Vienna, 1905 – 1959, Los Angeles
Erich Zeisl was born in a Jewish family of amateur musicians in the Second District of Vienna where his father ran the Café Tegetthof near the North Train station, the arrival point of visitors and immigrants from Austria’s northern and eastern provinces. His first teachers at the Music Academy (today’s mdw) were Richard Stöhr who later wrote that Zeisl was his most talented Viennese pupil. From Stöhr, Zeisl moved to Joseph Marx but finally found his true mentor with Hugo Kauder. Because of his age, Zeisl missed the opportunity of making a career in neighbouring Germany, the only viable market for Austrian composers after 1918. In 1933, the year Hitler became German Chancellor, Zeisl was only 28 years old. Nevertheless, his reputation in Austria grew and shortly before the annexation of Austria, he was already well-established with the opening of his opera Leonce und Lena being thwarted by Hitler’s arrival. Exile for Zeisl and his wife Gertrud née Jellinek was initially Paris where similarly to Arnold Schoenberg, he began to identify as a Jew and incorporate this identity into his music. After contacting every “Zeisl” or “Zeisel” in the American phonebook, affidavits were acquired so that the Zeisls moved to New York where he enjoyed almost instant success leading to an invitation to write film scores in Hollywood. Upon arrival, he found his life dominated with hack work filling in and orchestrating scores by already established film studio composers. As soon as the war was over, Zeisl left Hollywood and embarked on developing his own musical language, a synthesis of old- and new-worlds incorporating harmonic and modal Jewish characteristics. Zeisl’s daughter Barbara, born after their arrival in New York, would go on to marry the son of Arnold Schoenberg, a wedding that took place after both composers had passed away.
