• Biography

Biography

As a child prodigy, Korngold’s compositions included a ballet and two piano sonatas by the age of twelve. The Viennese composer gained considerable success with his chamber music and his operas Violanta, The Ring of Polycrates, and Die tote Stadt (The Dead City), which has been recently revived. He moved to America at the invitation of Max Reinhardt in 1934 and made a career there as a film composer. His music for The Adventures of Robin Hood and for Anthony Adverse won Oscars, and the second of these, with his music for Captain Blood and The Private Lives of Elizabethand Essex, provided thematic material for his Symphony, Op.40. He continued writing concert music throughout his Hollywood career, including the still-popular Violin Concerto, premiered by Heifetz in 1947. He remains one of the most renowned composers of Hollywood’s Golden Era and a lasting influence on film composers today.

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