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| | Alexander Zemlinsky (1872-1942)
composer & Alma´s composition tutor and lover
The Austrian composer, who in recent years has come back into fashion, was Alma Schindler´s composition tutor from 1897 onwards. Under his guidance, the musically gifted young woman composed a whole number of songs after poems by Rilke, Heine and others. Zemlinsky was a teacher without parallel; he taught Arnold Schönberg too, with whom he was also friends. After Gustav Klimt had stolen a first kiss from Alma in Genua, Zemlinsky became his successor in Alma´s heart. She allowed him to kiss and caress her, permitting him every intimacy but the ultimate, thereby almost driving him to madness. For his part, he knew how to arose Alma´s wakening sexuality with a passion which allowed her never to forget his »virtuoso hands«. The relationship was an emotional roller-coaster, and Alma tortured Zemlinsky for two years until, in 1902, she decided against him and in favour of marriage to Gustav Mahler, who was twenty years her senior.
| |  | | Alexander Zemlinsky | | | | | | | Zemlinsky's song Symphony "Lyric Suite " is a reflection on the unfortunate love for Alma. Zemlinsky was inspired to it by Gustav Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde", but refused letting his work premiered together with Mahler's unfinished 10th Symphony which was Mahler's reaction to Alma's love affair with the architect Walter Gropius. | | |
