In the early '20s, was one of the best-known composers in the world. His music was suppressed by the Nazis because he was Jewish, and due to the High Modernism of the postwar period, a second totalitarianism, his reputation did not recover. This was a shame, for was anything but a conservative, and it is good to see that he is finally getting his due. What he needed at this point was a high-profile recording with top soloists, and that is exactly what he gets here from and the , with soprano and baritone . 's PR text refers to " 's sumptuous, hyper-Romantic music," but this is not quite right. could sometimes be that, as in the that closes the album, but Straussian late Romanticism was only one of his influences. In terms of using tone color as a structural element, was in every way a contemporary of (his close friend) and 's generous selection of orchestral songs here provides a good way to appreciate this quality; sample from the , with its mysterious strumming-like sounds. The text of that song is from a German translation of the Thousand and One Nights anthology, and sounds great in the to texts (in German) by, of all people, could be neoclassic (in the economical ); he could be Impressionist-tinged; he mastered a full Expressionist idiom in the opera that gives the album its , represented here by a substantial instrumental excerpt. This double-album release conveys the breadth of 's musical language, but he is never blankly eclectic. A wonderful album that will help to rewrite the 20th century canon. ~ James Manheim