Trained as a violinist and as a composer at the Vienna Conservatory, Franz Schreker belongs to that group of composers whose careers were eclipsed by the events of 1933 in Germany. He enjoyed very considerable success as a composer of opera, in a style that coupled the late romantic with an element of musical collage. The Prelude to “Memnon”, (a proposed opera that was never written) evinces this in its use of exotic melodic contours and instrumental colouring to portray its ancient Egyptian subject. The Romantic Suite, composed in 1903 when Schreker was only 25, is a confident, large-scale work, at times approaching without quite attaining the stature of a symphony.