Erich Wolfgang Korngold
           Orchestral Works

* Military March in B-flat
* Cello Concerto in C, op. 37
* Symphonic Serenade for string orchestra in B-flat, op. 39
* Piano Concerto in C-sharp (for left hand), op. 17

Peter Dixon (cello), Howard Shelley (piano)
BBC Philharmonic/Matthias Bamert
Chandos CHAN9508 Total time: 75:39

* Der Schneemann: Prelude & Serenade
* Der Schneemann: Entr'acte
* Schauspiel-Ouvertuere, op. 4
* Sinfonietta, op. 5
* Viel Larm um Nichts, op. 11
* Symphonic Overture "Sursum corda", op. 13
* Piano Concerto in C-sharp (for the left hand), op. 17
* Baby Serenade, op. 24
* Cello Concerto in C, op. 37
* Symphonic Serenade for string orchestra in B-flat, op. 39
* Symphony in F-sharp, op. 40
* Theme and Variations, op. 42
* Straussiana

Julius Berger (cello), Steven de Groote (piano)
Northwest German Philharmonic/Werner Andreas Albert
cpo 999 150-2 Total time: 63:39 + 70:24 + 65:48 + 68:02

Summary for the Busy Executive: Dive in.

If sweet tunes and sumptuous orchestration constituted all the necessary
for a great composer, Korngold would count as one of the greatest.
Furthermore, a vein of genuine, individual poetry runs through just about
everything he wrote.  Korngold, of course, began his career as a prodigy,
and many bet on him as the next great heir to Wagner and Richard Strauss.
Unfortunately, things turned out a little differently.  I think most
music lovers would now acknowledge the "vulgar" and "clumsy" Mahler as
Next in Line.  While Korngold's catalogue contains marvelous pieces,
there's nothing at the level of the revelatory - the thing that tells
you that a new world of music opened up - nothing like the Siegfried-Idyl,
Rosenkavalier, or Das Lied von der Erde.

Still, revelation isn't everything and probably not a particularly healthy
regimen day after day.  After all, we live at all sorts of levels, and
art, I believe, should speak to all of them.

Korngold's music seems to me very much of its own place and time - the
Viennese fin de siecle.  I listen to the music and think of Klimt and
Hofmannstahl, where decoration and opulence nearly dominate the message.
It's sensuous, sensual art, much like Debussy and Ravel at the same time,
but heavier on the perfume, gold lame, and red velvet.  If Mahler and
even Strauss aim for transcendence, Korngold loves the here and now.
Musically, he follows Strauss rather than Brahms, Bruckner, or Mahler.
He differs from Strauss, however, in that his instincts seem more lyrical
than dramatic - a Schubert rather than a Verdi. I recognize the oddness
of my opinion, since of course Korngold was celebrated for his operas
and his film scores.  I certainly don't deny their effectiveness, but
they're strange operas.  Dramatic music aims to tell a story through the
illumination of character.  Lyric music aims to paint a mood. I know
something of the complexity of the Empress's character from the music
of Die Frau ohne Schatten.  I know nothing of, say, Robin Hood other
than his generic heroism, and I certainly don't know what distinguishes
him from Captain Blood by the music of either film.  I stress that this
is not a difference in merit between music of Strauss and Korngold
(although I do believe Strauss the more comprehensive composer), but a
difference in type, in what the music *does*.

Korngold has enjoyed a recent mini-boom in the number of recordings.
If you don't know the music and you enjoy a good post-Romantic wallow,
you have lots to choose from.  The performances here are no more than
adequate, except that they both bring obscure pieces to light.  Bamert's
errs on the side of spongy rhythm.  You can get away with that on some
pieces, like the light Military March in B-flat.  But the sharper edges
of the cello and piano concerti and the thick string writing in the
Symphonic Serenade demand crisp attack and tighter rhythm.

