Korngold Violin concerto
what are some great recordings of Korngold. Did milstein, grumiaux, szeryng, etc... record it?
i have perlman's, heifetz's and gil shahams recordings.
i really like heifetz :) very soulfull, majestic and flawless recording.
so if anyone could suggest some other great recordings other than the ones i have, and where to get them, that would be great!
Replies (26)
Hi,
The DVD of Kavakos does not include the complete concerto. Other recordings are those of Mutter, Hoelscher and perhaps some that I don't know. The Heifetz is hard to beat, and in my opinion can only be beaten by his live recording at Carnegie from the 40's (NY premiere with Ny Phil/Kurtz).
No one dared touch that for a long time. It was Heifetz territory. Period.
Cheers!
As always, Queen Mutter.
...I like king Heifetz more;).
"The DVD of Kavakos does not include the complete concerto."
Hi Christian,
The Korngold DVD with Kavakos does show the full concerto. You have to select the performance option in the main menu. There are also full performances of the Cello Concerto and a few pieces for piano on this same DVD. There is a documentary on Korngold on this same DVD which you probably saw.
Heifetz owned the piece during his time.
Gil Shaham plays it very well, and there is a live performance clip by Phillip Quint (Russian/American rising star) on his website that is very exciting http://www.philipquint.com/.
I love mutters, it also has the tchac. on it
Greetings,
I belive you can buy soft clothes that saftely remove Tchak from most cds,
Ever helpful,
Buri
I personally have Heifetz, Perlman, Mutter, Chantal Julliet & Gil Shaham. But does anyone else own the Hoelscher (EMI), Vera Tsu (Naxos), Miranda Cuckson (Centaur), Mathe (Dorian) and Benjamin Schmid (live 2004 Salzburg on Oehms) versions to comment on?
I was not convinced by Mutter's. It sounded forced to me. I prefer the renditions by shaham, perlman, and heifetz. The heifetz cd also has the rozsa which is very enjoyable.
Cheng Hooi Lee,
of course Vera Tsu.
I forgot, she had given me one of her recordings which includes the Korngold. She is a dear friend, an excellent player and now lives back in her homeland China. Her rendition is very fine and technically superb.
Yes, I still like the Heifetz. The concerto was written for him and like Oistrakh and the Shostakovich there is something special about it. And yes, I also very much like the Rozsa. I think it is a fantastic concerto (I actually like it more than the Korngold). It's not that the Perlman, Mutter, Juillet, and ??? I have doing it are in the least bit bad. They're all 'good'. It's just that there seems to be something magical about the Heifetz for me.
I totally agree.
Heifetz is totally bursting with swashbuckling romanticism.
Talking about Korngold & swashbuckling. Did you guys know that Korngold wrote a lot of the music for the Erol Flynn movies including the swashbuckling ones. Miklos Rosza did as well. There is one pirate film in which Korngold uses the 1st subject of the violin concerto for that movie score as well. I don't remember if it is THE SEA HAWK or CAPTAIN BLOOD. But it is one of the two.
Hi,
Gennady, if I remember the opening theme is from the movie Another Dawn, for which Korngold also wrote the score. As for Rosza, he's done so many, who can forget, especially with films like Ben Hur.
Cheers!
Hi,
Gennady, if I remember the opening theme is from the movie Another Dawn, for which Korngold also wrote the score. As for Rosza, he's done so many, who can forget, especially with films like Ben Hur.
Cheers!
Most of Korngold's scores were swashbucklers...
Funny enough, if you listen to the opening of King's Row, you'll hear themes that sound A LOT like the Starwars theme and the Superman theme (both supposed John Williams compositions, but it seems Korngold was borrowed from).
Themes from Another Dawn, Juarez, Anthony Adverse and The Prince and the Pauper are used for the VC.
Yes, indeed, lots of John Williams music draw from Korngold's style as well as Wagner & Berlioz (in terms of the leimotiv/idee fixee of tunes which represent a character e.g. Darth Vader).
Hi,
What about Spellbound Pieter? I think that score got Korngold an Oscar.
Realistically, Korngold really created the Hollywood film sound. It is true that Williams probably borrowed from the score King's Row for Star Wars. After all, Lukas had asked him to compose a score for orchestra for the film that recalled the scores of Korngold. But, Williams has inspired himself from many things, the most striking incident probably being the opening of ET which ressembles greatly the last movement of Howard Hansen's second symphony.
Cheers!
It is no doubt that Europe's loss was America's gain with Wolfgang Korngold, the wunderkind from Vienna whose concert music as well as operas were highly praised and performed often.
Several orchestras around the country have paid tribute to Hollywood composers (including us Seattle Symphony).
In NYC, American Composers Orchestra did a whole festival in the genre.
For anyone interested to know more info on film composers: here is a link to a very informative narative by Paul Chihara "From Scene to Shining Screen: A Short History of Film Music"
Korngold only did like 16 scores, and he was very influential. However, the juggernaut of the romantic style symphonic film score was Max Steiner, who did well over 300.
In my opinion however, Korngold's work was vastly superior.
Christian, it was Rozsa that got the oscar for scoring Hitchcock's Spellbound. And it also has that nifty dream sequence by one of my favourite artists, Dali. The score was later turned into a piano concerto. Rozsa's concerto in the Heifetz recording is actually of his second violin concerto.
As an aside, I believe that Rozsa is still the most recorded filmscore composer (3 Oscars, 10-12 Oscar nominations, and other international awards). Yet, like Korngold, though not as tragically, Rozsa always kept a distance between his Hollywood productions and the music he really liked to compose.
Hi Rick - So, is there a recording of the Rosza 1st Violin Concerto?
By the way, I sent you an email in that "common email address"! Thanks - Cheng
Hi Cheng,
I believe Rozsa's first (1929) violin concerto (and I think he premiered it since it was first heard at the Leipzig Conservatory where he was studying violin -- he started playing violin at age 5 being taught by a pupil of Hubay) was never published since it is not listed in his catalogued works. But 1929 was a busy year for him and it has been suggested that only a few of his works from that year have been catalogued.
There is a recording of his 1929 Op. 4 'Hungarian Peasant Variations' for Violin and Piano, and since it was also scored for Orchestra it would likely give the flavour of the concerto since he was forever incorporating used thematic material from different Hungarian melodies and the 'Hungarian Peasant Variations' went on to be performed later.
And of course there are numerous recordings of other violin works by Rozsa available.
I'll check the email. Thanks.
Hi,
Thanks Rick - sorry for the oldzheimer's slip.
Cheers!
Lol...wouldn't of caught it Christian if Spellbound wasn't one of my alltime favourite movies.
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December 25, 2005 at 06:20 PM · someone said there is a dvd with kavakos playing this