One foot with the romantics.... the other foot into the futuro..notwithstanding
Bob Crosby and his bobcats...trading on brother Bing’s crooning but
making it on his own, neighbor.
II
Stan Kenton into the Hollywood Hills Horace Heidt in the Valley Charley
Parker&Dizzy Gillespie @Billy Berg’s in Hollywood.
Elmer Bernstein based in Ojai..David Raksin (“Laura”, (Subject is film music, Kusc)
waiting on Charlie Chaplin “Modern Times” at the Glendale train depot.
Rachmaninoff in Beverly Hills, Stravinsky on North Wetherly Drive Schoenberg(
in Brentwood, Erich Wolfgang Korngold at Warners.
Not a big souled composer like Shostakovich.... but into chamber music. The lyrical
measures grooving iuto a fourth movement that takes the string players breathe away.
.”His name? “
Alexander von Zemlinsky ..Remember the name, neighbor....
45 minutes of the sublime:transporting the players into the ultimate nirvana...
Violins viola cello string quartet into a twinkling star lit galaxy.
III
But then the Viennese born contemporary of Alma Mahler, the 12 tone atonal
giant Arnold Schoenberg... his disciples Alban Berg Anton von Webern..
Gustav Mahler himself, neighbor.
The dissonance of “Wozzeck” and “Lulu” operas by acolyte Alban Berg, the Viennese ears hadn’t been attuned to since Beethovan broke the ice, shattering any Haydn Mozart classical
harmonies.
The subterfuges and hanky panky aroused a suicide Schnoenberg’s
frau, and a pianist, who when discovered by the 12 tone pioneer committed
hari kari...
But our Alexander von Zemlinsky stayed clear of such George Kaufman Mary Astor alliances, keeping his nose clean, avoiding any extramarital sandbagging.
His “aging isn’t for sissies” into the Big Apple and Larchmont.(sounds a lot like Mozart’s
DaPonte, Mozart’s librettist ( “Cosi Fan Tutte” “Don Giovanni” “Marriage of Figaro”)
teaching Romantic Languages at Columbia, owning a grocery store..
”A nickel a pickle, neighbor”.
In the long run the architecture with its counterpoint And modular key changes
comes before the femme fatale, doesn’t it neighbor even in those Freudian like
inner circles..
If Ludwig didn’t succumb to self pity or sensuality,, why should our Alexander von Zemlinsky.....
How else could his legacy be characterized as “sublime” by a string player:...
.the Escher quartet’s chamber music.. ....
IV
On hearing his “Mermaid” from Hans Christian Anderson’s own imaginary
data base(Danny Kaye&Sam Goldwyn) and information highway’s (Grimm
brothers... Aesop fairy tales) any sensibility would recognize the “sublime”
playing out.
“Wouldn’t they neighbor?”
The Big Apple, January 20,2011.........”Nixon in China” in futuro...