For me, the Symphonic Serenade stands as one of the finest pieces
Korngold wrote.  Indeed, it's one of the best string pieces by anybody
- a sophisticated entertainment along the lines of the Tchaikovsky
Serenade, although far more technically difficult than the Tchaikovsky.
It revels in the different sounds string instruments can produce.  Korngold
wrote it after a substantial hiatus from concert composition.  It comes
from the Forties and reflects a different attitude toward musical material
than previous Korngold works. It's covered in less of Viennese Schlag
than the works prior to Korngold's Hollywood adventure.  The main theme
of the first movement, a sonata in fact, seems both odd, considered by
itself, as well as intractable to development.  Here Korngold shows his
considerable composing chops, producing something both beautiful and
surprising.  Throughout the Serenade the composer shows an expanded
harmonic sense -- something more adventurous than even Richard Strauss
and more astringent, yet recognizably Korngold.  The work seems caught
between Late Romanticism and Modernism, in a way similar to, say, Havergal
Brian's early symphonies or Schoenberg's first Kammersymphonie.  It
produces an engaging tension, and it allows the work to become something
more than merely pretty.  For example, the slow movement begins as a
gorgeous Straussian chorale.  About half-way through, Korngold seems
almost to lose his harmonic mind, as the tonality, suddenly jagged and
tortured, heads for the planet Pluto and beyond.  Mines lie in wait for
performers and conductor.  In addition to Korngold's usual demand for
laser-precise intonation, the instrumentalists must also perform certain
movements at top speed.  Also, the structure of every single movement
is complex enough to give a conductor fits.  Nothing here can be taken
for granted.  Bamert passes the test of conveying the architecture, and
the performance gets a huge lift in the chorale movement.  But the quicker
movements disappoint, mainly because the BBC's attacks fall all over the
place.  The Northwest German Philharmonic does better on the attacks,
with a resulting greater clarity of inner parts, but they also play more
raw.  On the other hand, the Germans' second-movement "Intermezzo" (really
a scherzo marked "as fast as possible") teeters on the edge of unraveling
altogether.  The BBC may not have an attack unanimous enough to suit me,
but at least it's always the same variance.  And they have a far more
elegant sense of line, to boot.  Furthermore, there's nothing in Albert's
reading that approaches the transcendence of Bamert's "Lento religioso."

The piano concerto for the left hand, written in the Twenties for Paul
Wittgenstein sadly has many more problems.  It's in one huge movement,
with major subdivisions.  In a way, it reminds me a little of the Strauss
Burleske in d, in that a rhythmic idea, announced at the beginning,
dominates much of what goes on.  Again, the opening theme seems to resist
development, if you consider it all by yourself, and again Korngold
triumphs over it.  However, through long stretches Korngold seems to
lose focus, to drop the thread of the argument, and to mumble to himself.
It tends to sprawl, to lose shape.  Bamert and Shelley work wonders,
although again I could use a sharper attack than what Bamert gets from
the BBC.  Still, they do meet the larger issue of coherence, and there's
a great deal of elegance to the performance besides.  Albert and de
Groote don't come up to that mark, with de Groote banging away and
Albert and his players doing the orchestral equivalent.  They also take
about seven minutes longer than the British, and they plod, plod, plod.
Incidentally, this may be one of the few of Wittgenstein's commissions
which the pianist (a difficult personality, to put it mildly) didn't
try to revise.  He offered to "help" Ravel's concerto for the left hand,
refused to perform Prokofiev's concerto (now known as that composer's
fourth piano concerto), and so disdained Hindemith's entry (only recently
discovered) that he locked it away for many years, not only refusing to
perform it himself, but also keeping others from performing it.

Nevertheless, the Germans I think have it all over the BBC in the
cello concerto, simply because they do scratch and claw at it.  Bamert
here is just too suave.  This score has edges.  Even so, the best recording
of this I've heard by far comes from Charles Gerhardt and soloist Francisco
Garbarro in the RCA Korngold series produced by the composer's son,
George.  The whole series of film music by such luminaries as Steiner,
Waxman, Rozsa, Newman, Herrmann, and Korngold - one of the finest series
of anything in the stereo era - languishes now, unbelievably, out of
print.  RCA deserves to swirl down whatever vortex Dante has reserved
for idiots.

So much for the duplications among these two releases.  The cpo set has
more goodies which, if you don't already own them, you might consider.
Nevertheless, the advantage is strictly that of one-stop shopping.  The
performances are professional, but not outstanding, a few steps up from
a mere read-through.  Recordings have served the symphony particularly
well, and two releases stand out.  The first, produced by George Korngold
as a kind of pendant to the RCA film series, features a lush Romantic
reading by Rudolf Kempe, who shows us the links to the more radical side
of Richard Strauss (Varese Sarabande VSD-5346).  The second, leaner
account, led by Franz Welser-Moest;, emphasizes the Modern side of the
score.  At any rate, I wouldn't get the four-disc cpo set just for the
symphony.  You may wish to wait for recording companies to come to their
senses and to record more Korngold.  On the other hand, this is very
attractive music indeed, even in less-than-stellar readings.

Chandos's sound is excellent; cpo's a bit harsh.

Steve Schwartz