Through the World War II, film composition was what Korngold did exclusively. He agreed to Reinhardt’s lucrative offer, and he and his family moved to Los Angeles. The approach of World War II and Hitler’s political ascent was a potent motivation Korngold, as a Jew, could read the writing on the wall. It was in the early 1930s that Korngold, then based in Vienna and garnering great acclaim, dipped his toe into film composition, at the request of Hollywood director Max Reinhardt. He was a master of orchestration, of handling all the various voices in clever ways that came together like a master tapestry, all with the richly expressiveness that defined the longtime Viennese style of classical music and performing. The same can all be said for the Korngold Violin Concerto.Įrich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 – 1957) was a phenomenal composer, and his gifts for fully fleshed-out musical ideas that created cinematic moods were extraordinary. 2, the way some purists consider its instant accessibility to mean lesser, even “lowbrow” entertainment and meanwhile, I am perennially astonished by its sweep, its intensity. It’s like Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. There’s something so much more going on here. You don’t revisit a musical composition year after year, falling in love with it all over again, if it’s junk, or derivative, or sentimentalized. Tinsel.īut I have a strong, built-in “corn” detector, as a devoted listener. One reviewer, upon the 1947 premiere of his violin concerto, described it, and the composer, as “less gold and more corn.” Korngold was “Hollywood,” after all. Was that a snub? Post-film-composing, Korngold’s classical compositions did find more than their share of skeptics and critics. Was he not famous enough? Or possibly to the three respective authors, he was not “classical” but commercial. Perhaps one of the reasons I knew so little about Korngold is that he is not mentioned in any of my composer and classical-music “bibles” here at my house.
CALM RADIO VIOLIN FULL
There were two one-act operas premiered in Munich in 1916 and when he was 23, a full opera, Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City) premiered in Hamburg and Cologne. When he was 11, his ballet Der Schneemann (The Snowman), became a sensation in Vienna, followed by his Second Piano Sonata which he wrote at age 13, played throughout Europe by virtuoso Artur Schnabel. No one less than Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss declaring him to be a prodigy. It was only a matter of time before he was drawing attention for his musical precocity. When he was born in May 1897 in Vienna, to a musical family-his father was a well-regarded music critic-it became clear, early, that he had a major talent. Not that it was his only claim to fame, mind you. But I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know until recently that Korngold’s claim to fame was that he was a film composer. (Not a good thing on winding mountain roads.)Īs you might guess, the Korngold Violin Concerto is on my list of the Ten Great Violin Concertos You Must Hear. I was so entranced I almost forgot where I was going.
Really, it’s best not to be driving when you listen to it for the first time. Actually, nine minutes and three seconds, the length of the first movement.
CALM RADIO VIOLIN MOVIE
It was an entire movie of emotions encapsulated into 25 minutes. It told a story it promised adventure, intrigue, romance. That first melodic phrase catapulted me into a rich, tonally glorious world. It hit me like a thunderbolt, from literally the first note. The final notes of the CD’s first concerto (Samuel Barber’s violin concerto) wafted through the air, followed by a pause, and then… I was trundling down our hill in the Santa Cruz Mountains, with its trees and flowering bushes and redwood-studded hills, something that already fills my heart with pleasure. It was a library CD I’d just borrowed, back in the days when most cars had a CD or cassette player and you could borrow handfuls of new music from the library. I was driving when I heard Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto the first time. You know, the kind where the sun set earlier but still lends a glow to the western sky that softens into an increasingly deep blue overhead and, in the east, dots of stars are already punctuating the darkness. The second movement (“Romance”) of his Violin Concerto makes me think of a darkening summer evening. Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a phenomenal composer, and his gifts for fully fleshed-out musical ideas that created cinematic moods were extraordinary.
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