1, Liebe Schwalbe; Nr. 4, Ich geh' des Nachts; Nr. 5, Blaues Sternlein.--Op. 7: Nr. 2, Entbietung (Dehmel); Nr. 3, Meeraugen (Dehmel); Nr. 5, Sonntag (Wertheimer).--Op. 8: Nr. 1, Turmwachter (Jacobsen); Nr. 2, Und hat der Tag all' seine Qual (Jacobsen).--Op. 10: Nr. 4, Meine Braut fuhr ich heim (Jacobsen).--Op. 13: Nr. 2, Die Madchen mit den verbundenen Augen (Maeterlinck); Nr. 4, Als ihr Geliebter schied (Maeterlinck).--Op. 22: Nr. 3, Feiger Gedanken (Goethe); Nr. 4, Elfenlied (Goethe); Nr. 5, Volkslied (Morgenstern); Nr. 6, Auf dem Meere meiner Seele (Morgenstern).--Op. 27: Nr. 4, Jetzt ist die Zeit Kalidasa); Nr. 9, Afrikanischer Tanz (Hughes).  (less)

Apart from a few performances at that time, it was presumed lost. However, Fitiz Spiegel had the manuscript, and gave it to Peter Wallfisch, who put the almost undecipherable score in his shirt cupboard where it lay unplayed for several decades. Zemlinsky scholar Antony Beaumont has now edited the work, and cellists throughout the world have already been competing to perform this major discovery. Fittingly, in view of his family connection with the work, it is Raphael Wallfisch who presents the world premiere recording. Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942), brother-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg, is a composer whose time has come! The other Late Romantic composers included here, Goldmark and Korngold, are of equal ...  (less)

Simone and his wife Bianca, who discover their love only when Bianca goads her husband into killing her lover Guido Bardi, we are already confronted with the ‘femme fatale’ of Berg’s Lulu. Though a ‘chamber opera’ in its running time and small cast, this work is anything but a miniature: its rich orchestration and Wagnerian vocal writing cry out for a powerful, passionate reading, which is exactly what it gets in this tremendous live performance recorded by Radio France, conducted by one of Zemlinsky’s foremost champions, Armin Jordan, and featuring three singers with wide experience of the composer’s lush style.  (less)

The heady chromatic language of these pieces is emotional and immediately appealing. Conlon brings out the individual strands of the music while simultaneously evoking a plush, warm background of sound from his orchestra. Of the soloists, Soile Isokoski emerges as the star. Her clean diction, sure dramatic sense, and complete identification with Zemlinsky's idiom mean that one becomes immersed in the heady chromaticism of both Waldgespräch and the harmonically more advanced Maiblumen blühten überall . Both inhabit the same emotional world as Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (to accentuate the comparison, the accompaniment to Maiblumen is scored for string sextet). Although marginally less involving t...  (less)

Alexel Kornienko, piano  (less)