Post by erik on Apr 10, 2021 19:56:12 GMT -5
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, one of the many European composers to immigrate to the U.S. to avoid being gassed by Der Fuhrer, found gainful employment in Hollywood, but he never lost sight of more "serious" music. Case in point: the choral work of his in this week's Classical Works Spotlight.
Korngold: PASSOVER PSALM, OP. 30
In a very perverse way, the Nazi regime did a great deal to enhance the culture in the United States, as it drew a lot of European émigrés who might otherwise have been caught up in the concentration and death camps to us. That flood of European immigration came as far west as Los Angeles; and there was no bigger name in this particular respect than Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Indeed, because of his Jewish background, Korngold was one of the most likely to have been gassed had he stayed in Europe. An early cantata of his, “Gold”, attracted the attention of Gustav Mahler in 1909; and Mahler recommended that Korngold engage in further compositional studies with Alexander von Zemlinsky and Richard Strauss, along with having assembled a collection of far lesser known works of Johann Strauss into “Waltzes From Vienna”. When Max Reinhardt, a theater and (later) film director, began to suspect that the rise of Adolf Hitler was going to be the death of German art, he encouraged Korngold to come to America to adapt Felix Mendelssohn’s score for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in a 1935 film version that Reinhardt was to direct. Eventually, Korngold became arguably the first superstar composer of film music, including the scores to such films as The Adventures Of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, and The Sea Hawk, among others. Even while he was doing all this, entirely for the Warner Brothers studio, Korngold also still engaged in “serious” music, including a short but incredibly spiritual work known as the “Passover Psalm”. Composed in 1941, just as Korngold’s adapted country was about to enter World War II against Korngold’s place of birth, this ten-minute work, for solo voice, chorus, and orchestra, eventually found its premiere at a Yom Kippur concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1944. Due to the fact that Korngold’s film scores were getting so much attention, however, this incredible work was only rarely performed, even in Los Angeles, during his lifetime, and long after his death in 1957. In fact, in a hugely ironic twist, it only got its first recording in 1998 in what was arguably the most anti-Semitic city in the world, Vienna, when Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly recorded the Passover Psalm, alongside similar works by Zemlinsky and Leos Janacek, with the Slovak Philharmonic Choir and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Soprano: EVA URBANOVA
Slovak Philharmonic Choir
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/RICCARDO CHAILLY (London)
Included:
Janacek: GLAGOLITIC MASS
Zemlinsky: PSALM 83
Korngold: PASSOVER PSALM, OP. 30
In a very perverse way, the Nazi regime did a great deal to enhance the culture in the United States, as it drew a lot of European émigrés who might otherwise have been caught up in the concentration and death camps to us. That flood of European immigration came as far west as Los Angeles; and there was no bigger name in this particular respect than Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Indeed, because of his Jewish background, Korngold was one of the most likely to have been gassed had he stayed in Europe. An early cantata of his, “Gold”, attracted the attention of Gustav Mahler in 1909; and Mahler recommended that Korngold engage in further compositional studies with Alexander von Zemlinsky and Richard Strauss, along with having assembled a collection of far lesser known works of Johann Strauss into “Waltzes From Vienna”. When Max Reinhardt, a theater and (later) film director, began to suspect that the rise of Adolf Hitler was going to be the death of German art, he encouraged Korngold to come to America to adapt Felix Mendelssohn’s score for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in a 1935 film version that Reinhardt was to direct. Eventually, Korngold became arguably the first superstar composer of film music, including the scores to such films as The Adventures Of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, and The Sea Hawk, among others. Even while he was doing all this, entirely for the Warner Brothers studio, Korngold also still engaged in “serious” music, including a short but incredibly spiritual work known as the “Passover Psalm”. Composed in 1941, just as Korngold’s adapted country was about to enter World War II against Korngold’s place of birth, this ten-minute work, for solo voice, chorus, and orchestra, eventually found its premiere at a Yom Kippur concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1944. Due to the fact that Korngold’s film scores were getting so much attention, however, this incredible work was only rarely performed, even in Los Angeles, during his lifetime, and long after his death in 1957. In fact, in a hugely ironic twist, it only got its first recording in 1998 in what was arguably the most anti-Semitic city in the world, Vienna, when Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly recorded the Passover Psalm, alongside similar works by Zemlinsky and Leos Janacek, with the Slovak Philharmonic Choir and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Soprano: EVA URBANOVA
Slovak Philharmonic Choir
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/RICCARDO CHAILLY (London)
Included:
Janacek: GLAGOLITIC MASS
Zemlinsky: PSALM 83