Alexander von Zemlinsky

Origins and early life

Alexander von Zemlinsky was born on 14 October 1871 in Vienna, into one of the strangest genealogies of this directory, and this fiche lays it out plainly: his father converted to Judaism, the family belonged to Vienna's Sephardi community, and his mother's father was a Sephardi Jew of Sarajevo, born Jewish — the documented grandparent by which Zemlinsky, who himself later converted to Protestantism, figures here.

Work and career

Raised in the synagogue community, he became one of the essential musicians of fin-de-siècle Vienna: composer of the Lyric Symphony and of operas of burning refinement, he was the only formal teacher Arnold Schoenberg ever had, and became his brother-in-law when Schoenberg married his sister Mathilde. Brahms encouraged his beginnings; Mahler conducted his work. For sixteen years he led the German opera in Prague, then worked at Berlin's Kroll Opera under Klemperer, and the modern repertoire owed much to his conducting.

The Anschluss drove him into exile in 1938, and he died in Larchmont, New York, on 15 March 1942, half forgotten — a neglect posterity has been repairing ever since.