Death Island and a tragedy in Florence

Meditations on adultery and death

Shortly after his death in 1942, Alexander von Zemlinsky, who fled to the United States from the Nazi regime, fell into oblivion. His brooding tonal works were overwritten by the postwar avant-garde. Until 1977 when, precisely, Eine florentische Tragödie was performed again. The one-act based on a play by Oscar Wilde about the Florentine merchant Simone who catches his wife with Prince Guido marked Zemlinsky's resurrection, but was then itself rarely performed.

Bittersweet

Now Eine florentische Tragödie finds a concertante place as the closing piece of a program that begins turbulently with Brahms' Tragische Ouvertüre and Rachmaninoff's romp with the Dies Irae theme in his Island of the Dead. The five-part time signature of this work is said to be based on the rowing rhythm of Charon crossing the Styx. Despite all the tragedy, Ein florentische Tragödie ends beautifully bittersweet.