Peter Schreier
Tenor whose lyrical gifts excelled in Schubert lieder
PETER SCHREIER, who died on Christmas Day aged 84, was an East German tenor with a gloriously lyrical voice that was heard at its best in Schubert lieder
A Schreier recital of Die schöne Müllerin or Winterreise was a memorable occasion. His ear was alert to poetry’s pulse and his hand gestures were those of a speaker rather than a singer. His fine, expressive phrasing would draw in the listener to a deeply intimate performance.
Schreier was also one of the great Bach evangelists, an experience born of a childhood spent with the Dresden boys choir, and in later life was a sympathetic conductor of Bach’s oratorios.
His interpretation of Mozart’s operatic roles was sublime, though he was never comfortable with contemporary interpretations, finding Peter Sellars’s stagings for the Met, including a Marriage of Figaro set in Trump Tower, “vulgar”, while Milos Forman’s presentation of the composer in the film Amadeus (1984) was “distorted”.
Despite the restrictions placed on many East German citizens during the Communist days, from the 1960s Schreier was a regular visitor to the West in general and London in particular.
In 1997, while a juror at the International Song Competition at the Wigmore Hall, he gave a recital that included Schumann’s Dichterliebe cycle accompanied by Graham Johnson. As one critic wrote: “One day we shall be convinced that Schreier is not eternal, but for the time being this elder statesman of lieder sings on with the voice sounding younger and healthier the longer the evening progresses.”
Peter Schreier was born in Gauernitz, near Meissen in Saxony, on July 29 1935. His father was Kantor at the local church. In June 1945 young Peter joined the Dresden Kreuzchor (boys choir), singing solos in the great masterworks of Bach. The choristers were housed in a basement because Dresden had been all but destroyed by Allied bombing.
He joined the Dresden Music Academy in 1956, moving three years later to the school of the Dresden Staatsoper. His professional debut came in 1961 as First Prisoner in Beethoven’s Fidelio and before long he had joined the Berlin State Opera in East Germany.
Schreier’s first appearance in London was in 1966 at Sadler’s Wells as a flawless Ferrando in Hamburg Opera’s staging of Così fan tutte, while after the death of Fritz Wunderlich he made his name by stepping in as Tamino in The Magic Flute at the following year’s Salzburg Festival.
Six years later he made a rare venture into Wagnerian territory, singing Loge in Das Rheingold for Herbert von Karajan at the Salzburg Easter Festival.
He was also appearing at the Met, again as Tamino, in 1967 and the following year at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Not long after that he launched himself with the Berlin Staatskapelle as a conductor.
On disc, the quality of his contribution was matched only by Dietrich Fischerdieskau, with whom he recorded a collection of Bach cantatas conducted by Karl Richter.
Although Schreier spoke only a few words of English, by the early 2000s he was working in London with students from the Royal College of Music, conducting them in performances of the Christmas Oratorio and B Minor Mass that, in the words of one critic, “fused innocence and experience, youthful wonder and veteran wisdom”.
He slipped quietly into retirement three days before Christmas 2005 with a performance in Prague of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in which he not only conducted but also sang the role of the Evangelist. He claimed never to have sung another note, not even in the bathroom – “and I absolutely don’t miss it,” he said.
Schreier is survived by his wife, Renate, and by their two sons.
Peter Schreier, born July 29 1935, died December 25 2019