Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957)
Violin Concerto • Schauspiel Overture • Much Ado About Nothing Suite
Along with Mozart, Mendelssohn, Busoni and Enescu,
Erich Wolfgang Korngold ranks among the main
composer prodigies. Born in Brünn (now Brno) on 29
May 1897, the second son of music critic Julius Korngold,
he impressed Mahler with his music when aged only nine,
and went on to consolidate this with a score for the ballet-pantomime
Der Schneeman, given its première at the
Vienna Court Opera in 1910. A sequence of orchestral,
chamber and operatic works followed, culminating with
the dual première, in Hamburg and Cologne, of his opera
Die tote Stadt, which made him world famous at the age
of 23. The success of his next opera Der Wunder der
Heliane was blighted, however, by the worsening political
situation, while his last opera Die Kathrin was not
performed in Vienna on account of the Anschluss and the
annexation of Austria by Germany.
Korngold had by now settled in Hollywood, where a
series of lavish film scores over the next decade—such as
Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and King’s Row (1941)—brought his music to an
audience of millions. Following the Second World War,
Korngold returned to Europe and to the concert hall but his
effulgent late-Romantic style found relatively little favour
in the austerity of post-war Vienna while his death, on
19 November 1957, attracted only passing attention.
Recent decades, however, have seen a renewed interest in
his music, with a host of performances and recordings to
mark his centenary in 1997 and the fiftieth anniversary of
his death in 2007.
A relative exception to the rule as regards his
posthumous standing is the Violin Concerto, written in
1945 at the prompting of Bronisław Huberman though
given its first performance by Jascha Heifetz, who
continued to champion the work, in Saint Louis on 15
February 1947. Dedicated to Alma Mahler, the concerto
unashamedly recalls the lush Romanticism of Korngold’s
music between the wars, albeit with a greater melodic
directness occasioned in part by its themes having been
taken directly from several of his film scores. A large
orchestra is used resourcefully, with some especially
atmospheric writing for tuned percussion.
The first movement opens with an expressive melody,
taken from the 1937 film Another Dawn, the soloist taking
the lead through to an orchestral restatement of its opening
phrase before a lively transition into the second theme,
from the 1939 film Juarez, which proves even more bittersweet
than its predecessor. The first theme briefly returns,
presaging a cadenza, punctuated by orchestral interjections,
which takes the place of a development section. At length
the first theme returns on full orchestra, then the soloist has
a heightened transition to the second theme; gaining in
intensity, this soon heads straight into a rapid coda that
brings about the sparkling close.
The second movement commences with languorous
orchestral chords, a backdrop against which the soloist
unfolds an eloquent theme, from the 1936 film Anthony
Adverse, whose expansiveness is made even more so by a
wistful ‘tail’ motif that appears twice. Those initial chords,
now subtly darkened in tone, introduce a central section in
which the interplay between soloist and orchestra gradually
builds in expressive intensity, before the main theme
returns as before though now with a sense that the darker
colouring has been absorbed into its emotional
complexion. The opening chords then return for a raptly
serene close.
The third movement bursts into life with decisive
orchestral chords, the energetic theme that follows
exploiting the soloist’s virtuosity to the full as well as that
of the orchestra. A further version of this theme, from the
1937 film The Prince and the Pauper, slower and more
indulgent, provides for requisite contrast, before the music
heard thus far is reprised in full. This time a rapid transition
leads to the slower version of the theme in full orchestral
splendour, presently dying down to leave the soloist
musing wistfully. The opening orchestral chords then make
their timely reappearance, initiating a coda that restores
the previous abandon and sees the work through to its
headlong close.
Composed in 1911, the Schauspiel-Ouvertüre (Overture
to a Drama) was the first orchestral work that the teenage
Korngold orchestrated without assistance. Given its
première that year by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
and Arthur Nikisch, it immediately consolidated his
growing reputation. Its content was for long thought to
have been inspired by Shakespeare’s play A Winter’s Tale,
but that proved to be a gloss put about by the composer’s
father Julius. In fact the piece unfolds in inherently abstract
terms, with the slow introduction followed by an expanded
sonata-form section that culminates in a powerful coda.
The introduction features ominous writing for the wind
and strings, building to a brief climax before taking on a
more fervent tone. The initial music returns, now extended
with chorale-like gestures on brass and leading to a resolute
theme for the whole orchestra. Aspects of this are excitedly
discussed as the transition to a more languorous theme
which itself is capped by a bracing codetta. A central span
sees the second theme poetically rendered by clarinet, the
whole orchestra then entering with the first theme and
initiating a lively discourse on the way to a powerful
climax that brings back the first theme at the outset of a
varied reprise. The main thematic ideas are recalled,
following which the clarinet has a further, even more
limpid version of the second theme, taken up by strings and
then the whole orchestra as the music gains steadily in
ardency on its way to a brief but majestic apotheosis.
In 1918, Korngold composed the incidental music for
a production of Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About
Nothing that was first given at Vienna’s Schönbrunn Castle
in May 1920. Realising that the musicians would be
required elsewhere before the run had been completed, the
composer duly arranged the score for violin and piano in
consultation with the violinist Rudolf Kolisch [this version
is to be found on Naxos 8.557067], in which incarnation
it quickly found favour. This recording, however, provides
an opportunity to experience the music as Korngold first
conceived it for small but diversely constituted orchestral
forces.
The Overture, a model of sonata-form for all its brevity,
unerringly sets the scene for the action to follow with its
alternately lively and expressive themes, piano and
harmonium allotted notable roles in the scintillating
instrumentation. Bridal Morning (Mädchen im Brautgemach)
finds Hero preparing for her wedding with
uncertain yet undeniable emotion, evoked in music whose
charm is offset by the merest hint of regret. Dogberry and
Verges (Holzapfel und Schlehwein) is a humorous
interlude for the drunken nightwatchmen, their lack of
control denoted by the stuttering march rhythm. The Intermezzo underlines the reluctant but growing love of
Beatrice for Benedick, encapsulated in the heartfelt cello
melody with which the piece opens. The Hornpipe (Mummenschanz), replete with an astringent wit and some
predictably virtuoso writing for two horns, rounds off the
incidental music in robust good spirits.
Richard Whitehouse