{{Short description|Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher (1871–1942)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}} {{Lead too short|date=August 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Alexander Zemlinsky | image = Zemlinsky.jpg | caption = Zemlinsky c. 1900 | birth_date = {{birth date|1871|10|14|df=y}} | birth_place = Vienna, Austria-Hungary | death_date = {{death date and age|1942|03|15|1871|10|14|df=y}} | death_place = Larchmont, New York, US | education = Vienna Conservatory | occupation = {{plainlist| * Conductor * Composer * Academic }} | organization = {{plainlist| * Vienna Volksoper * Deutsches Landestheater, Prague * Kroll Opera, Berlin }} }} '''Alexander Zemlinsky''' or '''Alexander von Zemlinsky''' (14 October 1871 – 15 March 1942) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher.
==Biography==
===Early life=== Zemlinsky was born in Vienna to a highly diverse family. Zemlinsky's grandfather, Anton Semlinski, emigrated from Žilina, Hungary (now in Slovakia) to Austria and married an Austrian woman.{{sfn|Beaumont|2000|p=9}} Both were from staunchly Roman Catholic families, and Alexander's father, {{ill|Adolf von Zemlinszky|de}}, was raised as a Catholic. Alexander's mother, Clara Semo, was born in Sarajevo to a Sephardic Jewish father and a Bosniak mother. Alexander's entire family converted to the religion of his maternal grandfather, Judaism, and Zemlinsky was born and raised Jewish. His father added an aristocratic "von" to his name, though neither he nor his forebears were ennobled. He also began spelling his surname in Hungarian<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.musicanongrata.cz/en/events-artists/detail/alexander-zemlinski/ | title=Alexander Zemlinsky | Musica non grata }}</ref> "Zemlinszky".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.carolinaclassical.com/zemlinsky/|title=Alexander (von) Zemlinsky Timeline|access-date=23 October 2006|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080104144625/http://www.carolinaclassical.com/zemlinsky/|archive-date=4 January 2008}}</ref> He was also a freemason.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://freimaurerei.at/die-grossloge/|title = Die Großloge – Grossloge von Österreich der Alten, Freien und Angenommenen Maurer}}</ref>
Alexander studied the piano from a young age. He played the organ in his synagogue on holidays, and was admitted to the Vienna Conservatory in 1884. He studied piano with Wilhelm Rauch and Anton Door,<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Fenzl |first=Harald |title=Alexander Zemlinsky: Karriereschritte seiner ersten Wiener Phase |date=2009 |access-date=2026-02-15 |type=MPhil |publisher=University of Vienna |url=https://utheses.univie.ac.at/detail/3824 |doi=10.25365/thesis.4320 |language=de |page=6 |quote=Zemlinsky war, nachdem er die Vorbildungsschule Klavier bei Wilhelm Rauch absolviert hatte, Klavierschüler Anton Doors.}}</ref> winning the school's piano prize in 1890. He continued his studies until 1892, studying theory with Robert Fuchs and composition with Johann Nepomuk Fuchs and Anton Bruckner.{{sfn|Greene|1985|p=986}} At this time he began writing music.
In Johannes Brahms, Zemlinsky had a valuable supporter. In July 1892, on the invitation of Zemlinsky's teacher Johann Nepomuk Fuchs, Brahms attended a performance of the first movement of Zemlinsky's Symphony in D minor at the Conservatoire.<ref>Antony Beaumont: booklet notes for Chandos recording (CHAN 10138), 2003.</ref> In March 1896, Brahms attended a performance of Zemlinsky's String Quintet in D minor by the Hellmesberger Quartet.<ref>Antony Beaumont: booklet notes for Nimbus recording (NI 5682), 2001.</ref> Impressed with Zemlinsky's music, Brahms recommended the younger composer's Clarinet Trio (1896) to the N. Simrock company for publication.{{sfn|Brown|2002|pages=780–781}} [[File:Richard Gerstl - Alexander Zemlinsky, 1908.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of Alexander von Zemlinsky by Richard Gerstl, July 1908.]] Zemlinsky also met Arnold Schoenberg when the latter joined the amateur orchestra Polyhymnia as a cellist;<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arnold-Schoenberg "Arnold Schoenberg"] by Kathleen Kuiper and Dika Newlin, ''Encyclopædia Britannica''</ref> Zemlinsky had founded this group in 1895.{{sfn|Moskovitz|2010|pages=25–26}} The two became close friends and later mutual admirers and brothers-in-law when Schoenberg married Zemlinsky's sister, Mathilde. Zemlinsky gave Schoenberg lessons in counterpoint, thus becoming the only formal music teacher Schoenberg would have.
In 1897, Zemlinsky composed his Symphony No. 2 (chronologically the third he had written, and sometimes numbered as such) for submission to the Beethoven Prize, a competition inaugurated and sponsored by Brahms. Zemlinsky won joint first prize, sharing the honours with Robert Gound. His reputation as a composer was further helped when Gustav Mahler conducted the premiere of his opera ''Es war einmal'' (''Once Upon a Time'') at the Hofoper in 1900. In 1899 Zemlinsky secured the post of Kapellmeister at Vienna's Carltheater.
In 1899, Zemlinsky converted to Protestantism.{{sfn|Moskovitz|2010|p=249}}{{sfn|Gorrell|2002|p=175}} He alluded to the Christian cross and to Jesus in the text of ''Turmwächterlied'',{{sfn|Gorrell|2002|p=176}} and included verses from Psalms in several of his compositions.{{sfn|Moskovitz|2010|pages=67–68; 115, 278}}
===Middle years=== In 1900, Zemlinsky met and fell in love with Alma Schindler, one of his composition students.{{sfn|Moskovitz|2010|page=60}} She reciprocated his feelings initially; however, Alma felt a great deal of pressure from close friends and family to end the relationship. They were primarily concerned with Zemlinsky's lack of an international reputation and by an unappealing physical appearance. She broke off the relationship with Zemlinsky and subsequently married composer Gustav Mahler in 1902. The episode inspired Zemlinsky's orchestral fantasy ''Die Seejungfrau'', completed in 1903 and first performed in 1905.<ref>Antony Beaumont: foreword to published score, UE 35541, p.xxxi.</ref> Zemlinsky married Ida Guttmann in 1907, but the marriage was an unhappy one. Following Ida's death in 1929, Zemlinsky married Luise Sachsel in 1930, a woman twenty-nine years his junior, and to whom he had given singing lessons since 1914. This was a much happier relationship, lasting until Zemlinsky's death.{{sfn|Moskovitz|2010|page=103}}
===Last years=== thumb|upright|''Walk of Fame Vienna'' thumb|Zemlinsky's grave in the Zentralfriedhof, Vienna.|upright In 1906 Zemlinsky was appointed first Kapellmeister of the new Vienna Volksoper, from 1907/1908 at the Hofoper in Vienna. From 1911 to 1927, he was conductor at the Deutsches Landestheater in Prague, premiering Schoenberg's ''Erwartung'' in 1924. Zemlinsky then moved to Berlin, where he taught and worked under Otto Klemperer as a conductor at the Kroll Opera.
