Photo: Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0 · credits
Tier 3 · vertical & regional
Erich Zeisl
Person · male · Austria · Vienna · born 1905 · died 1959 · recording since 1991
Austrian composer
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Listen on SpotifyYouTube Music
Also known as Eric Zeisl · 埃里希·泽索
Timeline
8 events▣ Album 5◦ Birth 1† Death 1★ Debut release 1
1900s
1950s
1990s
· Debut release
Debut release: Chamber Music
First documented Album in the MusicBrainz discography.
source: musicbrainz
2000s
2020s
Biography
English biography515 words · 2 sectionssource: wikipedia-en · licence CC BY-SA 4.0 · revision 1355048797
Biography
Erich Zeisl, sometimes given as Eric Zeisel, (May 18, 1905 – February 18, 1959) was an Austrian-born American composer.
Life and music
Born to a middle class Jewish family in Vienna, then capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Zeisl was the son of Kamilla (Feitler) and Siegmund Zeisl. His musical precocity enabled him to gain a place at the Vienna State Academy (against the wishes of his family) when he was 14, at which age his first song was published. While there, he studied with Richard Stöhr, Joseph Marx and Hugo Kauder. He won a state prize for a setting of the Requiem mass in 1934, but his Jewish background made it difficult to obtain work and publication. After the Anschluss in 1938, he fled first to Paris, where he began work on an opera based on Joseph Roth's Job, and then to New York City.
Eventually he went to Hollywood, where he worked on film music but increasingly felt isolated and ill at ease with the production-line demands of his employers. Among the films for which he wrote music were The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951).
Zeisl's style was essentially tonal, and conservative compared to contemporaries such as Arnold Schoenberg, and thus not totally unsuited to film music composition. But his heart lay elsewhere. At one stage he was employed to arrange the music for a highly inaccurate stage show about the life of Tchaikovsky, Song without Words. His anguish about his reduction to such work (together with the straits to which other émigré composers in America were reduced at the time) is evident in a letter written to a friend in 1945:
Even Milhaud, Stravinsky, Tansman are struggling. Béla Bartók died in New York of hunger! ... Last year I orchestrated a Tchaikowsky operetta which provided [a] living for 8 months, but why does Tchaikowsky have to be put into an operetta? ... No composer is important here.
Nonetheless, Zeisl was able eventually to find academic appointments and time to compose in his own style. These works included a variety of chamber music, a piano concerto, a cello concerto (written for Gregor Piatigorsky), and a setting for choir, soloists, and orchestra of Psalm 92 in Hebrew, which he titled Requiem Ebraico (Hebrew Requiem), written in 1944–45 in memory of his father. A work of variations for orchestra was based on the Christmas carol "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." His opera Hiob (Job) was never completed.
Zeisl was married to Gertrud Susanne (Jellinek). His daughter Barbara Zeisl Schoenberg married Ronald Schoenberg, the son of the composer Arnold Schoenberg. His grandson is lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg. Zeisl died of a heart attack while teaching in Los Angeles.
Zeisl's music was banned as degenerate music under the Nazi regime, which has been one element in a revival of interest in his music, some of which is now available on CD. The premiere performance of the Requiem Ebraico was held in Los Angeles in the Hollywood First Methodist Church on April 8, 1945, by Hugo Strelitzer conducting the Fairfax Temple Choir.
Discography & profile
Normalised profile
Percentiles are computed over every artist in the database, so a tier-3 artist can still sit in the 95th percentile on a single axis.
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 8 | 49.7th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 5 | 78.9th |
| Studio albums | 5 | 84.6th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 8 | 84.1th |
| Recording span (years) | -32 | 7.4th |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Percentiles are computed at render time; missing values mean the artist has no data on that axis.
