After years of performing, the UCLA Philharmonia released its debut album, “Eric Zeisl.”
Less than a year ago, the UCLA Philharmonia was performing and recording Eric Zeisl’s “Concerto Grosso for Cello and Orchestra” onstage at Royce Hall. After many renowned performances, the UCLA Philharmonia, led by musical director and conductor Neal Stulberg and cellist Antonio Lysy, performed two concert sessions in Royce Hall for “Eric Zeisl.” A few months after these performances, the recordings were edited and composed into the album, which was produced by Yarlung Records.
Stulberg and Lysy worked to reshape the compositions written by Zeisl. They performed alongside the UCLA Philharmonia, the leading orchestra at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, to commemorate the work of a forgotten composer.
“The CD brings international exposure (to) the work of a neglected 20th-century compositional voice,” Stulberg said. “With the international distribution of this CD, UCLA Philharmonia was able to make this contribution to the music world’s knowledge of important 20th-century repertoire.”
Zeisl, an Austrian composer, fled his country to escape the Nazi regime. He absconded to Paris and lived in New York for a period of time before settling in Los Angeles. Zeisl then worked in music in Hollywood, composing songs for films like “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and “They Were Expendable,” but soon went back to writing independent compositions.
Zeisl died of a heart attack in 1959, never getting the chance to hear “Concerto Grosso for Cello and Orchestra” performed. Years after, world-renowned cellist Lysy was contacted by a musicologist who was an expert on Zeisl’s work. A cello professor, Lysy edited the piece and then worked together with Stulberg and UCLA Philharmonia to create the recordings.
“When you have studied music, you recognize music from different eras and styles,” Lysy said. “His music spoke to me in a very strong way and I was very eager to learn it because of that. His music is very expressive and there’s a lot of suffering in it, which is often the story of the composers themselves.”
Lysy has a connection to Zeisl that contributed to his extended and early interest in Zeisl’s music. Lysy’s cello, the same one he used to record on the CD, belonged to the cellist George Neikrug, the first cellist to perform one of Zeisl’s unrecorded compositions.
“I knew about George Neikrug through my instrument well before the Zeisl experience,” Lysy said. “There’s a very strong possibility that whenever this cello was played for the first time, he performed Zeisl.”
Lysy said he used the popular music from Zeisl’s era to teach traditional string styles to members of the orchestra. Lysy said he wanted to recreate the old Hollywood sound because he knew that was what Zeisl was listening to when he wrote the composition.
They used specific techniques derived from old, romantic Hollywood movies to reproduce a sound that was soft and smooth. The orchestra had to learn new string styles and techniques to reproduce the old-style sound.
“It was difficult to do in a short amount of time, but we all tried,” Lysy said.
Cellist and alumna Hillary Smith studied music at UCLA as an undergraduate and graduate student. However, despite her experience in orchestra, she said the recording process wasn’t easy.
“It was tiring because you have to stay focused for about three hours straight and because there’s so many people involved,” Smith said. “Everyone has that added pressure of focusing and not being the one that plays in the rest or plays the wrong note.”
Nevertheless, Smith said she enjoyed the recording process.
“It was also a really fun experience because the orchestra has been playing for a while – we’re all family – and it was nice experiencing something professional like that but with all of our peers,” Smith said.
Like Smith, concertmaster Ji Young An also said she appreciated the opportunity to take part in such an exclusive experience .
“The most fun part was playing for the professors,” An said. “It’s a great pleasure to be able to accompany one of your teachers.”