Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Austro-Hungarian by birth (he later took American citizenship), Erich Korngold was one of the most prodigiously gifted of child composers. After studying with Fuchs and Zemlinsky in Vienna, he was still only eleven when his ballet, Der Schneemann, caused a sensation at the Vienna Court Opera in 1910. Six years later, Munich audiences were no less impressed by his two one-act operas Der Ring des Polykrates and Violanta, which were staged as a double bill at the city's Court Opera in 1916. But his greatest success was Die tote Stadt, unveiled simultaneously in Cologne and Hamburg in 1920 and still occasionally revived. Post-Romantic in its inspiration, the score reveals its composer as a master of luxuriant orchestration capable of tapping a rich melodic vein derived from Puccini, Mahler, and Richard Strauss. On the strength of his reputation, Korngold was invited to take charge of the opera class at the Vienna Academy of Music in 1930. Like many of his colleagues whom the Nazis dismissed as "degenerate" and who included Ernst Krenek, Kurt Weill, and Paul Hindemith, he chose to go into exile and in 1934 followed Max Reinhardt to Hollywood, where he wrote the original film-operetta Give us this Night and a whole series of award-winning soundtracks. He died in Hollywood in 1957.