[ Naxos / 2 CD Box Set ]
Release Date: Monday 26 July 1999
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Erich Wolfgang Korngold was the second son of the distinguished Viennese music critic Julius Korngold, himself the son of a well-to-do wine-merchant in Briinn (Brno) and a pupil of Bruckner at the Vienna Conservatory. Julius Korngold had won the approval of Brahms and of Hanslick, assisting and then succeeding the latter as music critic for the Neue freie Presse. As a child Erich Korngold showed remarkable precocity and embarked on the study of composition at the age of six. His father was on good terms with Mahler and in 1906 the boy played by heart for him his new cantata Gold, while Mahler followed the score, exclaiming" A genius" , as the music continued. He advised Julius Korngold to avoid the Conservatory and allow his son to study with Zemlinsky, Alma Mahler's former teacher and brother-in-law of schoenberg, while Robert Fuchs was persuaded to give him lessons in counterpoint. The connection with Mahler continued and the Korngolds visited him in succeeding summers when he was at Toblach. In the summer of 1909 the boy played to Mahler a new Scherzo he had written and a Passacaglia on a theme of Zemlinsky. Mahler advised him to add a first movement to these pieces and make of them a sonata, the result of which was Korngold's Piano Sonata No.1 in D minor. By this time the boy's reputation had aroused wider interest from, among others, Engelbert Humperdinck and Richard Strauss, Nikisch and even Weingartner, whose appointment as successor to Mahler at the Hofoper had earned Julius Korngold's open hostility. In 1910 Julius Korngold allowed the private publication by Universal Edition of three of his son's compositions, Der Schneemann (The Snowman), Charakterstiicke zu Don Quixote (Character Pieces based on Don Quixote) and the Piano Sonata in D minor, for the exclusive use of musicians.
"Recorded live at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1996, the Naxos version offers a warmly expressive reading, bringing out the ripeness of melodic writing. The recording too is admirably clear, with more orchestral details than in the vintage first recording under Leinsdorf. The tenor, Thomas Sunnegardh, sings cleanly and freshly in the central role of Paul, with Anders Bergstrom youthfully convincing as his friend, Frank. Yet the glory of the set is the singing of Katarina Dalayman as Marietta-radiantly pure and tender in Marietta's song in Act I-which even outshines the model of Carol Neblett on RCA. The snag is that Segerstam observes various cuts in the score, omitting some 15 minutes of music. Naxos provide a details synopsis and a German libretto, but no translation" 3 Stars (Penguin guide)
"Full marks to Naxos for bringing out only the second recording of Korngold's best and best-known opera. A good, budget-price version will certainly help to bring this glorious work to a wider audience. ...Leif Segerstam has a fine feeling for the breadth and depth of Korngold's intricate orchestrations and the nervous, erotic tension of his personal form of expressionism." BBC Music
"This set from Naxos really does him [Korngold] proud....The result is addictive music, certainly when performed with this degree of loving care. Leif Segerstam has the measure of this idiom...the dancer Marietta..is exquisitely taken by Katarina Dalayman. Listen to this and you will be hooked on the work" Classic CD