Zemlinsky was a Bruckner pupil, encouraged by Brahms, admired by Mahler (whom Alma married after a passionate fling with Zemlinsky, her composition teacher), a close friend of Schoenberg (who married Zemlinsky’s sister), one of the most interesting opera composers of his age, and an outstanding conductor who devoted much of his energy to promoting new music. Zemlinsky was forced to flee Vienna by the Nazis, and in 1939, shortly after arriving in New York, he composed the Humoreske, subtitling it a Rondo and describing it as a ‘Schulstück’ (literally a ‘school piece’) for wind quintet. Hans Heinsheimer, an old acquaintance and fellow refugee who had worked for Universal Edition in Vienna, asked the composer to write a piece for a series of newly-composed works for younger players that he wanted to publish. Despite increasingly precarious health, Zemlinsky completed the piece, and the result is a charming work lasting just over four minutes. It was to be one of the last things Zemlinsky wrote: just after finishing it he suffered a massive stroke and moved to Larchmont, where he died in a nursing home three years later.

Nigel Simeone © 2010

A musical joke full of skips and hops! Alexander Zemlinsky was an Austrian composer who loved drama and fairy tales, and this piece is like a mischievous character darting around, surprising us with funny twists.  Who might they be? How are they moving? What do they look like and what, most importantly, are they up to?