Elegie, op.36, is Christian Gerhaher's latest recording – Schoeck’s 1922 song cycle for baritone and chamber orchestra. This album was recorded together with the globally acclaimed Kammerorchester Basel under Heinz Holliger.

Othmar Schoeck is one of the most important Swiss composers of the 20th century, next to Arthur Honegger and Frank Martin. The Elegie is the earliest of Schoeck’s song-cycles coming after his opera Venus. Biographer Chris Walton writes of the work that ‘Venus and the Elegie also provide the first intimation that Schoeck’s gift for drama in music, with few exceptions, found its finest expression when it tended to monodrama’.

Christian Gerhaher is one of the most famous song interpreters of our time, and his previous album, Schumann: Alle Lieder was described as ‘irresistible’ by The Guardian. In 2018, Gerhaher’s release Frage won a Gramophone Award and he won an Opus Klassik award for Singer of the Year.

In 2009, Gerhaher recorded another of Schoeck’s works, Notturno, op.47, and performed it to open a critically acclaimed performance in London’s Wigmore Hall in 2021. The Guardian wrote that Gerhaher’s ‘soft-grained tone and lack of histrionics caught the cycle’s introspection perfectly; to hear such a fascinating rarity performed so immaculately was a special treat’.

Schoeck’s works are not often recorded or performed here – Gerhaher’s Elegie, op.36, is a rare chance to hear this work interpreted afresh by a master in his field.