Essential Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold's career tells the story of the twentieth century. The composer grew up in Vienna, a child prodigy. By the age of 13 he was writing symphonic scores in a luscious, Romantic style. Ten years later he had already produced his most enduring stage work, the opera 'Die tote Stadt'. In the very same city, Arnold Schoenberg was busy dismantling the old order, arguing that music could be written that bore no allegiance to a particular key.
Read more…Arguments about musical style were the least of Korngold's problems. As a Jew, he watched with horror as the Nazis seized power in Germany and later Austria, just as his career was looking unstoppable. In 1938, Korngold was invited to write the score for a new film shooting in Hollywood, 'Robin Hood' starring Errol Flynn. Korngold accepted the commission and travelled to the USA. Months later, mobs were destroying Jewish businesses in Vienna and Berlin.
Korngold stayed in Hollywood, recalling later that 'Robin Hood' "saved my life". His career turned from symphonies and operas to movie scores, but he remained just as prolific and his music retained the same precision, intricacy, structural integrity and melodic appeal. After the war, Korngold was determined to resume the composition of concert works alongside movie scores. Often, he would cross-fertilize the two. His Violin Concerto uses themes from movie scores, while his Cello Concerto literally 'was' a movie score (it was used in the film 'Deception', for a scene in which the heroine, a cellist, appeared in concert with an orchestra). In both those works and more, Korngold's combination of cinematic sweep and concert hall subtlety shine through.