Starting with violin studies, with Sigismund Bachrich and Arnold Rosé,[5][6] he moved into the composition class of Robert Fuchs, graduating as a composer in 1900.

Such was the success of the venture that Schreker composed several more dance-related works for the two sisters including Der Wind, Valse lente and Ein Tanzspiel (Rokoko).

The Chamber Symphony, composed between the two operas for the faculty of the Vienna Academy in 1916, quickly entered the repertoire and remains Schreker's most frequently performed work today.

In March 1920 he was appointed director of the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and between 1920 and 1932 he gave extensive musical tuition in a variety of subjects with Berthold Goldschmidt, Alois Hába, Jascha Horenstein, Julius Bürger, Ernst Krenek, Artur Rodziński, Stefan Wolpe, Zdenka Ticharich and Grete von Zieritz numbering among his students.

The decline of his artistic fortunes began with the mixed reception given to Irrelohe at the Cologne Opera in 1924 under Otto Klemperer and the failure of Der singende Teufel, given in Berlin in 1928 under Erich Kleiber.

Finally, in June 1932, Schreker lost his position as Director of the Musikhochschule in Berlin and, the following year, also his post as professor of composition at the Akademie der Künste.

In 2005 the Salzburg Festival mounted an incomplete production of Die Gezeichneten, conducted by Kent Nagano (and filmed), and the Jewish Museum in Vienna presented an exhibition devoted to his life and work.

Irrelohe was performed at the Volksoper in Vienna in 2004, at the Bonn Opera in November 2010 then staged for the first time in France at the Opéra National de Lyon in March 2022.