Bodanzky would play an important role in Zemlinsky’s life after his arrival in the U.S., following Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938 and at the same time as the former Alma Mahler (who had meanwhile become an admirer of Il Duce and the Führer) and her husband Franz Werfel, for whom Zemlinsky had composed a song for voice and piano based on Werfel’s Ahnung Beatricens.

Another of Zemlinsky’s former students, Erich Korngold, had responded to Max Reichardt’s invitation and moved to Hollywood, on the other side of the country, where he became one of the greatest composers of film music. Although Zemlinsky had realized after a mere eighteen months that he could teach the twelve-year old Korngold nothing more, he would always treasure the memory of his lessons with Zemlinsky, and it comes as no surprise that his mentor’s instruction continued to influence his music thirty years later.

But Zemlinsk’s deepest affection was probably for Alban Berg. He maintained his most long-lasting friendship with Berg, whom he and Schönberg taught in Vienna in 1904. Berg’s sudden death in Vienna on Christmas Eve 1935 left Zemlinsky deeply distraught. He cancelled his engagements abroad and spent three months composing a tribute to his friend, the String Quartet no. 4, op. 25, which he subtitled “Suite”, in homage to Berg’s Lyric Suite (1924), which itself was named after Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony.