Project Description

A Journey in Exile: The Lieder of Julius Burger

Julius Burger was a gifted Viennese musician, conductor, repetiteur, and composer poised to make his mark on early 20th Century music, that is, until the rise of antisemitism and the Nazi party forever altered his life and took him on a journey in exile, across continents and cultures, and would come to reflect the very themes of Romanticism which he cherished. Burger’s varied career took him from Berlin Radio and the Kroll Opera house to the burgeoning BBC and later working with Columbia Records as well as a long tenure at the Metropolitan Opera where he coached some of the greatest voices of the 20th Century. But it wouldn’t be until he was in his 90s that he would finally fulfil a lifelong dream of hearing his own compositions performed.