Tenor Peter Schreier effectively transitioned from a solid career as a tenor to one as a conductor.

Born on July 29, 1935, in Germany, he went to the boarding school of the famed Dresdener Kreuzchor where his talents were recognized by the conductor Rudolf Mauersberger.

At 16, his voice broke and he started off on his path to being a tenor. His professional debut would come in 1959 and in subsequent years he would engage in a solid career throughout Germany, specializing mainly in German opera.

Then in 2000, he left the opera stage and effectively ended his vocal career in 2005.

He is the recipient of a number of honors, including the title of Kammersänger by the governments of GDR, Bavaria, and Austria. He also won the Sonning Award, the “Georg Philipp Telemann” Prize, and was awarded the Royal Academy of Music / Kohn Foundation Bach Prize in 2009.

Major Roles

While Schreier sang a wide range of German repertoire throughout his career (he was a notable Wagnerian), his career will always be linked to German lieder. He famously recorded a wide gamut of this kind of repertoire, from Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Wolf.

Of his iconic recording of Mozart’s lieder, the Guardian’s review noted, “There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about the way Schreier delivers these songs, revealing an attitude to Mozart interpretation that seems far more romantic than anything we are used to today. There’s no classical restraint about his expressiveness, so these songs seem as though they are the beginning of the whole lieder tradition, which stretches right through the 19th century from Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann to Wolf and beyond. Schreier’s diction is consistently perfect, every phrase is loaded with meaning, and individually colored… A real treat.” 

Watch and Listen

Here he is in Schuberts “Winterreise.”

And here are some Mozart lieder.