Zemlinsky Die Seejungfrau NETHERLANDS PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA MARC ALBRECHT Cover image: derived from Salted Earth (2017), cling to them. Has Zemlinsky’s time come? photo series by Sophie Gabrielle and Coby Baker Little mermaid in a fin-de-siècle https://www.sophiegabriellephoto.com garment Or is the question now beside the point? http://www.cobybaker.com In that Romantic vein, the Lyric Symphony ‘I have always thought and still believe remains Zemlinsky’s ‘masterpiece’: frequently that he was a great composer. Maybe performed, recorded, and esteemed. His his time will come earlier than we think.’ operas are now staged more often, at least Arnold Schoenberg was far from given to in Germany. In that same 1949 sketch, Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) exaggerated claims for ‘greatness’, yet he Schoenberg praised Zemlinsky the opera could hardly have been more emphatic in composer extravagantly, saying he knew the case of his friend, brother-in-law, mentor, not one ‘composer after Wagner who could Die Seejungfrau (Antony Beaumont edition 2013) advocate, interpreter, and, of course, fellow satisfy the demands of the theatre with Fantasy in three movements for large orchestra, after a fairy-tale by Andersen composer, Alexander Zemlinsky. Ten years better musical substance than he. His ideas, later, in 1959, another, still more exacting his forms, his sonorities, and every turn of the 1 I. Sehr mäßig bewegt 15. 56 modernist critic, Theodor W. Adorno, wrote music sprang directly from the action, from 2 II. Sehr bewegt, rauschend 17. 06 in surprisingly glowing terms. Zemlinsky the scenery, and from the singers’ voices with 3 III. Sehr gedehnt, mit schmerzvollem Ausdruck 14. 26 had ‘made more of the compromises a naturalness and distinction of supreme characteristic of an eclectic than any other quality.’ What, then, of the invisible theatre Total playing time: 47. 30 first-rate composer of his generation. Yet of the symphonic poem, historically related his eclecticism demonstrated genius in to Wagnerian drama from Liszt onwards — its truly seismographic sensitivity to the as indeed in the œuvre of Richard Strauss? stimuli by which he allowed himself to be There are no voices, nor is there scenery. overwhelmed.’ We perhaps look more warily But what of ideas, forms, sonorities, and than Adorno or Schoenberg upon Romantic action? Die Seejungfrau (‘The Mermaid’) is notions of genius, even as our concert halls, Zemlinsky’s sole essay in the genre and now Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra opera houses, and much popular discourse his most widely esteemed non-vocal work. Conducted by Marc Albrecht 3 It was not always so. After only three musical history has tended to remember. 1910 worklist he sent to Universal Edition. exposition) b: Mermaid in the human performances, in Vienna, Berlin, and Prague, However, Zemlinsky’s piece, although It appears he may have come to regret world, storm, the prince’s rescue. \ Zemlinsky withdrew the score. The first misunderstood as merely ‘charming’, the persistence of elements of less-than- Part II a: The mermaid’s longing; with performance on 25 January 1905 was also even in one review ‘heart-warming’, symphonic repetition, which he saw as the witch. b: The prince’s wedding and noteworthy for the premiere of Schoenberg’s was received with greater enthusiasm. more at home in the Viennese operettas he mermaid’s demise. Thus two parts, but tone poem, Pelleas und Melisande, and for Such misunderstanding is nevertheless conducted to earn a living. The unpublished four sections. being the final concert of the Vereinigung understandable, given that Zemlinsky’s score was divided, the first movement given schaffender Tonkünstler (‘Society of Creative aesthetic would always remain attached to to Marie Pappenheim, a friend of Zemlinsky, As work progressed — Zemlinsky wrote Musicians’), founded by Schoenberg, an old-fashioned notion of ‘beauty’. In a 1902 now best known, alongside achievements far more slowly than Schoenberg — the Zemlinsky, and fellow conductor-composer letter to Schoenberg, he declared: ’A great as dermatologist and sexual liberationist, four sections remained, yet spread across Oskar Posa only the previous year. It had artist who has everything required to express as Schoenberg’s librettist for Erwartung. a ‘fantasy in three movements for large already performed Strauss’s Sinfonia himself meaningfully, must observe the Zemlinsky retained the second and third orchestra’. The shift to three movements domestica and the Vienna premiere of boundaries of the beautiful, even if he should movements, taking them with him when speaks of developing symphonic ambition; Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. Here each of stretch them further.’ To do so, he continued, he fled Europe for the United States in ‘symphonic poem’ is how Zemlinsky the founding members conducted his would have a trained ear, ‘our era … yours 1938. Only in the early 1980s did scholars persistently referred to it in correspondence own premiere, five songs for baritone and and mine,’ hear mere ugliness. For him, come to realise that the three movements with Schoenberg. Even the narrative and orchestra by Posa given between Zemlinsky Strauss crossed that line in Ein Heldenleben. belonged together. Die Seejungfrau was pictorial ambition of the first movement, and Schoenberg’s symphonic poems. Such would not be the path taken in the finally published, receiving its first ‘modern’ its storm included, are bound together by a The audience did not react kindly to ‘symphonic poem, Das Meerfräulein, by performance, conducted by one of those Brahmsian mode of thematic working. ‘I had Pelleas, which had most likely been poorly [Hans Christian] Andersen,’ soon renamed scholars, Peter Gülke, in 1984. been a “Brahmsian” when I met Zemlinsky,’ performed (and conducted). Schoenberg Die Seejungfrau. Schoenberg recalled; ‘his love embraced both would subsequently recall that ‘reviews In the letter to Schoenberg quoted above, Brahms and Wagner and soon thereafter I were unusually violent and one of the critics It is uncertain why, following those three Zemlinsky outlined his plan: became an equally confirmed addict.’ suggested to put me in an asylum and keep performances, Zemlinsky suppressed the The scherzo has less in the way of narrative; music paper out of my reach’. That is what work. He did not even mention it in a Part I a: At the foot of the sea (entire it is more of a symphonic movement ‘after’ 4 5 Andersen. Not for nothing do the waves It is generally wise to beware reading Eulenspiegel, Tod und Verklärung, and so on, fortissimo. Beaumont rightly acknowledges of La Mer, Debussy’s three ‘symphonic autobiography explicitly into music. In yet what would be the point, without broader one contemporaneous usage: Schoenberg’s sketches’, come to mind at its opening. The this case, however, the romantic ardour critical observation? Affinity is not necessarily Pelleas, which requests muted trombones third movement too proceeds in notably Zemlinsky had felt prior to rejection by his influence; even when it turns out to be, there at ppp. Mere coincidence is unlikely. Who symphonic fashion, earlier music revisited pupil, Alma Schindler (subsequently Mahler) remains the question: ‘so what?’ influenced whom? We shall probably never and transformed. It may ultimately offer a seems unavoidably related, at least in know — although Schoenberg’s greater speed hymn to ‘man’s immortal soul’, yet far from generalised fashion, to the work’s subject Perhaps we come closer to appreciation at writing may just give him the edge of dependent upon a programmatic idea, let matter. Such would be the case more of the work’s particular qualities when probability. alone a detailed narrative. We should not specifically in two operas, Der Traumgörge we recall that Zemlinsky, like Mahler and push such claims too far. Zemlinsky’s themes (‘Görge the Dreamer’) and Der Zwerg (‘The Strauss, yet unlike Schoenberg, was also At any rate, as Adorno realised, Zemlinsky’s are motifs, associated with objects, ideas, Dwarf’). The history and hysteria of the a conductor of the first rank. The detail of voice, impulse, and general priorities emotions, as that ‘New German School’ merwitch music, ‘bei der Meerhexe’, cut his orchestral scores is noteworthy in itself were more typical for ‘Vienna 1900’ than of Wagner, Berlioz, Liszt, and even their by Zemlinsky and only latterly restored in and for its practicality, born of experience. Schoenberg’s. Erik Levi has astutely described successor Strauss would have understood. Antony Beaumont’s critical edition of the That is not to say that he does not make Zemlinsky as ‘very much a child of his time, ‘Home’, ‘joy’, ‘despair,’ seabed, mermaid, original version (performed here), tells its strenuous demands; however, they are never a composer who enthusiastically absorbed ‘human world’, and many others speak of a own bitter story. Dark brass writing at the absurd. (One might draw a comparison with, a wide array of contemporary cultural conceptual dramaturgy extending beyond opening proves unsurprisingly Wagnerian, say, Liszt in his piano writing.) Beaumont influences, but whose distinctive voice only ‘absolute’ music, even if it eventually returns although Strauss may be just as relevant. identifies in this work the birth of an emerges after sustained exposure to his us to that realm. An age old problem of Disentangling the two hardly seems relevant. especially ‘singular aspect of Zemlinsky’s art,’ music.’ We stand in a better position to ‘programme music’ — do we need the Haunting string chords, woodwind solos namely his ‘exploitation of the glissando,’ receive and learn from such exposure than ‘programme’ or not? — is resuscitated in too, suggest Mahler’s early cantata, Das as opposed to Mahlerian portamento, previously; indeed, we have now for a little a tale of neither fish nor fowl that, both in klagende Lied, which had finally received ‘as an expressive device in its own right’. while. Zemlinsky’s time may have come upon subject matter and in aesthetic controversy, its first performance in Vienna, in 1901, It could hardly have been signalled more us earlier than we knew.