This channel is the re-establishment of previous channels that have been sadly terminated.
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Peter Schreier--tenor
Staatskapelle Dresden
Otmar Sutiner--conductor
1968
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"Peter Schreier, 84, Elegant German Tenor Who Also Conducted, Dies
His death came after an unspecified illness, the German news agency DPA said, citing Mr. Schreier’s secretary.
Midway through his career, Mr. Schreier also turned to conducting. He would sometimes sing the Evangelist roles in Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John passions as he led the performances.
Mr. Schreier’s voice might have lacked the honeyed tone of other tenors who specialized, as he did, in lighter lyric opera roles and German lieder. But he won consistent praise for a combination of technical know-how and musical insight.
The pianist Andras Schiff collaborated frequently with Mr. Schreier in recitals and recordings, performing all three Schubert song cycles with him as well as works by Schumann, Mozart, Beethoven and Janacek. He said in an email that Mr.
Schreier as a child sang with a boys’ choir in Dresden, giving him a “real foundation of musical tradition” that led to exemplary interpretations of Bach’s passions and cantatas.
Mr. Schreier was also a unique lieder singer, Mr. Schiff added, who “could color each verse with different expressions according to the mood of the text, something that very few singers could do.”
Mr. Schreier’s involvement with conducting, which began around 1970, was a natural extension of his approach to singing, especially his feeling for “instrumental singing,” as he described it in a 1997 interview with Bruce Duffie for WNIB, a former classical music radio station in Chicago.
“Bach treats the voice like a musical instrument,” Mr. Schreier said. “Instrumental singing means using the voice with a little bit of vibrato, like an oboe or a flute.” Bach, he added, is “very precise in how to phrase and articulate” the vocal parts. His goal of inculcating that articulate, verbally alert approach to singing inspired Mr. Schreier to conduct these scores.
Peter Max Schreier was born on July 29, 1935, in Meissen, a town in eastern Germany. His father, a church cantor, gave him his first music lessons. At 8 he entered the preparatory division of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, the boys’ choir of the main Lutheran church in Dresden; he remained a member of the choir for several years, even after his voice broke.
In 1954 he began private voice lessons in Leipzig while singing in the Leipzig Radio Chorus. Two years later, at 21, he entered the Dresden State Opera’s training academy where he studied singing and conducting. After graduating in 1959, he joined the company as a tenor.
His career grew steadily, with performances in leading houses of Europe in operas by Rossini, Massenet, Strauss and, especially, Mozart. He was highly esteemed as Prince Tamino in Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte,” the role in which he made his 1967 Metropolitan Opera debut, though he appeared only eight times in all with that company. Several of his important roles are captured on classic recordings with Karl Böhm, Colin Davis and other major conductors.
As his career advanced, Mr. Schreier devoted increasing attention to song, especially German lieder. He performed and recorded Schubert’s “Die Schöne Müllerin” song cycle with pianists, with a fortepianist and in a version accompanied by guitar, following a popular practice in Schubert’s day.
He retired from singing in 2005, three days before Christmas, with a performance of Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” in Prague, conducting the orchestra and chorus while also singing the role of the Evangelist. Thereafter he settled with his wife, Renate, who survives him, in a country house outside Dresden, where he contented himself with gardening, reading and swimming. He is also survived by two sons, Torsten and Ralf, and several grandchildren.
In this way, he said, one “can truly be the spiritus rector” of the entire performance, invoking the lofty Latin phrase for guiding spirit, the role assumed by the no-nonsense choir directors he watched during his boyhood years in Dresden."; nyt (edited)
