Die Seejungfrau

[1] Die Seejungfrau was, in part, an expression of the heartbreak and sense of rejection that Zemlinsky felt as a result.

[2] The work was first performed on 25 January 1905 at the Musikverein in Vienna with the Wiener Konzertverein Orchester conducted by the composer in a concert that also included the premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande.

[3] These were eventually deposited, along with the rest of Zemlinsky's manuscripts, with the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.[2] For many years after the composer's death, the score of Die Seejungfrau was presumed lost or destroyed.

[3] In the early 1980s, two British Ph.D students, Keith J. Rooke and Alfred Clayton, working separately, compared the items in Vienna and Washington and established that they belonged together.

[2] This includes a passage of 88 bars in the second movement, depicting the Mermaid's visit to the Mer-witch, which Zemlinsky expunged from the score before the première.