Search - LaSalle Quartet :: Zemlinsky: The String Quartets / Apostel: String Quartet No. 1

Rare Art from the LaSalle...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 08/10/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

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Alexander (von) Zemlinsky had a good central-European career, but died in anonymity during WW2 at NYC. (Schoenberg was then living in Hollywood, but had his hands full caring for his own family with young children.)



The story of Zemlinsky is by now better known: Schoenberg's only mentor and eventual brother-in-law. The unusual Viennese Z+S duo were regular callers at Mahler's house--(indeed, Alma had been a student of Zemlinsky, and for a brief time his lover [?]).



Zemlinsky's ethos is a cosmopolitian synthesis of Wagner, Brahms, Strauss, and Mahler. Much of his work until WW1 is in the vein of musical Art Nouveau or Jugenstil Anne Sofie von Otter - Mahler & Zemlinsky Lieder / Gardiner .



His later work between the Wars incorporates Modernistic tendencies--including American jazz elements; however, he was never a Serialist of Schoenberg's New Viennese School Zemlinsky - Eine florentinische Tragödie · Alma Mahler - Lieder / Vermillion · Dohmen · Kruse · Concertgebouw · Chailly ; Zemlinsky: Lyrische Symphonie; Symphonische Gesänge .



Zemlinsky apparently felt an affinity with Decadent Oscar Wilde, as he set several of Wilde's texts to music.



Fine set of his four string Quartets in superlative readings by the LaSalle from the late-'70s/early-'80s.



Special bonus rare Quartet [No. 1] by third generation New Schooler Hans Erich Apostel (1901-72)--who was a pupil of Schoenberg and Berg.

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