Notes for: August 12, 2014
As an American composer of Austro-Hungarian birth, Korngold had two parallel careers. On the one hand, he was one of the most prominent composers of film music in Hollywood, winning three Academy Awards. On the other, he was highly regarded as a composer of serious music, returning to this activity off-and-on over the years, particularly in the final decade of his life.
As a composer, Korngold started as a child prodigy, the son of Vienna’s leading music critic. At the age of 11, his ballet, The Snow Man, was premiered at the Vienna Court Opera in a command performance for the Emperor. A year later came a Piano Trio, which won praise from composer Richard Strauss. In 1920, still only 23, he produced his famous opera, The Dead City, which was premiered simultaneously in Cologne and Hamburg, introduced to New York by the Metropolitan Opera, and is still active in the world opera repertory.
In the ensuing years he produced 7 operas, 15 orchestral works, 10 chamber works, 9 piano works, and more than 40 songs. In general, his music was in a late Romantic style, and was considered out-of-vogue at the time of his death. In recent years, however, his music has undergone a re-evaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest by musicians and audiences.
In 1934, the great producer Max Reinhardt brought Korngold to Hollywood to adapt Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Misummer Night’s Dream for a film version of Shakespeare’s play. Korngold stayed in Hollywood for the next 20 years, composing 20 film scores and winning Oscars for three – Anthony Adverse, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. You may also have seen and heard Captain Blood, The Green Pastures, Juarez, The Sea Hawk, King’s Row, Of Human Bondage and Escape Me Never.
Korngold was also famous for his wit. One day Max Steiner, his friend and rival at Warner Brothers, said to him, “We’ve both been at Warner’s for ten years, and in that time your music has gotten worse and worse and mine has been getting better and better. Why do you suppose that is?” Korngold replied in his still heavy accent: “I tell you vy dat iss, Steiner. Dat iss because you are stealing from me and I am stealing from you.”
Korngold’s String Sextet is a work of his early years – he wrote it at the age of 17. Notwithstanding his youth, it is still considered his finest chamber work. Given its melodic invention and rich and varied texture, it is in Brahms’s late Romantic tradition. Indeed it shares the instrumentation – two violins, two violas and two cellos – of Brahms’s two great String Sextets composed a half-century earlier.
The first movement, while in conventional sonata form and full tonality, is marked by abrupt shifts in tempo and meter, and is adventurous in moving to remote keys. Thus the opening measure, in 4/4, is marked Tempo I (moderato), and these directions cover the opening passage in triplets, which become important building blocks in the rest of the movement. For the first theme, a passionate strain presented by the viola and continuing over some 30 measures, the rhythm shifts to 2/2, Tempo II, marked “calm and flowing”. Back to 2/2 for the second theme, a lyrical melody presented by the first violin and reaching into its highest register, marked Tempo III (allegro).
These variations in tempo, meter and key come and go throughout the movement, creating a sense of restless vitality. Add to this, continuous shifts in texture and string color. Thus the two violins are sometimes used as a group, sometimes joined by one viola and set against the others. The violas act occasionally as a central chorus. And each instrument is given a chance to shine as a soloist.
The second movement, adagio, begins with an anguished declamatory figure for the unaccompanied cello. This is then taken up by the other instruments in a series of impassioned statements supported by intense double- and triple-stopping of the strings. Again the tonality is ambiguous, and the music builds in intensity to a great emotional climax.
The third movement, captioned Intermezzo and marked “with graciousness”, is believed to be a compliment by the young Korngold to Vienna, the city of his adoption before moving to California. The wistful main theme is a variation of a melody that Korngold used in many of his major works, sometimes hidden and sometimes boldly stated, which he termed “Motif of the Cheerful Heart.” The movement’s middle section introduces a second theme of even greater sentimentality.
The fourth movement (presto) is to be played “with fire and humor”. It is high-spirited as it races along, with a second theme that is jaunty and robust. There are occasional references to the previous movements, and a slower section with further echoes of sentimentality. At the close, the music returns to the opening theme of the first movement before the emphatic high-speed conclusion.