Zemlinsky's Die Seejungfrau ("The mermaid") is a three-movement symphonic fantasy based on the Hans Andersen story. It was first performed (under the composer's direction) in 1905, and is thus a good deal earlier than the works that have recently excited renewed interest in him—the oneact operas Eine florentinische TragOdie (1916) and Der Zwerg (1921), and the exquisite Lyric Symphony of 1922. In its masterly handling of a large orchestra, however, and of an episodic but firm structure, it is a far from immature piece. Zemlinsky was 34 when he wrote it, after all. If his list of works were not in such a terrible mess—many are unpublished; several, including the present work, were until recently thought to be lost—Die Seejungfrau would count as his Op. 30 or thereabouts.

During the four years that separated Alexander Zemlinsky's Symphony in D minor and the premiere of the Symphony in B flat major (his first two efforts in the genre, aside from an incomplete work penned during his student years), the young composer had caught the eye and the fancy of the Viennese musical world. "The work's fresh, original ideas and genuinely exalted, youthful fire made a great impression on the audience and unleashed an intense salvo of applause," wrote one critic in response to the 1896 premiere of Zemlinsky's Waldegespräch (for soprano and chamber ensemble). These years also saw Zemlinsky winning two prestigious awards, the Luitpold Prize and the Beethoven Prize. His compositional skills had been refined during the mid 1890s as well. The Suite for Orchestra from 1895, for example, gave Zemlinsky an opportunity to create more adventurous orchestral colors than had been found in the admirable but conservative D minor Symphony. Thus, when one compares the B flat Symphony to his earlier symphonic effort, one notices that, while the same amalgamation of influences and styles is represented, more of the composer's own voice comes through – prompting one observer to suggest two different ways of looking at the work: "either as Zemlinsky's last early work or his first mature one."

This fine CD is a thoughtful and very generous combination of three late-Romantic pieces: one well known (the Brahms), one less known (the Zemlinsky), and one (the Rabl) that appears to have its first ever recording here. All three pieces are served admirably by this remarkable ensemble, and also by sensitive high-quality engineering. While all three are excellent, I agree with the last reviewer that the Rabl stands out from the other two.

Daishin Kashimoto, Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Zvi Plesser and Éric Le Sage, who have been close musical partners for years, joined forces once again at the Salon de Provence Chamber Music Festival to record this programme devoted to Viennese composers of the early twentieth century. The most famous and innovative of these are represented: Schoenberg with his Kammersymphonie no.1, Mahler with two lieder transcribed for flute and piano, Zemlinsky’s Clarinet Trio and several pieces by Berg. A disc that encapsulates both the exhaustion of a bygone Romantic age and the avant-garde promises of a modern world still to be built…

This concert is Renee Fleming's very personal homage to 'Fin de Siecle' Vienna. At the turn of the last century, the capital of the Austrian Empire was also one of the cultural centers for the fi ne arts and, in particular, for music. The city of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, a 'melting pot' of cultures and musical traditions, attracted gifted musicians and composers alike and provided the perfect soil for much of the greatest music of that time. With this selection of works by Hugo Wolf (1860 -1903) and Gustav Mahler (1860 -1911), combined with more progressive songs by Alexander Zemlinsky (1871 - 1942), Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 - 1957), Renee Fleming presents to us the full variety of this unique epoch. The venue of her recital with Maciej Pikulski at the piano is, of course, the Golden Hall of the Musikverein Vienna.

On her PENTATONE debut Reine de coeur, star soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller brings the German and French art song traditions together, focusing on song cycles by Robert Schumann, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Francis Poulenc, accompanied by pianist Juliane Ruf. The album presents a highly personal anthology of songs that address love and loss, and the heights and depths of the human soul. While Schumann’s Sechs Gesänge Op. 107 and Sechs Gedichte und Requiem Op. 90 offer the quintessence of the Romantic German Lied, Zemlinsky’s turn-of-the-century Walzer-Gesänge introduce the listener to a later and less well-known chapter in the genre’s history.

Zemlinsky’s Florentine Tragedy is a disturbing, shocking piece, but to make its fullest impact it also needs to sound ravishingly beautiful. As the wealthy merchant Simone shows Count Bardi (his wife’s lover, as he already suspects) a robe of silver damask so exquisitely wrought with roses “that they lack perfume only to cheat the wanton sense” or, later, describes to him another of Venetian cut velvet patterned with pomegranates each seed of which is a pearl, we should almost be able to see these marvels. Zemlinsky’s sumptuous scoring at these points urgently needs, in short, an orchestra of the Royal Concertgebouw’s stature, and in this reading they sound quite magnificent.