Discography (5 release groups · 5 studio albums)
Albums · 5
1991 · studio album
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Tracklist · 11 tracks · 1:12:43
1Piano Trio Suite in B minor, op. 8: I. Praeludium3:542Piano Trio Suite in B minor, op. 8: II. Adagio sostenuto6:493Piano Trio Suite in B minor, op. 8: III. Allegretto scherzando6:584Piano Trio Suite in B minor, op. 8: IV. Theme and Variations13:545Second String Quartet: I. Pesante; Allegro6:296Second String Quartet: II. Andante6:097Second String Quartet: III. Scherzo7:288Second String Quartet: IV. Finale7:009"Arrowhead" Trio: I. Allegretto4:2710"Arrowhead" Trio: II. Andante4:5811"Arrowhead" Trio: III. Finale4:37Piano Concerto / Pierrot in der Flasche
2007 · studio album
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Tracklist · 8 tracks · 1:02:51
1Piano Concerto in C major: I. Moderato maestoso14:132Piano Concerto in C major: II. Andante con moto11:383Piano Concerto in C major: III. Pesante - Fast9:554Pierrot in der Flasche: I. Vorspiel - Scene 14:415Pierrot in der Flasche: II. Zwischenspiel - Festmusik3:396Pierrot in der Flasche: III. Orientalische Liebesszene6:377Pierrot in der Flasche: IV. Tanz der fliegenden Teufel3:238Pierrot in der Flasche: V. Trauermarsch - Todestanz - Finale8:452022 · studio album
Search SpotifySearch YouTube Music
Tracklist · 28 tracks · 1:05:04
1Swing Low, Sweet Chariot1:522Seufzer der Sehnsucht1:183Seit Du fort bist2:084Komm heil'ge Nacht2:175Der tote Arbeiter2:386Go Down Moses2:307Stille2:168Vale3:129Untreue1:5210Ein Stündlein wohl vor Tag2:5211Ja, ich weiss woher ich stamme1:0812Little David1:0913So regnet es sich langsam ein2:0714Es spinnt sich ein2:4815Schrei2:0516Der Briefmark1:4217Abendstimmung1:3818Lied im Herbst1:1119Ein buckliger Waisenknabe singt2:5020Ich kann es nicht vergessen1:4121Die Arbeiter1:4722Regen1:5123Wanderers Nachtlied2:2424Helle Nacht3:2325Grabschrift2:4126Waterboy3:0427Letzter Tanz6:2328Deep River2:172024 · studio album
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Tracklist · 23 tracks · 1:01:10
1Du0:5626 Lieder: No. 1. Nachts3:0536 Lieder: No. 2. Die Nacht bricht an3:3746 Lieder: No. 3. Ein Stündlein wohl vor Tag3:3256 Lieder: No. 4. Schrei1:4566 Lieder: No. 5. Stilleben1:437Armkräutchen1:568Der Tag erwacht1:269Vöglein Schwermut5:0110Abendstimmung2:1411Kinderlieder: No. 3. Wiegenlied2:2412Das trunkene Lied4:04137 Lieder: No. 7. Die 5 Hühnerchen1:0414Die Nichtgewesenen2:4215Ein ganzes Leben3:2016Mir ist so weh2:2117Lass mich in deinen stillen Augen ruh’n3:0118Deep River3:4819Swing Low, Sweet Chariot1:5120Go Down, Moses2:1421Little David1:0522Waterboy2:4323Prayer5:182025 · studio album
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Tracklist · 32 tracks · 1:05:30
1Der Schäfer1:552Der Weise1:193Kein Ton mehr klingt2:304Komm süßer Tod2:145Neck und Nymphe1:436Sonnenlied1:447Wiegenlied2:358Komm und reich mir deine Hand1:339Gigerlette2:1610Im Frühling0:5711Kater1:1112Berückung2:2913Kriegslied1:1714Auf dem Grabstein eines Kindes in einem Kirchhof im Odenwald2:0315Triumphgeschrei1:0716Stücke für Barbara: No. 1, Spaziergang mit dem Vater1:3017Stücke für Barbara: No. 2, Mutter ist krank3:1418Stücke für Barbara: No. 3, Auf dem Dreirad1:2519Stücke für Barbara: No. 4, Der Lehrer1:1920Stücke für Barbara: No. 5, Fanfare1:1221Stücke für Barbara: No. 6, Nach der Schlacht2:4122Stücke für Barbara: No. 7, Der einsame Hirte4:1923Stücke für Barbara: No. 8, In der Fabrik1:1224Stücke für Barbara: No. 9, Die alte Nurse2:1325Stücke für Barbara: No. 10, Jack & Jill1:3526Stücke für Barbara: No. 11, Alte Sage2:1227Stücke für Barbara: No. 12, Ein Frühlingstag1:3428Stücke für Barbara: No. 13, Wiegenlied3:00294 Pieces for Good Players: No. 1, Sommersaults1:31304 Pieces for Good Players: No. 2, Children playing Soldiers2:47314 Pieces for Good Players: No. 3, A bad Dream3:45324 Pieces for Good Players: No. 4, Travelling with the Caravan3:08
Stats & PK
Percentile within all 23,672 published artists.Put Erich Zeisl head-to-head →
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 8 | 49.7th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 5 | 78.9th |
| Studio albums | 5 | 84.6th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 8 | 84.1th |
| Recording span (years) | -32 | 7.4th |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Awards & honours
Where this record comes from
portrait—Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ericzeisl.jpgaliases/urls—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/21ab9aaa-fe80-4f84-976b-544956846d75discography—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/21ab9aaa-fe80-4f84-976b-544956846d75core—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q214385genre—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q214385seed-list—wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Zeislbiography—wikipedia-en · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Zeisl
Why this artist is in the database
- List of Austrian musicians
Tier rule: curated genre/region list
Image: Unknown author Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata: Q214385 · MusicBrainz: 21ab9aaa-fe80-4f84-976b-544956846d75
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