Zemlinsky - Hardcover

Antony Beaumont

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 057116983X ISBN 13: 9780571169832

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2000

Synopsis

Antony Beaumont has written a penetrating study of the composer and conductor Alexander Zemlinsky (1871-1942). 'Zemlinsky - all hail to you!', wrote the young Alma Mahler-Werfel, 'All hail to you and your art.' When she first met him, Zemlinsky was regarded as the most promising Viennese composer of his generation. Only long after his death, however, did his music begin to receive the attention it deserves. Founded on years of research in Europe and the USA, this is the first full-length biography of a key figure in the history of twentieth-century music. Apart from analyses of every major work - almost all of which are now available on CD - the author gives a detailed account of the composer's early years as a protege of Brahms and Mahler, of his complex friendship with Schoenberg, his kindly and helpful attitude towards the hypersensitive Webern and his heartfelt friendship with Berg. He also outlines Zemlinsky's career as a conductor, whom both Schoenberg and Stravinsky considered the finest they ever heard.

About this title

About the Author:

Antony Beaumont was born in London and studied at King's College, Cambridge. He now lives in Germany where he is active as a conductor, lecturer, and freelance musicologist. In 1992, Beaumont was commissioned by the Hamburg State Opera to complete the orchestration of Zemlinsky's last opera, Der K nig Kandaules. Premi red in 1996, the work has since been staged by several other opera companies, recorded and televised. Beaumont has also edited and (where necessary) reconstructed several other major works from the composer's posthumous papers at the Library of Congress.Antony Beaumont is author of Busoni the Composer (Faber, 1985). He co-edited (with Susanne Rode-Breymann) Alma Mahler-Werfel's Diaries 1898-1902, his English translation of which was published to great acclaim by Faber in 1998.

Review:

"A valuable and often interesting book."

(American Record Guide)

"Born in 1871, Alexander Zemlinsky, a protege of Brahms and Mahler, was regarded as the most promising Viennese composer of his generation... This carefully documented book belongs in every music library and will be of interest to anyone who wishes to explore the social and cultural milieu that disappeared with the triumph of Hitler's Reich."

(Choice)

"This is a ground-breaking work, important not only for the wealth of information that it provides about its subject, but also for its unflinchingly honest account of the complexities of cultural life in Central Europe between the 1870s and the Second World War... 'My time will come after my death', Zemlinsky had said. For half a century, his prediction rang no truer than similar ones made by a thousand... geniuses; over the past decade, however, it has begun to sound prophetic. Antony Beaumont's fascinating book goes a long way towards explaining why this is so, and it has the added virture of making one want to discover as soon as possible all of Zemlinsky's works that one hasn't already heard."

(Harvey Sachs Times Literary Supplement)

"Zemlinsky was one of the most significant composers and conductors of his age and must be considered one of Austria's leading twentieth-century opera composers. We are now in a position to re-create the cultural world of early twentieth-century central Europe in all its rich diversity and in doing so we are better able to understand and place in context the legacy of its better-known modernists. Antony Beaumont is thoroughly acquainted with the period, its sources, and personalities and his book is a treasure trove of new information. Beaumont's book will certainly remain the standard work on Zemlinsky for years to come. What is more, it sets standards for how such a biography should be done."

(Christopher Hailey, director of the Franz Schreker Foundation, and author of Franz Schreker: A Cultural Biography)

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 057116983X
• ISBN 13: 9780571169832
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 524