Biographical Essay (Gertrud Zeisl)
Eric Zeisl
by Gertrud ZeislThe gift of genius expresses what is eternal and always valid in the human condition, but to what it ends its special attention and focus, that is determined by place and time.
Both the time and the place in which Eric spent his childhood and early youth are unmistakably present in his work, as is the curious mixture of heritage that characterizes so significantly both the Austrian and the Jewish race.
The time.
These early years stood under the sign of the great Austro-Hungarian empire. That empire was far flung and powerful, yet it consisted of many small facets, each an individual development of its own, forever mixing and forever divided and limited, each to its own small realm; the Czechs, the Poles, the Slovaks and the Germans, the Hungarians, the Serbs and the Italian, the Celtic and the Jewish. The Viennese felt himself at the center of this humanity and he never quite knew "what" or "who" he was. It was most difficult to find himself, for e consisted of so many different pieces.
The place.
It seemed as if the very place of Ericís family house was like a central point of all these influences, just there all these facets, which made up the empire, gathered and reflected as if caught in a focal mirror. The house stood at the south east corner of a huge square. In the south the Austro-Hungarian empire stretched until the Adriatic. A monument, a proud replica of Trafalgar square with its shipbeaks, was erected in the middle of the square to honor the hero Tegethoff, ho had won a naval battle in the Adriatic. The battle had probably not involved more that two ships and the Viennese smiled when they saw the monument. Their sense of humor was greater that their pride. Nevertheless it represented the Adria, Italy and Greece as if at the doorsteps of the City.
On the northern side of the square and opposite the house of the familyís apartment and coffeehouse stood the great northern railway station. Daily it spilled out its humanity form the northern provinces: Czechs, Poles and Slovaks in their colorful peasant costumes, soldiers and Russian prisoners during the war years and droves of fugitive eastern Jews in their long black kaftans. They came and vanished in the small narrow backstreets of the II. district behind the house, but first they would come over to have a cup of coffee or a beer in the Café Zeisl, their first experience with the big city of Vienna. Every day Eric saw them arrive and go, their varied mixture left an indelible impression on his soul. They gave to his music the vivid gift of color.
To the east of the square stretched the green immensity of the Prater, the former hunting domaine of the Habsburgs. It invited, with stately tree-lined lanes, the shoplace of the luxury loving aristocracy, the daily outing place for the empororís horesedrawn carriage, ant it beckoned with a mysterious hinterland of secret meadows and thickets, the romantic mating-ground of countless birds and animals and young lovers. And of course there was also the Wurstel Prater, the big amusement park, where old and young, high and low met and reveled, where music came from every small and big locality and the blaring of the merry-go-round organs mixed with the refined orchestras of the elegant Park Cafes. The Viennese could never have a good time without music.
On Saturdays Ericís grandfather took him to one of the Synagogues in the backstreets. The ancient melodies fell upon the heart of the listening child and evoked echoes from ages back, of sorrows and suffering and rapture in god. They mixed with the joyful sounds of the Prater, with the resounding hymns and masses that came through the open portals of the stately domes and chruches, with the merry sounds of the city, with the delightful aroma of good food, that was deemed the essence of life in the city and especially in a restaurant-ownerís house, with the lusty cries and yells of fours boys of which he was the third.
And there was still another direction ? west. From the windows and the balcony high on the top floor apartment one could see far up the course of the Danube where the vine-covered foothills met the river. Sentinels were they of the towering snowcapped alpine hinterland, each hill crowned with an ancient ruin. They gave mute testimony of heroic struggles in which this border province of Austria had been the eastern bulwark of the mighty German Reich. Hordes and hordes of invaders had broken themsleves here, the Huns, the Wendes, the Turks. how beautiful were these mountains and vineclad valleys, how great and romantic the past, of which they told. How could anybody not become a true romantic, who had these sights daily before his eyes.
But then one also has to consider the special condition of Ericís family. They were lower middle class, not very educated, in narrow circumstances both materially (a 3 room apartment served a family of 6) and spiritually but they were warmhearted and good. Nevertheless, for the child that was misplaced in their muddle they became a nightmare, though he loved them dearly. Four boys and he was the third. He who by nature craved the most attention, found by his position none given to him. His gift was only in the way. The other brothers needed the piano to practice (two were singers). He wanted "just to play." "Become a composer? He must be crazy!" "A composer starves." What could seem worse to a restaurant owner? "Study music?" There was no money for such nonsense. It was indeed already becoming very hard just to feed the family in the war and postwar tears. Scholarships? The family owned a coffee house and was therefore not considered poor. It was "No," always "No" to what he wanted and by a curious twist of fate it remained "No" most of his life. What strength went into this endless, futile battle against his family and later against fate! ? It was not entirely fruitless. It gave his soul muscle. His music became strong. He learned to brew his own medicine. In most of his work, from the pitiful autobiographic "Armseelchen" written when he was only 10 years old, to the last psalm, his music tells the story of this endless shattering fight and hope and resignation of a completely misunderstood soul, who was in the middle of a teeming household utterly and unredeemably alone. What a confusing, maddening condition to be preferred and rewarded with so very special gifts and talents and then so completely neglected and rejected, for he and his gifts were inseparable and one.
But it is perhaps this very confusion, pain and breathless struggle that makes his music finally so suited for the "now" generation. They may find in it consolation against the ills of our time that confound and frustrate us as well and yet invite us to overcome and triumph regardless, for the work survives the maker.