OTA Berlin Apartments

May 29th 1897, Brno – November 29th 1957, Hollywood

Born in an assimilated Jewish home in Brno, the Czech Republic [ but then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire], Erich was the son of the music critic Julius Korngold. He studied music under Alexander von Zemlinsky and Robert Fuchs. Gustav Mahler, upon meeting the young Erich, called him a “musical genius.” Richard Strauss also spoke very highly of the youth. During his early years Korngold also made live-recording player piano music rolls for the Aeolian Duo-Art system, all of which survive today and can be heard.

Korngold had success in Europe with his opera Die tote Stadt (1920), among other works, before moving in 1934 to the United States. There he composed a number of film scores that have been recognized ever since as classics of their kind, beginning with an adaptation of Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 1935 Max Reinhardt version of the Shakespeare comedy for Warner Brothers; this was followed by his first original film score, for Captain Blood with Errol Flynn. For the rest of his life he continued to write concert music in a rich, chromatic late Romantic style, with the Violin Concerto among his notable later works. A recent recording by Anne-Sophie Mutter has brought this fantastic work more of the public attention it deserves. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCQa3RrOdIc] and see below for more
about this Korngold masterpiece.

In 1938, Korngold was conducting opera in Austria when he was asked by Warner Bros. to come back to Hollywood and compose a score for their new (and very expensive) film The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn. He agreed and returned by ship. Shortly after he arrived in California, the Anschluss took place and the condition of Jews in Austria became very perilous. Korngold later would say the film score of The Adventures of Robin Hood saved his life. (See the Robin Hood Collectors Edition on DVD for details.) He won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for the film. Among other things, it features some quotation of the third movement theme in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Korngold was later nominated for The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) and The Sea Hawk (1940).

In 1943, Korngold became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Korngold stopped writing original film scores after 1946. His final score at Warner Bros. was Deception starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains. However, he was asked by Republic Pictures to adapt the music of Richard Wagner for a film biography of the composer, released in Trucolor, as Magic Fire (1955), directed by William Dieterle from a script by Ewald Andre Dupont. Korngold also wrote some original music for the film and had an unbilled cameo as the conductor Hans Richter. Korngold died in Hollywood on November 29, 1957.

Legacy
Despite his achievements and considerable popularity with the musical public, Korngold for years attracted almost no positive critical attention, but considerable critical disdain. Then, in 1972, RCA Victor released an LP titled The Sea Hawk, featuring excerpts from Korngold’s film scores performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Gerhardt and supervised by the composer’s son George. (This album and other classic film scores by Hollywood composers were later issued by RCA on CD in Dolby Surround Sound.) This was followed by recordings of Korngold’s operas and concert works, which led to performances of his symphony and concertos, as well as other compositions.
In 1973, Warner Brothers released special LPs featuring excerpts from the original soundtracks of films scored by Korngold, which had actually been conducted by Warner’s music director Leo Forbstein, as a well as a rare recording of Korngold playing the main theme from Kings Row on the piano. In addition, a KFWB radio broadcast from 1938 with Korngold conducting the studio orchestra in excerpts from The Adventures of Robin Hood, narrated by actor Basil Rathbone, was released on LP.
There have also been a number of new digital recordings of Korngold’s film scores, as well as some of his concert works, especially his violin concerto and his symphony. RCA Victor was the first to record a complete Korngold opera (in stereo), Die Tote Stadt, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf in Germany.
Further recognition came in the 1990s two full-scale biographies of him appeared almost simultaneously. One is Jessica Duchen, Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Phaidon Press, 20th Century Composers series, 1996). The other is Brendan G. Carroll, Erich Korngold: The Last Prodigy (Amadeus Press, 1997). Carroll is President of the International Korngold Society.

Violin Concerto (Korngold)
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35, was composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold in 1945 following some initial persuasion from the violinist and fellow émigré Bronisław Huberman. Dedicated to Alma Mahler, the widow of Korngold’s childhood mentor Gustav Mahler, the violin concerto was eventually premiered on February 15, 1947 by Jascha Heifetz, accompanied by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and conductor Vladimir Golschmann. Heifetz’s performance launched the work into the standard repertoire, which quickly became Korngold’s most popular piece. However, the fame of the violin concerto, combined with Korngold’s eminent association with Hollywood film music, has helped obscure the rest of his legacy as a composer of concert-hall works written before and after his arrival in America.

Working in the lush, lyrical idiom reminiscent of fin de siècle Vienna, Korngold scored the concerto for elaborate instrumental forces. In addition to the solo violin, the concerto calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, harp, strings, as well as a colorful percussion section of timpani, bass drum, cymbals, gong, bells, chime, vibraphone, xylophone, and celesta. Although, Korngold was credited with introducing the sophisticated musical language of his classical training to the soundscapes of Hollywood films, a kind of reverse inspiration also occurred. Like many of Korngold’s “serious” works in traditional genres, the violin concerto borrows thematic material from his movie scores in each of its three movements:
• Moderato nobile: The magnificent soaring violin solo which opens the concerto is a theme from Another Dawn (1937), running over two octaves in five notes. Juarez (1939) provided the second theme, more expansive and reliant upon the orchestra.
• Romanze: A solo clarinet introduces the principal theme of the slow movement, quoted from Anthony Adverse (1936) and revisited after a contrasting middle section that seems to have been uniquely composed for the concerto.
• Allegro assai vivace: The most demanding movement for the soloist begins with a staccato jig, which leads to a second theme based on the main motif from The Prince and the Pauper (1937) and builds up to a virtuoso climax.
A typical performance lasts about 25 minutes.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 21:28 and is filed under Composers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.