Two current recordings of Der ferne Klang, and still we wait for one that offers a line-by-line translation of the German libretto. The new Capriccio at least goes one better than Marco Polo/Select in providing the German text as well as a synopsis. But Schreker's early operatic melodrama needs all the help it can get if listeners are to respond sympathetically to its awkwardly presented but absorbing subject matter, rather than make haste to cleanse their ears either with the reassuring conventions of Der Rosenkavalier or the brave new world of Wozzeck.
Schreker's music may appear to fall between the two formidable stools of Straussian romanticism and Second Viennese School expressionism, as well as aspiring to a grand synthesis of simplicity (shades of Humperdinck?) and up-to-the-minute radicalism. It probably fails to get a proper focus on any of these aspects, but it does so with considerable panache and an almost Puccinian pathos. Der ferne Klang, completed in 1910 when Schreker was 31, has the merits of youthful extravagance—no subtle understatements here—but it is difficult to resist the feeling that the music gradually achieves greater conviction and a more purposeful sense of direction as it proceeds. By the time you reach the Third Act's long orchestral interlude the odds are that you will either be won over or ready to put the experiment down to experience.
The differences between these two performances are fairly clear cut. The Capriccio set is strongly, even weightily cast, with some excellent singers in minor roles (Claudio Otelli as Rudolf, for example). But weight is a mixed blessing. Gabriele Schnaut lacks allure as Grete, and while Thomas Moser is a plausibly impassioned Fritz, whose quest for that ''distant sound'' gives the opera its theme, he can sound strained in ways that go beyond vocally acting out the role of a driven, dying artist. The recording has wide perspectives, but in general the orchestra is too recessed for my taste, even though the playing has an appropriately romantic intensity under Gerd Albrecht's authoritative direction.
The Marco Polo set has fewer heroic voices in the main roles, and I came to view this as an advantage, especially in the case of Thomas Harper's ardent, youthful Fritz. The more even vocal/orchestral balance means that a greater amount of instrumental detail is audible, as well as more of the multifarious textures that enrich the first half of Act 2. The whole performance has a more theatrical atmosphere, even though some episodes sound rushed and lacking in expressive power. Marco Polo make fewer (small) cuts than Capriccio, and the ending is blessedly without a piercingly gutteral groan from Grete at Fritz's death. In most respects, therefore, the Marco Polo version is to be preferred.'