Korngold The Snowman
Korngold The Snowman Program Notes
Child prodigy Erich Wolfgang Korngold came from a Viennese musical family, and Mahler, Strauss and others recognized his talent at a young age. His ballet-pantomime The Snowman was premiered at the Vienna Court Opera, with orchestration by his teacher Anton von Zemlinsky, when he was 11! In the late 1930s, a visit to Los Angeles to compose the film score for The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn, became a one-way trip, following the Anschluss (Austrian integration into Nazi Germany). Composer of many other swashbuckling film scores, his works also include a fair number of chamber pieces, opera, and the violin concerto, which is part of the adventurous-but-not-obscure repertoire.
Born: May 29, 1897, Brno, Czechia
Died: November 29, 1957, Toluca Lake, Los Angeles, CA