With a Finisage concert ends the exhibition about the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold and his father, the music critic Julius Korngold at the Jewish Museum on May 18.
It shows, among other things, rare items from the collections of the Warner Brothers Archive and Museum in Los Angeles, the Korngold family, some Austrian archives, and other private collections including the famous “Library of Congress.” Many of the personal documents and photos from this exhibition have never been shown publicly.
The Closing Concert on Sunday May 18, 2008 at 18:30 includes examples from unpublished songs by Erich Wolfgang Korngold – they will be presented by Günter Haumer, baritone, and Chanda VanderHart, piano.
The program includes the “Chansons de Don Quichotte” by Jacques Ibert, and a selection from “Sixteen songs of love, fidelity and marriage” by Julius Bittner as well as early songs by the young Korngold.
They show the extraordinary talent of the composer who creates the foundation of late romantic musical language all his own individual sound world.
[grandmusic playlist=don-quichotte-selon-ibert]
Die Korngolds. Klischee, Kritik und Komposition
28. November 2007 – 18. May 2008
Few families reflects the Viennese musical life at the beginning of the 20th century better than the Korngold. The father, Julius Korngold was one of the most powerful and feared critic of his time. He was succeeded by Theodor Herzl as Eduard Hanslick hired as a music critic for the then most important German-language newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse. His son, Erich Wolfgang, however, was a musical prodigy who was often compared to Mozart. Works as the opera “Die Tote Stadt” were among the most performed plays of his time.
With the expulsion of Jewish composers, from 1933, first from Germany, then also from Austria, Erich Wolfgang again found himself in Hollywood. Unlike many fellow sufferers, he was able to build on successful work with Max Reinhardt, who in 1934 made him eligible for the processing of Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to Hollywood. Erich Wolfgang Korngold created as a film music composer, what did the “Hollywood Sound” film history. Winner of two Oscars (including the legendary film “The Adventures of Robin Hood” with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland) Korngold is still regarded as one of the most successful and most important Hollywood composers.
The issue before the background, the father-son relationship, the most creative periods of EW Korngold is, his success as a child prodigy, his triumphs as a composer and world-wide as Operettenarrangeur its collaboration with Max Reinhardt, his success in Hollywood, but also the failed attempt, after the war in Vienna back on their feet.
Listening Stations with excerpts from Korngold’s music and film clips illustrate his greatest successes and also allow an approximation to the private Korngold, his family and his friends.
Curators: Michaela Feuerstein-Prasser, Michael Haas
Palais Eskeles
Dorotheergasse 11
1010 Vienna
Photo “Chanda VanderHart and Günter Haumer” by Maximilian Van London