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It’s thought that a failed love affair led to the creation of Zemlinsky’s ‘The Little Mermaid’. The composer fell in love with Alma Schindler, who rejected him after two years to marry Gustav Mahler instead.

The composer connected with the tale by Hans Christian Andersen, in which a mermaid falls in love with a prince after saving him from drowning. In exchange for her voice, the mermaid becomes human to try to marry the prince, but he marries another. To save her own life, she must kill the prince but refuses to do so.

Zemlinsky’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ is in three movements, roughly reflecting moments in Andersen’s tale. Listen out for the depiction of the depth of the ocean at the very beginning of the piece, in which the composer uses the lower instruments of the orchestra, the ball at the mer-king’s palace in the second movement, and the sorrow of the mermaid in the final movement.

This performance took place at Â鶹ԼÅÄ Hoddinott Hall in 2017 with conductor Xian Zhang.