POIGNANT BEAUTY

'The performances are warm and sympathetic, making a good case for this composer's wider recognition.'

The orchestral songs of Zemlinsky -
with PATRIC STANDFORD

Like Mahler, who did not emerge from the Viennese shadows until the late 50s, Zemlinsky has remained too long in the shade, eclipsed by the far more flamboyant Richard Strauss and then later by that trio of composers, more analysed than loved, whose appeal to the academic mind has lent a harsh image to the Second Viennese School, its influential flotsam -- and our musical academe. The sad consolation of any era is that the neglected are often far more worthy to be celebrated than some of those whom history and idle research places upon the very pedestals that cast these long dark shadows. But Zemlinsky rises up, and European recordings are steadily making us aware of his rich output which includes ten operas, four symphonies (among which the Lyric Symphony of 1923 shines out), and four string quartets. His songs also, like those of Mahler, Wolf and Strauss, visit regions of extreme and poignant beauty, and yet, closer to Schoenberg, explore gently the progressive atmosphere of their time.

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