Orf Vrso/Malkki/Albrecht - Alexander Zemlinsky: Sinfonietta, op. 23, Six Maeterlinck-Songs Op. 13, K�nig Kandaules

�I just heard your wonderful Sinfonietta: hope this is the beginning of your American success,� wrote Arnold Sch�nberg to Zemlinsky. But Zemlinsky was already suffering from the effects of a stroke and died alone in New York just a few days later. In his Sinfonietta, Op. 24 (1934) he reused a short theme from the last of his Maeterlinck-Songs, Op. 13 (1913), �Wohin gehst Du?� (Where are you going?), a theme of �self-doubts� and �farewell� from a time when Zemlinsky was beginning to observe growing anti-Jewish sentiments in Vienna. The Maeterlinck-Songs were praised as �the center of his output� by Theodor Adorno, and transport the listener to a mystic world concerned with life, evanescence and death.