Zemlinsky, Alexander von

Zemlinsky Alexander von, *14 October 1871 Vienna, †15 March 1942 Larchmont (New York), Austrian composer and conductor. He was born into a multicultural family. To marry Klara Semo, who came from a Bosnian-Sephardi family, his father Adolf (von) Zemlinsky converted from Catholicism to Judaism and Alexander was raised in this religion. In 1884–92, he studied at the conservatory in Vienna with A. Door (piano), F. Krenn, R. Fuchs (harmony and counterpoint) and J.N. Fuchs (composition). In 1895–96, he conducted the amateur orchestra Polyhymnia, which he founded, in which A. Schoenberg – his future brother-in-law and friend – played the cello; Zemlinsky also gave him informal composition lessons for several months. In 1896, he received the Prince Luitpold Award for his first opera Sarema, which was then successfully staged at the Munich Hofoper. In 1900, his second opera Es war einmal… was premiered at the Vienna Hofoper, conducted by G. Mahler.

After his father died in 1900, due to financial problems, he accepted the position of chief conductor of the Viennese operetta theater Carltheater, which provided him with a steady income but did not leave much time for composing. During this time, he met Alma Schindler, whom he gave composition lessons to and with whom he developed a deeper relationship. The relationship was short-lived, as Alma finally rejected Zemlinsky, but these events had resonance in his works for a long time (the opera Der Zwerg). From 1903, he also gave orchestration lessons at the Eugenia Schwarzwald school. His students included, among others, A. Berg, A. Webern and E. Wellesz. Later, he also gave private composition lessons to E.W. Korngold. In 1903, he moved to the Theater an der Wien, and in 1904 to the new Volksoper. In the spring of 1907, he received a job as conductor of the Vienna Hofoper, where in the fall of the same year his third opera Traumgörge was to have its premiere but due to a change in the position of director (Mahler was replaced by F. Weingartner), the premiere of the opera was cancelled (it took place only in 1980 in Nuremberg), and the Zemlinsky’s contract was dissolved in early 1908. He then returned to work at the Volksoper. In 1911, after the death of his mentor and promoter Mahler, Zemlinsky moved to Prague, where until 1927, he was music director of the Neues Deutsches Theater. From 1920, he also served as rector of the Deutsche Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Prague, teaching composition and conducting classes.

In 1927, he accepted the position of principal conductor of the Krolloper in Berlin, which was then directed by O. Klemperer. After the theatre closed in 1931, he was offered the position of music director in Wiesbaden, but Zemlinsky decided to stay in Berlin. He taught at the Musikhochschule in Berlin and guest conducted in many European cities, including Barcelona, Brno, Paris, Rome and Warsaw. He also collaborated with the Czech Philharmonic. In December 1931, he conducted the Berlin premiere of Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny by K. Weill. This opera, rejected by right-wing circles, was a commercial success. In the spring of 1933, due to Hitler’s anti-Semitic policy, he was forced to leave Germany. He returned to Vienna, where he devoted himself to composing. That same year, Zemlinsky’s new opera Der Kreidekreis was performed in Zurich and gained critics’ acclaim. After Austria joined the Third Reich in the spring of 1938, Zemlinsky decided to leave the country. In September, he went with his wife Louise and daughter to Prague and from there in December of the same year via Rotterdam to New York. He began working on a new opera, Circe, but soon his health began to fail and he stopped composing completely.

As a conductor, Zemlinsky was appreciated both for his excellent interpretations of the music of W.A. Mozart, Mahler and R. Strauss, as well as contemporary composers (he conducted most of the world premieres of A. Schoenberg’s works). During 16 years of activity in Prague, despite the complicated political and economic situation and difficult cooperation with the then-director of the Neues Deutsches Theater, he managed to maintain the musical quality of opera productions and symphony concerts at the highest level. In 1925, music critic Leo Schleissner called this period the “Zemlinsky era,” emphasising his influence on the city’s musical life. At that time, Zemlinsky presented many contemporary stage works (including Der Ring des Polykrates and Violanta by E.W. Korngold, Jenufa by L. Janáček, The Miraculous Mandarin by B. Bartók, Jonny spielt auf by E. Krenek, Cardillac by P. Hindemith, and premiered fragments of Wozzeck by A Berg), he also did not hesitate to reach for repertoire that was controversial in larger music centres (P. Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna). An event that also resonated abroad was the premiere of Schoenberg’s Expectation in 1924, enthusiastically received by critics. In 1922, he became the musical director of the newly established Society for Private Musical Performances (Prager Verein für Musikalische Privataufführungen), which during its two-year activity, presented several dozen compositions, mainly works by Reger, Debussy, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.

