Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Korngold

Korngold & Birthday Celebrations on WWFM

May I obey all your commands with equal pleasure, sire!

Join me an hour earlier than usual today, as we’re on target to celebrate a lot of birthdays, including those of John Field, father of the nocturne; Franz Xaver Mozart, son of Wolfgang Amadeus; Serge Koussevitzky, famed conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Donald Voorhees, founding music director of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra; pianist, composer, and conductor Ernest Schelling (one-time music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra); composer Tadeusz Baird; and pianists Alexis Weissenberg and Angela Hewitt.

There will also be a musical remembrance of cellist Anner Bylsma, who died yesterday at the age of 85.

At 6:00, it’s “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies. This week, it’s an all-Korngold hour, including music from two of the great Errol Flynn swashbucklers. Leon Botstein will remark on the composer and this year’s Bard Music Festival, of which Korngold is the focus. Botstein will conduct the U.S. premiere of Korngold’s opera, “Das Wunder der Heliane” – “The Miracle of Heliane” – tonight at Bard College, as preamble to the festival. Performances will run through August 4.

The festival proper will take place over two weekends, August 9 through 11, and August 16 through 18. For more information, visit fishercenter.bard.edu.

I’ll be splitting arrows with the precision of my bullseyes, this Friday from 3 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts

July 26, 2019
Korngold’s Shakespeare Birthday Celebration

“Is it not strange that sheep’s guts could hail souls out of men’s bodies?”

– William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing”

On the eve of the observation of Shakespeare’s birthday (April 23, 1564), hang on to your soul, this Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” as we enjoy highlights from the world premiere recording of the complete incidental music to a 1920 Max Reinhardt production of “Much Ado About Nothing.”

The music is by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, one of Vienna’s most astounding prodigies, who went on to achieve international celebrity as a composer of film scores. Korngold’s introduction to Hollywood was by way of Reinhardt’s 1935 film version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The performance, with the music performed for the first time in its entirety since 1933, was recorded at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. John Mauceri conducts, on this 2013 Toccata Classics release. You can check out the complete Regional Emmy Award-winning broadcast here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmFXEMmbULY

We start counting out candles for the Bard, with Korngold’s “Much Ado About Korngold,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 22, 2018
Music Movies Fellini Corigliano Korngold

Get ready for an exercise in postmodern self-reflexivity, this week on “Picture Perfect,” as we take a look at movies about music and musicians.

Federico Fellini’s “Orchestra Rehearsal” (1978) is a mock-documentary that presents the symphony orchestra as a metaphor for the human condition. Full of political overtones, the film explores the joys, sorrows, frustrations and triumphs of the musicians, who struggle with the concepts of individual liberty, tyranny and the collective good. The project would mark the final collaboration between Fellini and Nino Rota. The two artists first came together in 1952 on Fellini’s “The White Sheik.” They would go on to create such classics as “La Strada,” “Nights of Cabiria,” “La dolce vita” and “8 ½.”

We’ll also hear music from the Canadian art house hit “The Red Violin” (1998). The film traces the history of the fictional title instrument from its creation in 17th century Cremona to the present day. The violin passes through the hands of a child prodigy, into those of a romantic virtuoso in the Paganini mold; then to China during the Cultural Revolution; and finally to a Canadian auction house. John Corigliano wrote the Academy Award-winning music, which is performed on the soundtrack by violinist Joshua Bell.

Finally, we’ll turn to a classical music film noir from Hollywood’s Golden Age. “Deception” (1946) tells the tale of a dangerous love triangle between Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains. Much of the plot hinges on the premiere of a new cello concerto by a celebrated-though-fictional composer, played by Rains, who puts a fragile cellist, his rival in love, played by Henreid, through the psychological ringer. The music, which serves as both underscore and crux of the story, is by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The composer subsequently published the “fictional” concerto as his Op. 37.

