# Korngold Symphony in F-sharp



## Hans Somers (Nov 23, 2013)

hi all, :tiphat:

I re-started listening to classical music, so I got here and enjoyed your opinions, knowledge and discussions.

Listening this Korngold symphony and enjoy it. André Prévin and the LSO on DG. Anyone here who knows it? Shoot!


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)




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## Hans Somers (Nov 23, 2013)

copy / paste review from Musicweb International :
Brendan G. Carroll, Korngold's principal biographer [The Last Prodigy - A Biography of Erich Wolfgang Korngold by Brendan G. Carroll, 1997, Amadeus Press ISBN 1-57467-029-8] and President of the International Korngold Society commenting on Korngold's Symphony for MusicWeb International has written, "This Symphony is one of the most demanding orchestral works in the repertory and conductors and orchestras that approach it thinking it is an easy ride, do so at their peril. It is in a very difficult key (especially for the strings) and the writing demands virtuosity from all sections. It is also a common mistake to try to make it sound like a Hollywood film score, which it isn't. The tempi and rhythm must be kept taut and when Korngold's markings are obeyed, it makes a devastating effect."

Korngold's Symphony in F-Sharp is scored for a large orchestra with expanded percussion including marimba, plus four horns, three trumpets, four trombones, celesta and (percussive) piano. The solemn elegiac Adagio is the emotional heart and Brendan Carroll describes this as Korngold's finest slow movement and has written that "many commentators have described it as the greatest since Bruckner and Mahler and that Korngold had described the conclusion of the Adagio as an 'ecstatic Abgesang'".

Although Korngold professed that there was no programme to his Symphony, he admitted that some listeners might have, on first hearing it, read into the first movement the terror and horrors of the years 1933-45 and into the Adagio the sorrows and sufferings of that time. Furthermore, one cannot but conjecture that this music reflected Korngold's disillusion with life in Hollywood, his disenchantment on return to post-war Vienna to see it in ruins, and his disappointment at the general antipathy to the overt emotionalism of Late-Romantic music.

Read more: http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2011/June11/Korngold_Lace.htm#ixzz2lsVUwos9


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

Hans Somers said:


> hi all, :tiphat:
> 
> I re-started listening to classical music, so I got here and enjoyed your opinions, knowledge and discussions.
> 
> Listening this Korngold symphony and enjoy it. André Prévin and the LSO on DG. Anyone here who knows it? Shoot!


Known it for a long time since the Kempe recording with the MPO came out in the early 70s.
It is a difficult work and I think that EWK had lost the muse by the time he began to compose this.
He was probably the greatest musical prodigy since Mozart, but by the time he composed this he was a somewhat forlorn soul, hanging desperately on to the late romantic style which by then was so out of favour it took until the early 70s and Charles Gerhardt's RCA film series of LPs to bring him back to the public view. Kempe's recording of the symphony was ground breaking, but the Previn CD is definitely the one. His best works are the Violin concerto, the opera "Die Tote Stadt" and the Sinfonietta. However I adore his film scores. All of them. 
He adapted three of them and produced his violin concerto - a truly wonderful work - first performed by Heifetz.
Previn (again, he is a real champion of Korngold's ) has recorded it three times - all great - with Perlman - Shaman and Sofie-Mutter.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Despite his later output being somewhat out of its time I nevertheless enjoy all his music from across the board (and the music he wrote early on was incredibly assured for someone so young). The symphony is no exception and, as with his violin concerto, I'm glad he managed to leave us one for us. The version I have is Welser-Most's with the Philadelphia Orchestra on EMI. Its anachronistic style alone almost makes it sound like a wistful attempt at clinging to a bygone age.


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