Alexander Zemlinsky wrote to his publisher in September 1922, "This summer I've written something along the lines of The Song of the Earth. I haven't got a name for it yet. It consists of seven related songs for baritone, soprano, and orchestra to be played without a break." After receiving the name Lyrische Symphonie, it was premiered under Zemlinsky in 1924 at the German Theater in Prague, where Zemlinsky had been the music director since 1911. The work sets seven poems by Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore that record the course of a love affair from conception to fulfillment and dissolution. The harmonic language is highly erotic, lushly decadent, and sometimes almost atonal. The melodies are extremely expressive and often intensely sensual. The orchestration is richly oriental and exquisitely colorful. Although clearly a work after The Song of the Earth, Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie is still an extremely affecting piece of post-fin de siècle passionate, sexual pessimism.

© James Leonard, All Music Guide