As I'm currently blasting my ear-drums with Das Wunder der Heliane, I just love Korngold more and more. A child prodigy who dazzled Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, he wrote some amazing orchestral scores and fantastic operas including Die Tote Stadt before fleeing the Nazi regime (only just in time) and supplying Hollywood with some of the finest film scores of the 1940s. Late works like the Violin Concerto and Symphony are superbly crafted late-Romanticism tinged with a very personal chromatic twist. Any other fans?
;)
Very much so. I love the film scores, the Violin Concerto and the Symphony, although I have to admit that I don't know the operas. Also not to be missed is the chamber music: a remarkable Piano Quintet, the String Sextet in D major and three equally fine string quartets.
So Korngold was not dependent on glamorous orchestration to make his mark..Absolutely, an all-round virtuoso. The operas are worth getting to know (the scoring of
Heliane is stupendous), but opera ain't everyone's cup of tea (as you know I prefer 9% Karpackies to chamber music any day).
My three favourite composers of the ilk are Franz Schreker, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Korngold... ;)
Now you're getting my juices flowing (musically, of course). I don't know anything about Schreker or Zemlinsky, but I'll certainly pop them on my to-do list, along with so much else!