All aboard the musical ouroboros! Join me for music from movies about music and musicians, this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

The overheated trailer for “Deception:”

PHOTO: Henreid wore a special jacket to accommodate the arms of two professional cellists who stood behind him as he emoted. On the film’s soundtrack the concerto was performed by Eleanor Aller Slatkin, the mother of Leonard Slatkin.

September 8, 2017
Korngold’s “Die Kathrin” on WPRB Sunday

I know it’s so early that even the roosters will be brewing their coffee, but if you want to get a taste of the melodic fecundity and lush orchestrations of Erich Wolfgang Korngold as opera composer, you’ll want to tune in to WPRB tomorrow for “Sunday Morning Opera” with Sandy Steiglitz.

Sandy will be celebrating Korngold’s birthday with a complete recording of the composer’s final opera “Die Kathrin.” The piece is gorgeous. It may not be his most profound work for the stage, but it contains one great melody after another. Also, it is the opera closest in style to his film scores. He completed it in 1937, the same year as his work on “The Prince and the Pauper.” By that time, he had already written his Academy Award winning music for “Anthony Adverse.” “Captain Blood” was two years in the past. The opening of the opera (set outside a cinema!) sounds like it could have been written for “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”

Technically the show runs from 6 to 10 a.m., with the opera beginning at 7; but because of the length, the main attraction this week will begin at 6:45 EDT. It makes no difference to Sandy; she’s there at 5:30 anyway, cleaning the studio and sharing the music she loves. So tune in early. I don’t know anyone who knows as much about opera, in terms of both repertoire and its recorded history, as Sandy does. It’s worth your while getting to know her show.

Hear “Sunday Morning Opera” tomorrow morning on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. Korngold goes great with breakfast. Happy birthday, EWK!

Renée Fleming sings the Letter Song from “Die Kathrin”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcNJRo4K7fs

Korngold plays it (courtesy of Brendan Carroll):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgLXGInLMpc

In case you missed it, here’s an interview I did with Sandy in 2012 for the Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2012/08/sunday_morning_opera_host_sand.html

PHOTO: Erich Wolfgang Korngold in 1937

May 28, 2016
Korngold’s Hollywood Dream: Shakespeare & Film

This will likely be my last Shakespeare post for a while – the 500th anniversary of the Bard’s birth falls in 2064 – so enjoy it. We wrap up our month-long commemoration of the quadricentennial of Shakespeare’s death, on April 23, 1616, by revisiting “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Erich Wolfgang Korngold went from being one of Europe’s great musical prodigies – his works admired by Mahler, Strauss and Puccini, and performed by Schnabel, Weingartner and Klemperer – to becoming one of Hollywood’s transformative film composers. He is a link from Old World opulence to New World fantasy, his music gracing a number of Warner Brothers’ greatest historical adventures. He was also an opera composer. In fact, his opera “Die tote Stadt” was the runaway hit of 1920.

It was at the invitation of theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt that Korngold came to Hollywood in 1934 for a big screen adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The film starred James Cagney, Dick Powell and Olivia de Havilland, in her silver screen debut, with Mickey Rooney an irrepressible Puck.

For the project, Korngold adapted the famous incidental music of Felix Mendelssohn, interweaving material from Mendelssohn’s symphonies and orchestrating some of the “Songs without Words.” Yet the music bears Korngold’s unmistakable stamp, as you’ll hear in the opening fanfare and chorus, crafted from raw material found in the “Scottish Symphony” and marked by plenty of Korngoldian pageantry and swagger.

The composer drew on his theatrical experience, even conducting the actors as they spoke their dialogue in order to get the tempos he desired.

Korngold’s work on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” led to further offers from Warner Brothers, under terms he couldn’t refuse. In the meantime, the Nazis rolled into Austria, effectively sealing off his return to Europe. Vienna’s loss was Hollywood’s gain. Korngold would become the crown jewel of Warners’ music department. His excellence was recognized with two Academy Awards, for “Anthony Adverse,” in 1936, and “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” in 1938.

I hope you’ll join me, over hill, over dale, for Korngold’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

#Shakespeare400

April 29, 2016

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