DVD Region 0
Any player and any country compatible.
90 minute portrait. 54 minute concert.
Barrie Gavin’s documentary tells the story of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), a composer who began as a child prodigy in Habsburg Vienna, became the musical sensation of Europe’s opera houses and concert halls in the 1920s, and found a new fame in Hollywood, writing romantic movie scores for films like Reinhardt’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Errol Flynn Robin Hood, for which he won his second Oscar. In this profile extracts from his music for the concert hall are played by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under its music director Hugh Wolff. Other performers include soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, violin virtusoso Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Alexander Frey. Some ten minutes of extracts from Warner Brothers’ productions are included. Surviving family members and friends remember him. His biographer, Brendan Carroll, provides innumerable insights into the details of Korngold’s working life, while the Korngold Society’s archive in Hamburg has provided unlimited access to all kinds of documentation – some 300 photographs, home movies and unheard, private tapes of the composer at work.
HUGH WOLFF CONDUCTS CONCERTOS BY KORNGOLD
Hugh Wolff conducts the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra playing Korngold’s Cello Concerto in C major Op. 37, with soloist Quirine Viersin, and his Violin Concerto in D major Op. 35, with soloist Leonidas Kavakos.
Both of these lush pieces were written while Korngold was in Hollywood scoring classic movies for Warner Brothers. Exceptionally, his contract allowed him to re-use melodic material in his compositions for the concert hall. The cello concerto is an expanded version of a work he wrote to be performed at the end of the film Deception, a love story about two musicians, while the violin concerto, also based on film music, was written for the great Jascha Heifetz.
As an interlude between the performances of these pieces, Alexander Frey plays extracts from two very early piano works by Korngold: Don Quixote (1907/9) and Märchenbilder (1910).
The programme includes short introductions to the music.
Cast:
Leonidas Kavakos (Violin), Anne Sofie von Otter (Mezzo-soprano), Bengt Forsberg (Piano), Kjell Lysell (Violin), Ulf Forsberg (Violin), Nils-Erik Sparf (Viola), Mats Lindström (Cello), Quirine Viersen (Cello), Alexander Frey (Piano)
Orchestra, Chorus:
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra
