Though he composed in a variety of genres – choral and orchestral works and an opera among them – Erich Zeisl was a consummate Lieder composer whose songs are richly melodic, inventive, and cast in a late Romantic idiom. In his settings he responded to a range of ideas – the subjects of the night and light were potent ones, and he mined a vein of irony and humour. Forced from Austria in 1938 he did not write any Lieder after settling in America but arranged some Spirituals, drawing on the music of a people similarly oppressed as his own.

Multi-Grammy winning mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung appears regularly with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, the Concertgebouworkest, and the Sydney Symphony. She has also performed at the prestigious festivals of Ravinia, Tanglewood, Saito Kinen, Edinburgh and Lucerne. Equally at home on the opera stage, DeYoung has appeared with The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Teatro alla Scala, Bayreuth Festival, Berliner Staatsoper and the Paris Opera. She sang the role of Fricka in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Wagner Ring Cycle on the Naxos label (866037435 and 866039497).