Erich Zeisl

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Erich Zeisl

Erich Zeisl (born May 18, 1905 in Vienna , † February 18, 1959 in Los Angeles , California , United States ) was an Austrian composer and music teacher of Jewish origin.

life and work

Born as the son of the Viennese coffee house owner Sigmund Zeisl (Cafés Tegetthoff at Heinestrasse 42), he received private music lessons at the age of 14 despite his parents' initial resistance to his musical inclinations. In 1919 he began his training at the Vienna Music Academy , which he graduated in 1932. His teachers here were Joseph Marx and Hugo Kauder . Zeisl began to compose during his studies. Between 1922 and 1929 he wrote 26 songs, three piano trios, a suite for violin and piano, a piano suite, a song for baritone and orchestra, the orchestral suite for the ballet Pierrot in a bottle and the one-act opera Die Sünde . Zeisl's songs are in the tradition of Beethoven , Schubert and Hugo Wolf .

After completing his training, he initially worked as a piano teacher. At the same time he composed; first successes as a composer were however a long time coming. After Austria was " annexed " to the German Reich , all performances of Zeisl's works were canceled, he was declared a " full Jew " and some family members were arrested by the Gestapo . In 1938 Zeisl emigrated to Paris . In September 1939 Zeisl settled in the USA (see Hans Kafka and Erich Zeisl ). In Hollywood he wrote several commissioned works for film productions; however, he was denied success as a composer. He therefore took on various positions as a music teacher, first at the Southern California Music School and later at City College in Los Angeles .

His suite for piano trio op. 8, composed between 1923 and 1924, extends to the trio for flute, viola and harp, which he wrote two years before his death. It is noticeable that the composer only went through little compositional development. At most, in the late work, which also includes String Quartet No. 2 (1952/53), there is an increased interest in contrapuntal. His works bear testimony to a skilled craftsmanship and it is the completely independent, often melancholy-resigned tone that gives them independence.

His compositional work mainly includes songs , which number in the hundreds, ballets , chamber music as well as choral music and operas . In the further development of the art song , he saw himself primarily in the tradition of Beethoven , Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf . The best known interpreters of his songs are Hans Duhan , Alexander Kipnis and Tatiana Menotti .

A published on the occasion of Zeisl 2005 biography foreign I moved from Karin Wagner sheds light on his life and work.

Works

  • Songs
    • Love song
    • Moon pictures (texts: Christian Morgenstern )
    • Harlemer Nachtlied for soprano, tenor and choir
  • Ballets
    • Pierrot in the bottle
  • Uranium 235
  • Naboth's vineyard
  • Jacob and Rachel
  • Piano Concerto in C major
  • Choirs
    • Africa sings
  • Requiem Concertante
  • Requiem Ebraico (Psalm 92)
  • Scherzo and fugue for string orchestra
  • Passacaglia Fantasy for Orchestra
  • Small symphony based on pictures by Roswitha Bitterlich
  • Operas
    • Leonce and Lena
    • Job (unfinished)
  • String Quartet No. 2 in D minor
  • Sonatas
    • Brandeis Sonata for violin
    • Sonata for Viola and Piano, A minor (1950)
    • Sonata for cello and piano
    • Trio for flute, viola and harp

In the “Zeisl year” 2005, cpo released a CD with 28 songs (Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone / Cord Garben, piano) and a CD with 25 songs (Adrian Eröd, baritone / Eva Mark-Mühlher) on Austrian radio (ORF CD 419) , Piano). In 2007 cpo released a recording of Zeisl's Piano Concerto in C major and the suite from the Ballet Pierrot in a bottle . In 2013, Yarlung released a recording of the Small Symphony (UCLA Philharmonia / Neal Stulberg).

documentary

  • Eric (h) Zeisl - An Unfinished Life , Austria 2012/13, Director: Herbert Krill

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Note: Sigmund Zeisl was born in Vienna in 1871 and died in 1942 in the Treblinka concentration camp 0. yadvashem.org: SIEGMUND ZEISL
  2. ↑ Malcolm S. Cole and Barbara M. Barclay: Armseelchen - The Life and Music of Eric Zeisl , Greenwood Press, 1984, pp. 3-11.
  3. ↑ Karin Wagner: "My distress is over and all my torment" - Erich Zeisl's setting of Alfons Petzold's "The Dead Worker". In Judith Beniston, Geoffrey Chew and Robert Vilain (Eds.): Words and Music , The Modern Humanities Research Association, 2010, p. 133.
  4. ^ Daniel Fromme: The reception of Job in the music of the 20th century - On the musicalization of suffering , LIT, Berlin, 2016, ISBN 978-3643132642 , p. 491
  5. ↑ Eric Zeisl / Austrian-American Composer on zeisl.com .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Zeisl, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian composer and music teacher
DATE OF BIRTH May 18, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 1959
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States