=== Nazi era === With the rise of the Nazi Party, he fled to Vienna in 1933, where he held no official post, instead concentrating on composing and making the occasional appearance as guest conductor. In 1938, the Zemlinsky couple managed to escape via Prague to New York. Their property was confiscated to pay for the "Reich Flight Tax" imposed on Jews.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Lost Art Internet Database - Jüdische Sammler und Kunsthändler (Opfer nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung und Enteignung) - Zemlinsky, Alexander|url=https://www.lostart.de/Content/051_ProvenienzRaubkunst/DE/Sammler/Z/Zemlinsky,%20Alexander.html?nn=5144&cms_lv2=95488&cms_lv3=9224|access-date=2021-11-08|website=www.lostart.de|archive-date=8 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211108072656/https://www.lostart.de/Content/051_ProvenienzRaubkunst/DE/Sammler/Z/Zemlinsky,%20Alexander.html?nn=5144&cms_lv2=95488&cms_lv3=9224|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Lillie|first= Sophie |authorlink=Sophie Lillie|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/231981591|title=Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens|year= 2003 |publisher= Czernin |isbn=978-3-7076-0049-0|oclc=231981591}}</ref> Their collection, which included "a work by Schiele, various engravings, carpets" was, according to the German Lost Art Foundation, "released and presumably exported to the USA."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Lost Art Internet Database - Jüdische Sammler und Kunsthändler (Opfer nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung und Enteignung) - Zemlinsky, Alexander|url=https://www.lostart.de/Content/051_ProvenienzRaubkunst/DE/Sammler/Z/Zemlinsky,%20Alexander.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-08|website=www.lostart.de|quote=Beschlagnahe des gesamten Vermögens zum Zwecke der vermeintlichen „Reichsfluchtsteuer" des Ehepaares Zemlinsky. Die Sammlung wurde freigegeben und vermutlich in die USA ausgeführt.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211108072707/https://www.lostart.de/Content/051_ProvenienzRaubkunst/DE/Sammler/Z/Zemlinsky,%20Alexander.html |archive-date=8 November 2021 }}</ref>
Although fellow émigré Schoenberg was celebrated and feted in the Los Angeles of the 1930s and 40s – teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California and gaining a new generation of acolytes – Zemlinsky was neglected and virtually unknown in his adopted country. He fell ill, suffering a series of strokes, and ceased composing. Zemlinsky died in Larchmont, New York, of pneumonia in 1942.
==Compositions== {{Refimprovesection|date=August 2020}}{{Main article|List of compositions by Alexander von Zemlinsky}} Zemlinsky's best-known work is the ''Lyric Symphony'' (1923), a seven-movement piece for soprano, baritone and orchestra, set to poems by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (in German translation), which Zemlinsky compared in a letter to his publisher to Mahler's ''Das Lied von der Erde''. The work in turn influenced Alban Berg's ''Lyric Suite'', which quotes from it and is dedicated to Zemlinsky. Other orchestral works include the large-scale fantasy, ''Die Seejungfrau'' (The Mermaid), based on the tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. It premiered in 1905 at the same concert as Schoenberg's ''Pelleas und Melisande''. Zemlinsky withdrew the work, which was thought lost until two separated portions of the score were found to belong together in the 1980s. It was performed again in 1984 in Vienna and has become one of Zemlinsky's most frequently performed works.{{sfn|Beaumont|2000|p=134}} A three-movement Sinfonietta written in 1934, admired by Schoenberg and Berg, is written in a style comparable to contemporary works by Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill.
Zemlinsky composed eight operas, including ''Eine florentinische Tragödie'' (1915–16) and the semi-autobiographical ''Der Zwerg'' (''The Dwarf'', 1919–21), both based on works by Oscar Wilde; chamber music, including four string quartets, and an unfinished ballet ''Der Triumph der Zeit'' (1901). He also composed works for chorus and orchestra including three psalm settings as well as numerous song cycles, both with piano and with orchestra, of which the Sechs Gesänge, Op. 13, to texts by Maurice Maeterlinck is the best-known.
While the influence of Brahms is evoked in Zemlinsky's early works (prompting encouragement from Brahms himself), an original voice is present from the first works on, handling dissonances in a much freer manner than Brahms. Later works adopt the kind of extended harmonies that Wagner had introduced and also reflect the influence of Mahler. In contrast to his friend Schoenberg, he never wrote atonal music, and never used the twelve-tone technique. However, some of his late works such as the ''Symphonische Gesänge'', Sinfonietta and the third and fourth string quartets move away from post-Romanticism towards a leaner, harder-edged idiom that incorporates elements of Neue Sachlichkeit, Neoclassicism, and even jazz.
As a conductor, Zemlinsky was admired by, among others, Kurt Weill and Stravinsky, not only for his notable interpretations of Mozart, but also for his advocacy of Mahler, Schoenberg and much other contemporary music. As a teacher, his pupils included Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hans Krása and Karl Weigl.
