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Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD was an Austrian-born American composer, well known for his contributions to the genre of grand film music. His opera Die Tote Stadt (1920; “The Dead City”), premiered in Hamburg and Cologne, and proved to be one of the most successful operas of the 20th century. Max Reinhardt brought him to Hollywood to adapt Mendelssohn’s incidental themes for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). Korngold’s work so impressed Warner Bros. that the studio hired him to score Captain Blood (1935) and Anthony Adverse (1936), which won Korngold his first Oscar. Korngold’s background in opera revolutionized cinematic music. He debuted new techniques such as matching the rhythms of his compositions to the rhythms of spoken words, often using pitches close to those of the actor’s voice. He also made frequent use of leitmotifs, devising musical themes for various characters and concepts. Richard Wagner had popularized such techniques in opera, and Korngold was the first to apply them to film. Other scores include The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Kings Row (1942), Juarez (1939), The Sea Wolf (1941), The Constant Nymph (1943), Of Human Bondage (1946) and Magic Fire (1956, his last).

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