[3] Fallowell, who had written the lyrics to two of Schmidt's albums, Musk at Dusk (1987) and Impossible Holidays (1991), wrote the first draft of the libretto while he was living in Saint Petersburg.
The rest of the music, including full orchestra and performances from Can members Jaki Liebezeit and Michael Karoli, is pre-recorded, mixed and produced for multi-channel playback by Prof. Jono Podmore.
Gormenghast was revived with a new production directed by Andreas Baesler in June 2004 when it was staged at the Völklinger Hütte, an industrial UNESCO World Heritage Site.
[9] According to Spoon Records, Rodney Milnes wrote in a review that appeared in The Times on 24 November 1998, "the sheer range of "sensurround" sound is bewildering, loud, sensuous, always intriguing, especially the rustles of exotic percussion emerging from around the auditorium.
"[10] Douglas Wolk, in a review of the 1999 recording for the CMJ New Music Monthly, wrote that Schmidt "occasionally covers up the frailness of his melodies with superfluous beat-jockeying" but found that the opera's best pieces were "convincing both as drama and as compositions.
"[3] In his review of the 2004 revival, Dieter Lintz described Schmidt's score, especially for the singers, as predominantly tonal and "quite ear-friendly" with elements of Baroque music, Benjamin Britten, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.