Summary: Placing composers in the context of their contemporaries often helps us to understand their music, and sometimes to trace how new compositional ideas spread. In this Mahler Anniversary Season pre-concert talk, Surrey University Lecturer Jeremy Barham looks at the relationship between Zemlinsky and Mahler, building up a picture of life in early 20th century Vienna and their competition for the same woman, then focussing on the musical links and differences between Mahler's compositions and the 'mystical evocation of human love' of Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony.
