Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''Music is music whether it is for the stage, rostrum, or cinema. Form may change, the manner of writing may vary, but the composer needs to make no concessions whatever to what he conceives to be his own musical ideology.''|Erich Wolfgang Korngold}}
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Stylistically, Korngold's music is the epitome of the "lush" Late Romantic Austrian/German school of [[Richard Wagner]], [[Gustav Mahler]], and Anton Bruckner: full of sweeping themes, a dramatic use of chromaticism, an abundance of memorable melodies, and the use of [[Leitmotif|Leitmotives]] as emotional guides through the action of a drama. In composing his film scores, Korngold was wont to approach them, he said, as "operas without words."
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In 1934 at the request of famed theater director Max Reinhardt, who was already working in the United States, Korngold arrived in Hollywood to arrange [[Felix Mendelssohn]]'s incidental music for [[Warner Brothers]]' film version of [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[A Midsummer Nights Dream]]''. One year later, on his second stay in America, Korngold composed film scores for both [[Warner Bros]]. and [[Paramount]] studios. His first original score was written for ''[[Captain Blood (Film)|Captain Blood]]'' in 1935; the next year, Korngold's score for the movie ''Anthony Adverse'' received an Oscar for the best film music of the year. Shortly after, he signed an exclusive contract with [[Warner Bros]]., making him one of the first world-renowned composers to work for the Hollywood film factory.
Though under contract with [[Warner Bros]]., Korngold was living between two worlds, composing film scores in Hollywood, but trying to maintain his concert and opera presence in Europe. In 1938, the ''Anschluss'' of Austria with Germany under the [[Nazi Germany|National Socialists]] took the Jewish Korngolds by surprise. To save his family, Korngold moved them to the United States and chose to write film scores regularly. His first movie score as an exiled resident in the New
Beginning essentially in 1946 he attempted to return to the concert stage and the creation of absolute music. Deftly borrowing themes and motifs from his many movie
In 1955 Korngold suffered a stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed; then in 1957, Korngold died as a result of a cerebral thrombosis. Though he believed himself virtually forgotten at the time of his death, Korngold's reputation has been steadily rising since at least the 1980's, and his influence can be heard in the music of many of today's leading film composers such as [[John Williams]] and Alexander Courage. Korngold's sizable body of non-film works has also been establishing a place in the concert hall and in a number of recent operatic productions.
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Was also a famously witty [[Deadpan Snarker]], particularly in regards to other contemporary composers and the field of music in general.
* ''[[Captain Blood (Film)|Captain Blood]]'' (1935)
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