Zemlinsky was an active witness of the revolutions taking place in music in 1890–1940. His musical language combines the richness of late Romantic traditions with new trends of the first decades of the 20^th century. There are clear references to the music of J. Brahms in his early works. Zemlinsky developed and perfected the variation technique adopted from him and R. Fuchs (which involves using a short motif as a basic cell to build the thematic material of part or all of the work). He was also interested in numerology. The D-E-G motif, its numerical representation 2-3-5 and their transformations appear in the melodic, rhythmic (including usage of polyrhythm) or harmonic layers in works from various periods. He was also influenced by R. Wagner and G. Mahler, especially in terms of tonality. The heartbreak he experienced from Alma Schindler (later Alma Mahler) left its mark on Zemlinsky’s work. Approx. 1902, his music became more expressive and emotionally charged (Die Seejungfrau, Lyrische Symphonie), which brought him closer to the aesthetics of the Second Viennese School. He made new interpretations of the classical sonata form (String Quartet No. 2). His style is also characterised by an excellent sense of colour.

In January 1920, there was a further radicalisation of the musical language, through a new type of musical continuity built on the principle of similarities in texture or contour of the melody, treated on an equal footing with thematic development, as well as the search for new sound qualities (String Quartet No. 3, Symphonische Gesänge). Zemlinsky explored the boundaries of tonality, but never decided to go beyond it. In his mature works, he refers to the broadly understood tradition, using compositional techniques from various eras, which he incorporates into his own, original stylistic idiom (Sinfonietta, Psalm 13, String Quartet No. 4).

Despite the great recognition he received as a conductor and the success that his works received, Zemlinsky’s career did not develop on a larger scale, and his work was overshadowed by the achievements of more radical creators. In the context of political events in Austria and Central Europe in the 1930s, as well as new compositional techniques and the musical avant-garde in the decades after the war, his legacy was forgotten for several decades. It was only in the 1970s that his works began to be performed and recorded again. The discovery of missing scores of never-before-performed works and a new look at Zemlinsky’s work, this time through the prism of postmodernism, allowed researchers to revise previous views on his place in music history.

Literature:  A. Beaumont, Zemlinsky, London 2000; L. Gorrell, Discordant melody: Alexander Zemlinsky, his songs, and the second Viennese school, Westport Connecticut: Greenwood 2002; Zemlinsky studies, ed. M. Frith, London 2007; W. Loll Zwischen Tradition und Avantgarde: die Kammermusik Alexander Zemlinskys, Kassel 1990; P. Wessel Im Schatten Schönbergs: rezeptionshistorische und analytische Studien zum Problem der Originalität und Modernität bei Alexander Zemlinsky, Wiedeń 2009; Ch. Becker Die Variantentechnik am Beispiel Alexander Zemlinskys, Vienna 1999; M. Moskovitz,  Alexander Zemlinsky: A Lyric Symphony, Woodbridge 2010; C. Niekerk Zemlinsky contra Mahler: Aesthetic Modernism, the Jewish Body, and the Violence of Fairy Tales, “German Studies Review” 2022, vol .45 (2); S. Van de Moortele Two-Dimensional Sonata Form. Form and Cycle in Single-Movement Instrumental Works by Liszt, Strauss, Schoenberg and Zemlinsky, Leuven 2013; T. Adorno Quasi una fantasia. Musikalische Schriften II, Frankfurt am Main 1963; W. Loll Zwischen Tradition und Avantgarde: die Kammermusik Alexander Zemlinskys, “Kieler Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft”, vol. 34, Kassel 1990; Alexander Zemlinsky: Ästhetik, Stil und Umfel, ed. H. Krones, Vienna 1995.