By the age of 30 Erich Zeisl was considered one of Vienna’s leading composers. His compositions included chamber works, choral and orchestral pieces, opera and ballet, and Lieder. His settings from Des Knaben Wunderhorn invariably evoke a Mahlerian lineage as Zeisl draws on imagery of light and dark, sunshine and death. In this volume his early songs are juxtaposed with his last, from 1938, a graphic setting of Komm süsser Tod. In exile he wrote no more songs. After the Anschluss, which wrecked his career, Zeisl escaped to America where he endured frustration and ultimately rejection as a film composer at MGM. During this time he composed a piano anthology for his daughter, Barbara, in which he created charming miniatures tailored for the young learner.

2025 is the 120th anniversary of Zeisl’s birth.

Sara Hershkowitz is an American coloratura soprano active in Germany. Her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic was praised by The New Yorker as one of the top opera picks of 2018.

Gloria Cheng won a Grammy Award for her 2008 Piano Music of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, and Witold Lutosławski, and a nomination for The Edge of Light: Messiaen/Saariaho. ‘[It] was Cheng, who played with her customary refined brilliance for tone colour, rhythmic devotion and striking capacity to make every gesture matter, that turned disparate pieces into both garland and garden’ (Los Angeles Times).

So-Mang Jeagal won the Grand Prize at the Korea Music Foundation Competition and First Prizes at esteemed international competitions such as the Washington International Piano Competition and the Liszt International Music Competition.