Korngold / Goldmark: Violin Concertos

Description

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 - 1957) Violin Concerto in Dmajor, Op. 35 Karl Goldmark (1830 - 1915) Violin Concerto No.1 in A minor, Op. 28Erich Wolfgang Korngold was the secondson of the distinguished Viennese music critic Julius Korngold. As a child heshowed remarkable precocity, and embarked on the study of composition at theage of six. His father was on good terms with Mahler and in 1906 the boy playedby heart for him his new cantata, Gold, while Mahler followed the score,exclaiming "A genius", as the music continued. He advised JuliusKorngold to avoid the Conservatory and allow his son to study with Zemlinsky,Alma Mahler's former teacher and brother-in-law of Schoenberg, while RobertFuchs was persuaded to give him lessons in counterpoint. The connection withMahler continued and the Korngolds visited him in succeeding summers when hewas at Toblach. In the summer of 1909 the boy played to Mahler a new Scherzohe had written and a Passacaglia on a theme of Zemlinsky. Mahleradvised him to add a first movement to these pieces and make of them a sonata,the result of which was Korngold's Piano Sonata No.1 in D minor. By thistime the boy's reputation had aroused wider interest from, among others,Engelbert Humperdinck and Richard Strauss, Nikisch and even Weingartner. In1910 Julius Korngold allowed the private publication by Universal Edition ofthree of his son's compositions, Der Schneemann (The Snowman), Charakterst??ckezu Don Ouixote (Character Pieces based on Don Ouixote) and the PianoSonata in D minor, for the exclusive use of musicians. The pantomime DerSchneemann was performed at the palace of the Baroness Nienerth at acharity gala in 1910, in the original version for two pianos. Six months laterit was staged at the Court Opera orchestrated by Zemlinsky and conducted byFranz Schalk, a performance sanctioned by Weingartner, who replaced Mahler atthe Court Opera and whose relationship with Julius Korngold was one ofconsiderable hostility. In Munich, where, with his father, he had attended thefirst performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, Korngold played hissecond piano sonata in the presence of Paul Dukas and Camille Saint-Saens,arousing their amazement and admiration. His Trio, Opus 1, writtenwithout the knowledge of his teacher, who had by some been wrongly creditedwith a large share in the composition of Der Schneemann, was performedat this time in Vienna by Arnold Rose, Mahler's brother-in-law, with FriedrichBuxbaum and Bruno Walter and in 1911 his Schauspielouvert??re and Sinfoniettawere played by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and later by the ViennaPhilharmonic. His one-act operas Der Ring des Polykrates and Violantawon immediate success in Munich in 1916, under the direction of BrunoWalter, and he later conducted them himself at the Vienna Court Opera. In 1920,the year of his operatic triumph with Die tote Stadt, staged in Hamburgand in Cologne, he made his debut in Vienna as an orchestra conductor,embarking on a career as conductor, pi