Born in Monaco in 1878, Franz Schreker and his family moved to Vienna in 1888 following the unexpected death of his father. Franz gained a scholarship to the Vienna Conservatory, initially as a violinist before transferring to composition. Once graduated, he worked as an organist and conductor (he formed and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Chorus from 1907 to 1920) to subsidise his work a composer. Initial success came with his Intermezzo for strings, Op. 8, but it was the Frankfurt premiere of his opera Der Ferne Klang in 1912 that consolidated his reputation as a composer. Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin (The Music Box and the Princess) was composed between 1909 and 1912, with Schreker writing his own libretto (as he did with all his operas). Viennese audiences and critics were profoundly uncomfortable with the libretto's heavy, post-Freudian psychosexual themes, but the scandal surrounding the premiere enhanced Schreker's reputation, cementing his status alongside Arnold Schoenberg (whose famous Skandalkonzert riot occurred in Vienna just two weeks later) as one of the most exciting, polarizing, and talked-about modernists of the era.