreicht Sächsischen Verdienstorden". ministerpraesident.sachsen.de. Ministerpräsident Sachsen. 1 June 2016. Archived from the original on 26 December 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  24. "Kunst- und Förderpreis der Landeshauptstadt Dresden 2016". dresden.de. Dresden. 19 February 2016. Archived from the original on 15 April 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  25. Recordings with Peter Schreier German National Library
  26. Kesting, Jürgen (26 December 2019). "Eine Stimme wie schimmerndes Silber". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). Frankfurt. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
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