Alexander von Zemlinsky
Lyrische Symphonie

A wonderful musical transformation of love in all its forms. A love that changes shape and color like a cloud in the mouth of the wind at sunset. This is what the "Lyric Symphony" by Alexander Zemlinsky is, first of all. An immense fresco of notes and orchestral colors, of mysticism, emotional tension, and dreamy surrender. A world where singing and music merge in perfect communion, like the pleasure of two bodies undressing or two souls listening to each other, reflecting one in the other. A beautiful cycle of orchestral songs for soprano, baritone, and orchestra, with lyrics full of lyricism and sensuality by the great poet Rabindranath Tagore.

"Ich bin friedlos", I am restless. It is with these words that the symphony opens its curtain to the most hidden landscapes of the soul and desire. The baritone intones his impulse towards transcendence in a song full of tension like a horizon heavy with clouds. Tension that sublimates in fierce orchestral colors, in a continuous emotional and musical whirlwind, with the dark and bright colors of timpani, violins, and brass and the sharp notes of a flute that calls to that "thirst for distant things" that no closeness can heal. The emotional tension softens into a mischievous innocence in the second piece "Mutter, der junge Prinz", where the soprano celebrates in an ethereal and dreamy way her longing for love for the young prince, who will pass with his carriage under the young woman's windows. A song at times ecstatic and sensual, at times ironic and disenchanted, but which suddenly grows in a terrifying orchestral "fortissimo". Something that breaks inside and can no longer be contained. It's as if the dams of the soul were breaking and the singers' words fade into the silence of a kiss, with the orchestra angrily unleashing waves of sound to cover the sensuality of this silence.

The atmosphere further transfigures in "Du bist die Abendwolke", where the musical landscape softens into mystical and fragrant tones like incense, where the eroticism is painted by the sensual timbre of the English horn, while the baritone passionately intones: You are the evening cloud that wanders in the sky of my dreams. An erotic and soothing song, opulently refined like a garden overflowing with palms, ferns, water lilies, lotus flowers. A song with the intense colors of a sunset, which preludes to the nocturnal climate of the fourth lied of the cycle, "Sprich zu mir, Geliebter". The atmosphere here is rarefied, spectral at times, with the violin acting as an alter-ego to the soprano in a sensual dialogue with oneself, even before with the other. "Speak to me, my love", and the trembling invocation of the soprano rises to the sky almost like a prayer, a plea, only to fade bitterly at the end: The day will come and we will look into each other’s eyes, before each follows their path. To the ecstatic calm of this lied, strongly opposes "Befrei' mich von den Banden", where on a carpet of timpani and trumpets, the baritone proclaims Free me from the bonds of your sweetness, and let me offer you my heart of a man set free. The shortest, most angry, violent song, like a vortex dragging towards the abyss of the end of love. And so it is, in the sixth piece, "Vollende denn das letzte Lied", the soprano’s response is icy, and the music sinks like passion towards those abysses where there is no longer any light to warm you.

The symphony closes in an atmosphere of serene acceptance, but not without shivers of sensuality, with "Friede, mein Herz". It's as if, after such a storm of emotions, the sky of the soul opens up with celestial colors, and rays of light filter through clouds that chase each other swiftly like memories on the thread of thought. Let love merge with memory and pain become song. And the memory and love continue in a long and vibrant orchestral tail, without more words.