==See also== * List of compositions by Alexander von Zemlinsky
==References== '''Notes''' {{Reflist|20em}} '''Sources''' *{{Cite book|author-link=Antony Beaumont|last=Beaumont|first=Antony|title=Zemlinsky|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780801438035|url-access=registration|publisher=Faber and Faber London, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York|year=2000|isbn=0-571-16983-X}} * {{cite book|last=Brown|first=A. Peter|title=The Second Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorák, Mahler, and Selected Contemporaries|series=The Symphonic Repertoire|volume=4|year=2002|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0-253-33488-8}} *Clayton, Alfred (1992), "Zemlinsky, Alexander (von)" in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', ed. Stanley Sadie (London) {{ISBN|0-333-73432-7}} *{{Cite book|last=Gorrell|first=Lorraine|title=Discordant Melody: Alexander Zemlinsky, His Songs, and the Second Viennese School|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2002|isbn=0-313-32366-6}} *{{cite book|last=Greene|first=David Mason|editor=Petrak, Albert M|title=Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers|year=1985|publisher=The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation|isbn= 0-385-14278-1}} *Hoffman, Stanley M. (1993), ''Extended Tonality and Voice Leading in "Twelve Songs," Op. 27 by Alexander Zemlinsky'', doctoral dissertation, Brandeis University. UMI Dissertation Services order number 9317084. *{{Cite book|first=Marc|last=Moskovitz|title=Alexander Zemlinsky: A Lyric Symphony|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|year=2010|isbn=9781843835783}} *Wilker, Ulrich (2013), ''"Das Schönste ist scheußlich". Alexander Zemlinskys Operneinakter 'Der Zwerg'''. (= Schriften des Wissenschaftszentrums Arnold Schönberg, Bd. 9). Wien/Köln/Weimar: Böhlau. {{ISBN|978-3-205-79551-3}} *Zemlinsky, Alexander (von) (1995), ''Briefwechsel mit Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg und Franz Schreker'', ed. by Horst Weber (= Briefwechsel der Wiener Schule, Bd. 1). Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, {{ISBN|3-534-12508-8}} This volume includes letters by Schoenberg and Zemlinsky concerning their work on ''Die Seejungfrau'' and ''Pelleas and Melisande''.
==External links== {{Archival records|title=Alexander von Zemlinsky Collection|location= Library of Congress|description_URL= https://findingaids.loc.gov/exist_collections/ead3pdf/music/mu2005.wp.0043.pdf}} * {{Commonscat-inline}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Alexander von Zemlinsky}} * [http://www.zemlinsky.at/en/ Alexander Zemlinsky Foundation] * [http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/composers/article/alexander_zemlinsky/ The OREL Foundation: Alexander Zemlinsky's biography and links to bibliography, discography and media.] * [http://www.editionsilvertrust.com/zemlinsky-string-quartet-1.htm Alexander Zemlinsky String Quartet No. 1, Op. 4 Sound-bites and short biography] * {{IMSLP|id=Zemlinsky, Alexander von|cname=Alexander von Zemlinsky}}
{{Alexander von Zemlinsky}} {{Authority control}} {{Portal bar|Biography|Classical music}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zemlinsky, Alexander Von}} Category:Alexander von Zemlinsky Category:1871 births Category:1942 deaths Category:19th-century Austrian classical composers Category:19th-century Austrian male musicians Category:19th-century musicians Category:20th-century Austrian classical composers Category:20th-century Austrian male composers Category:Austrian Romantic composers Category:Austrian opera composers Category:Austrian people of Bosniak descent Category:Austrian people of Bosnia and Herzegovina-Jewish descent Category:Hungarian people of Slovak descent Category:Austrian Christians Category:Austrian Freemasons Category:Austrian Jews Category:Jewish classical composers Category:Austrian male opera composers Category:People from Leopoldstadt Category:Pupils of Franz Krenn Category:Pupils of Robert Fuchs Category:Pupils of Johann Nepomuk Fuchs Category:Deaths from pneumonia in New York (state) Category:Lieder composers Category:Alma Mahler