Book Review: Erich Wolfgang Korngold

In 1997, the classical music world is going to celebrate the anniversaries of Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. The film music world—and so far only the film music world, I'm afraid—has already celebrated the 100th anniversary of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's birthday (May 29, 1897).

For those who know about Korngold only through chapters in film music books, the recently published, thoroughly researched biography by Jessica Duchen gives an intimate look to the musical upbringing and life of an extremely gifted composer, who was hailed as a wunderkind (child prodigy) by the musical bigwigs of his time. The eminent composer Gustav Mahler, then head of the Vienna Hofoper, went out of his mind when ten year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold played an early composition for him on the piano and arranged for him to be coached in composition by Alexander von Zemlinsky.

Korngold was a wunderkind in a true sense: he produced a full-blooded Piano Sonata in D minor at the age of 11; his first large-scale orchestra piece at 14; and his first opera at 16. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is constantly referred to as wunderkind, too—but with Erich Wolfgang Korngold, there is a little different: Though being a true genius, Mozart could never have composed a masterpiece like Le Nozze di Figaro or the Juliet Symphony at, say, 11 or 14, whereas Korngold already inherited the densely chromatic, turn-of-the-century style perfectly as a youngster. Of course, his outstanding musical gifts caused some trouble, due to his overpowering, chaperoning father Julius Korngold, a well-known and well-feared critic who succeeded Eduard Hanlick at the Neue Freie Presse. It is often stated that Erich Wolfgang Korngold nearly stopped composing concert music because he started to write film music in the early 1930s. But the severe break in the constant flow of seemingly untroubled, easy-going composition came already in the late '20s, due to mishaps and intrigues spreading around the performances of his fourth opera, Das Wunder der Heliane. As Jessica Duchen reveals and points out knowingly, father Julius Korngold's behavior in that matter is to blame for it in a significant way.

And that's the reason why this biography is so absorbingly readable: the difficult father-son relationship is discussed here for the first time to a broad extent. One has to know about it for a closer understanding of Korngold's musical career. After the quarrels about Heliane, Korngold turned to Max Reinhardt and the arrangement of lighter music by Johann Strauss and showed considerable gift in it. And it was Max Reinhardt who introduced Korngold to Hollywood in 1934, where he set new standards in symphonic film-scoring with his amazing sense of craft.

Until this book, biographical references about Erich Wolfgang Korngold have been written by family members (widow Luzi Korngold and father Julius Korngold). Duchen's book adds a long overdue neutrality in its look at this legendary musician.

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Tomorrow: Friday News Update with Lukas.