ICSM Online Journal > Reviews

Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony in London, 12 March 2009
Reviewed by Lloyd Moore
posted 1 April 2009

On paper at least, the second of the concerts in Esa-Pekka Salonen’s series ‘Vienna: City of Dreams 1900–1935’ with the Philharmonia Orchestra was one of the more interesting for the inclusion of the Lyric Symphony of Zemlinsky. This 45-minute, post-Romantic song-symphony for soprano, baritone and orchestra was primarily responsible for bringing this once-forgotten composer back into public awareness during the 1970s and ’80s, but it has been rather neglected in performance of late, certainly in this country (the purely orchestral symphonic poem Die Seejungfrau seems to have usurped its place in the repertoire).

Zemlinsky stated that the work was composed ‘along the lines’ of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde; but this sequence of songs for alternating male and female solo voices, separated by orchestral interludes, surely owes just as much, if not more, to Part 1 of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, the work which opened this series in grand style two weeks before (significantly, Zemlinsky conducted the Czech premiere of Schoenberg’s cantata in Prague in June 1921, less than a year before beginning work on his score). Set to texts by Rabindranath Tagore (in German translation), the Lyric Symphony, like the Schoenberg, traces the course of a doomed romance, from initial passion and desire, via conquest and fulfillment, to final despair and disillusion. Completed in 1923, it actually sounds as if it had been composed much earlier: of the newer styles then coming into vogue, the Neo-Classicism of Stravinsky, the Neue Sachlichkeit of Hindemith and Weill, the influence of jazz, not to mention Schoenbergian serialism (which caused a fundamental disagreement between the two composer-friends), there is no trace. Indeed, after this final hedonistic fling with the language and ethos of late Romanticism, Zemlinsky’s style changed dramatically, moving towards a leaner, harder-edged idiom apparent in such works as the Third String Quartet, Symphonische Gesänge and the Sinfonietta.

This performance, given to a disappointingly meagre audience at the Royal Festival Hall in London, was probably the first time that the Philharmonia had played the work (indeed, I cannot recall Zemlinsky ever featuring in their concert schedules before). Julian Johnson, in the (excellent) programme booklet for the series, describes Zemlinsky as possessing ‘one of the finest ears for orchestral sonority of any composer ever’. Listening to this performance, it was difficult to disagree with his hyperbole. The orchestra is, with typical fin-de-siècle generosity, an ample one, including four each of flutes and clarinets, as well as harp, harmonium and celesta. But, as a seasoned opera conductor, Zemlinsky is sensitive at all times to the audibility of his singers (an issue which Schoenberg in Gurrelieder does not always satisfactorily resolve) and potential problems of balance are almost completely by-passed. The Philharmonia responded to Zemlinsky’s full-blooded textures with evident relish but there was much fine and sensitive individual playing in the work’s quieter moments, too. The opening, with its startling (and structurally all-important) harmonic shift from F sharp minor to F minor, was majestic. At the other extreme, another highpoint was the still centre of the work, the soprano’s ravishing ‘Sprich zur mir, Geliebter’, with rapt solo violin against a hazy background of muted divisi strings while low contrabassoon and tuba evoke the darkness of the surrounding night. The baritone’s irruption in the following song, ‘Befrei mich’, cruelly dismissing the tenderness of the soprano’s loving entreaties, was almost shocking in its unforeseen violence.

It may, then, appear churlish to nit-pick but there was, at times, a lack of attention to detail that may have bothered those familiar with the finer points of the score: the swirling clarinets at the baritone’s first mention of the ‘keen call of thy flute’ (an important motivic statement), emphatically marked fortissimo against a piano in the rest of the orchestra, were virtually inaudible. At points during some of the more climactic orchestral passages, brass players are given the Mahlerian directive ‘Schalltrichter hoch’ (bells up). But these instructions were not observed and the lines consequently failed to cut through as the composer intended (for singular clarity of detail, I recommend to the reader the exemplary account of this work by Riccardo Chailly and the Concertgebouw Orchestra with Alessandra Marc and Håkan Hagegård on Decca). As for the singers, baritone Juha Uusitalo had a commanding physical presence but his approach was somewhat stolid and his voice occasionally strained. Soprano Solveig Kringelborn seemed to have a surer sense of the work’s emotional progression, moving convincingly from the naïve playfulness of her first song to the heartbroken anguish of her last.

The Zemlinsky was prefaced with Schoenberg’s early masterpiece Verklärte Nacht (which of course, strictly speaking, doesn’t belong in this series, having been composed in 1899). Originally conceived for string sextet, the composer’s later arrangement for string orchestra has always felt, to this listener at least, an awkward fit. It takes the work out of the intimacy of the chamber sphere and into the ambience of the large concert-hall to which it is, arguably, much less well suited. Unfortunately, this performance did little to alter my opinion. Not that the Philharmonia strings played badly – it was more a problem of Salonen’s interpretation: his swash-buckling platform manner is reflected in a certain proneness to exaggeration and ‘point-making’ that impede the flow of the whole. Fast tempi are often wildly fast (with resultant losses in audible detail and secure ensemble), while rallentandos can be so drawn out as to bring things to a virtual standstill. Consequently, this account came across as too diffuse and episodic to wholly convince and although the ‘transfigured’ ending was beautifully executed, one was left with the distinct feeling that we hadn’t properly earned it.

In spite of these qualifications, the Philharmonia’s ‘Vienna’ series has undoubtedly got off to an admirable start with this concert and the aforementioned performance of Gurrelieder a fortnight earlier. But now, Mahler and Berg are the only composers to be featured over the remaining four programmes. While no doubt reflecting Salonen’s belief, common with many of his generation, in the ‘historical inevitability’ of the modernist trajectory (reminiscent of Pierre Boulez’ programming with the BBC Symphony Orchestra nearly forty years ago), the opportunity to present the Vienna of this period as the diverse and pluralistic hot-bed of compositional talent it was (as Julian Johnson rightly maintains in the programme book), has sadly been missed.

back to top