Description
Zeisl's music manuscripts, published scores, correspondence, documents, recordings, and other materials.
Background
Zeisl was born in Vienna on May 18, 1905. A student of Richard Stöhr, Joseph Marx and Hugo Kauder, Zeisl achieved early recognition,
publishing his first songs at the age of 16 and winning the Austrian State Prize in 1934 for the Requiem concertante (1933-1934).
He was compelled to leave Austria and went first to Paris (1938) and then to the USA (1939). He moved from New York to Hollywood
to work for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1941), then settled in Los Angeles and became professor of theory and composition at Los
Angeles City College in 1949. His gifts for melody, orchestration and dramatic expression were first developed in the songs
of his Austrian years. Evident in his other Austrian compositions are the variation techniques and contrapuntal textures that
would become lifelong preoccupations. In the USA, where he produced roughly half of his output, he abandoned song in order
to devote more attention to instrumental pieces, sacred music and especially dramatic works, which powerfully express his
Jewish heritage. Throughout his career he derived his large forms principally from those of the Baroque and Classical periods,
but after his emigration earlier Austro-German Romantic elements were replaced by a combination of soaring, cantillation-like
melodies, modal harmonies, metric shifts, flexible rhythmic patterns and dark orchestral colours. Zeisl died in Los Angeles
on Feb. 18, 1959.
Restrictions
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.