FRANZ LEHÁR (1870-1948): Fieber for Tenor and Large Orchestra, OSCAR FRIED (1871-1941): Verklärte Nacht for Mezzo-Soprano, tenor and Orchestra, ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD (1897-1957): 4 Lieder des Abschieds for Tenor and Orchestra, Op. 14, ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951): Verklärte Nacht (version for String Orchestra by the composer).

Description: Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht needs no introduction, but far rarer is Fried’s contemporaneous setting of the same poem. Composed in 1901 for soloists and orchestra, Fried’s version is a true setting of (as opposed to Schoenberg’s reflection on) the text by Richard Dehmel. Lehár wrote Fieber (Fever) in 1915 as the closing part of his song cycle Aus eiserner Zeit – he then made the orchestral setting a year later. Korngold’s Lieder des Abschieds (Songs of Farewell) date from the early 1920s, while he was still in Vienna, and shortly after he had completed the opera Die tote Stadt. Setting poetry by Christina Rossetti, Edith Ronsperger, and Ernst Lothar, the cycle is a poignant reflection on the Great War. German-English texts. Christine Rice (mezzo), Stuart Skelton (tenor), BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner.