Text/music relationships in five posthumous songs by Alexander Zemlinsky

Abstract

This study centers on a 1907 collection of art songs for voice and piano composed by Alexander Zemlinsky. Although his small cycle of five songs was not published during the composer's lifetime and has not been given the scholarly attention that other pieces in his oeuvre have, it is well crafted and carries a high degree of expressive and emotional weight. The cycle sets the poetry of Richard Dehmel; a contemporary of Zemlinsky and the inspiration behind works of Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Richard Strauss as well. In these 1905 settings Zemlinsky experiments with an extremely chromatic language while exploring themes of love and betrayal in the poetry of Dehmel. This study examines this chromatic style and how it relates to the themes in the text. Through the detailed analysis of each of the songs the reader will see how, in spite of the free succession of harmonies that often obscure the tonal orientation, a central underlying tonic/dominant relationship is at the core of each song except the first. In this manner the songs display a subtle yet powerful exploitation of tonal ambiguity that brings out many of the nuances of Dehmel's poems.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306