Schoenberg’s polyphonic tone poem Pelleas und Melisande (1902) is often compared to Debussy’s opera based on the same text by Maurice Maeterlinck. According to Schoenberg, the 1905 premiere of his work in Vienna, which he directed “provoked riots among the audience and even the critics. Reviews were unusually violent and one of the critics suggested putting me in an asylum and keeping music paper out of my reach. Only six years later, under Oscar Fried’s direction, it became a great success, and since that time has not caused the anger of the audience.”

Next, the1909 masterwork Erwartung is a monodrama for soprano and large orchestra with text by Marie Pappenheim, a young medical student who was commissioned by Schoenberg himself. Consisting of the interior monologue of a woman who has killed the lover with whom she is expecting a tryst, the action takes place between twilight and dawn near and in a forest. It begins with her search for him, her discovery of his still-bleeding corpse, and finally her realization that “light will dawn for all others, but I am all alone in my darkness,” a line set to the only tonal music in the work (borrowed from one of Schoenberg’s early songs). Among the work’s most innovative features are its continual variation of orchestral textures-not only are the instrumental combinations new, but the instruments themselves are required to produce new sounds- and the constantly changing tempi.

Robert Craft, the noted conductor and widely respected writer and critic on music, literature, and culture, holds a unique place in world music of today. He has twice won the Grand Prix du Disque, as well as the Edison Prize for his landmark recordings of Schoenberg, Webern, and Varèse. He has also received a special award from the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters in recognition of his “creative work” in literature. In 2002 he was awarded the International Prix du Disque Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cannes Music Festival. In addition to his special command of Stravinsky’s and Schoenberg’s music, Mr. Craft is well known for his recordings of works by Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Schütz, Bach, and Mozart. He is also the author of more than two dozen books on music and the arts, including the highly acclaimed Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship; The Moment of Existence: Music, Literature and the Arts, 1990-1995; Places: A Travel Companion for Music and Art Lovers; An Improbable Life: Memoirs; Memories and Commentaries; and “Down a Path of Wonder”: On Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Eliot, Auden, and Some Others (2005). He is in the process of recording the complete works of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Webern for Naxos.

From the beginning, Anja Silja’s large and varied repertoire, including nearly every major soprano role in opera, has shaped her unique career. Born in Berlin, she began her vocal studies at the age of six, gave her first performance at the city’s Titania Palace at the age of ten, and made her stage debut at the age of 16 in Brunswick as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. She was invited to Bayreuth in 1960 and sang Elisabeth, Venus, Eva, Elsa, Freia, and Senta in Wieland Wagner’s productions, roles she subsequently performed at major opera houses throughout the world. She is especially acclaimed for her interpretation of Emilia Marty in Janáček’s The Makropoulos Case, and, recently, for her Kostelnička in Jenůfa, which she has sung in Glyndebourne and Zürich, at Covent Garden, and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Ms. Silja has performed in Erwartung with James Levine in Berlin, Madrid, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and at the Verbier Festival.