ALEXANDER ZEMLINSKY: LYRIC SYMPHONY

While Alexander Zemlinsky was strongly linked to the Second Viennese School as a teacher of Berg and strong supporter of modern music, his own compositions’ style seems to neatly combine Romantic compositional styles with a spattering of modern tendencies. Despite Zemlinsky’s strong support of modern music, it seems that he had a fondness for composing his own pieces with mainly techniques that had been popular in the late Romantic. Zemlinsky wrote his Lyric Symphony during his time in Prague, and it is considered one of his “finest works” (Grove Music Online s.v. “Zemlinsky”). The symphony is composed of seven sections with operatic lyrics for two soloists based on the poems of Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian author. Characteristics of Romantic compositions, such as exoticism, large ensemble, and use of literature as a basis for music may be clearly traced in this symphony. However, Zemlinsky also uses more modern techniques, such as lack of strong pulse along with altered scales that contribute to a vague tonal center. In addition, his expression of intense and sometimes frightening human emotion through music reflects a modern trend to show humanity as it truly functions. This piece depicts the transition between Romantic and modern, as Zemlinsky himself was transitioning.[1] It is an enjoyable piece for both listening and analyzing, and there is no reason for its exclusion from the Canon other than it was looking back to the Romantic. Most of the modern works in the Canon are there because they exemplify a particular technique developed in the period, and this piece simply is a beautiful continuation of techniques that were been used before.

The first movement begins with a slow but intense instrumental introduction featuring the full ensemble with timpani playing sustained, forte chords in dotted rhythms. This introduction sounds much like Mahler, who expanded the size of the orchestra in the Romantic and wrote intense, brooding themes such as these. The movement calms beginning with a second section that sounds more like a chamber group, during which the baritone begins to sing. His stanzas are interrupted by large orchestral sections, but despite the interjecting nature of the orchestral parts, the instruments often reflect the lyrics. The baritone’s words, “Oh the keen call of thy flute,” are accompanied by a flute struggling to be heard over the heavy brass texture. This flute theme reappears in the second movement as a plaintive flute melody enters the orchestration as the soprano realizes that her love will leave her, so she sings that “only the vanishing strain of the flute will come sobbing to me from afar.” This mirroring of the text also calls the listener to remember techniques of text painting from works of earlier periods.

Color plays a central role in this symphony, as the texts of Tagore are reflected in the music. The lyrics are full of references to red and blue linked to exotic themes like chariots, face veils, and rubies. Movements that contain reds (II., III., V.) tend to be louder and full of rhythmic themes in the brasses or full string sections. In the second movement, exoticism is emphasized through the use of a harmonic minor melody in the brass counter to the soprano as she sings of a ruby she tosses to the ground. Tagore’s lyrics in conjunction with the melodic content of this section clearly bring to mind the Indian ethnicity. The “blue” movement (IV.) has a sparser orchestral part, often featuring winds or solo strings on a flowing melody. The violin executes a particularly haunting solo in this section. Movements I. and VII. deal mainly with light, but since daylight is closely associated with a blue sky (which is actually mentioned in I.), these may also be grouped as blue movements, thus closing the piece with a serene aesthetic. The first movement begins with a prelude that seems musically more “red” than “blue” because of the strong brass sections. However, the lyrical melodies that take over the rhythmic introduction firmly establish the symphony in this milder “blue” style. These two movements thus frame a passionate symphony of reds with quieter moments for reflection.

Movement VI. deserves its own discussion in reference to color since it has no colorful mention in its lyrics. Color’s conspicuous absence along with scant instrumentation again reflects the feelings and words of the soloist: “My eager hands press emptiness to my heart and it bruises my breast.” The soprano’s lyrics are framed by a solo clarinet, erupting from the still orchestra in an upward run in the beginning and falling back down in a more lyrical phrase to set up the final movement. This contrast between limited orchestration and bursts of intense yearning perfectly emulates the emptiness the soprano is trying to possess and the intensity of feeling that bruises her. While no color is specifically mentioned, this juxtaposition seems to combine aspects of the other movements, perhaps making the section about “emptiness” the fullest moment of the piece.

Thus far, it seems that Zemlinsky was simply living in the past, neglecting more modern techniques. However, this is not the case. It is through the discussion of dreams[2] that his modernity begins to become evident. The baritone soloist first mentions the topic of dreams in the third movement: “You are my own, my own, Dweller in my deathless dreams” (emphasis added). This line, tenderly wrapped within the orchestral texture, leads to the fourth movement, in which a dream-like aesthetic is evoked through the free rhythm of the violin soloist. The steady pulse that had pervaded the symphony suddenly disappears into a Debussian atmosphere. The colorless sixth movement again mentions dreams which “can never be made captive.” All of these dream statements culminate in the final movement, in which the baritone asserts, “Let it not be death, but completeness.”[3] Here the instrumentation is again limited with a distant horn call sounding before the symphony concludes with a whole-tone melody. This use of the whole-tone scale is used to represent the dream state of the soloists, as they have no beginning or end, just like the deathless dream. While these may be stretched to fit the definition of modern, it is really the passion of the “red” movements that reflects the psychological trends of modern composers; raw human emotion is shown bluntly within love scenes without fear of showing the darker side of human nature.

While it is clear that Zemlinsky drew perhaps more heavily from composers of the past than from techniques of his own time, this influence does not diminish the beauty of his Lyric Symphony. His lyricism paired with powerful climaxes yields a beautiful piece of music that is perhaps best described as a transition between Romanticism and Modernism (though much more influence is to be found on the Romantic side). In addition, the interweaving of Tagore’s text and Zemlinsky’s music is breathtaking. This work has certainly been overlooked and deserves some Canonic attention despite its strong attachment to ideas of Romanticism during the Modern era. Its forthright passion is enough to link it to modern psychology, and Zemlinsky’s understanding of Romantic forms and techniques combined with this created an outstanding symphony.

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[1]Zemlinsky’s early works, such as Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, op. 3 are heavily reminiscent of Brahms, using few, if any, “Modern” techniques.

[2]Sigmund Freud published many fascinating papers concerning dreams in the years prior to the composition of this piece. The essay “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming” (1908) is strikingly similar to the use of dreams in this work.

[3]This statement seems to reflect Strauss and Wagner’s theme of death and transfiguration.