Four Centuries of Great Music February 16, 2024 Classical Music by Film Composers

FCGM – 02-16-25    Classical Music by Film Composers

Two Sundays ago on February 2nd on Evening Eclectic, I was talking with conductor John Mauceri, who conducted the orchestral performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s symphony in F sharp major Op. 40 that was on that program and Korngold’s grandson, Leslie Korngold.  You can listen to that episode by clicking schedule on the WRUU website, then clicking Sunday, then clicking Evening Eclectic at 8pm and then clicking on that episode.   This got me to thinking that I should do a Four Centuries of Great Music on the topic of classical music or art music by who we think of as film composers.  So today, I will be playing most violin concertos by film composers and also music from their films as well.

So lets start with Erich Wolfgang Korngold.  

Austrian born Erich Wolfgang Korngold fled Europe with the rise of Adolph Hitler.  Korngold had vowed to give up composing anything other than film music, with which he supported himself and his family, until Hitler had been defeated. With the end of World War II, he retired from films to concentrate on music for the concert hall. The Violin Concerto was the first such work that Korngold wrote.   Korngold had been hurt by the assumption that a successful film composer was one who had sold his integrity to Hollywood, just as earlier he had been hurt by many critics’ assumptions that his works were performed only because he was the son of music critic Julius Korngold. He was thus determined to prove himself with a work that combined vitality and superb craftsmanship.

The concerto was dedicated to Alma Mahler, the widow of Korngold’s childhood mentor Gustav Mahler. It was premiered on 15 February 1947 by Jascha Heifetz and the St. Louis Symphony under conductor Vladimir Golschmann. In a contemporary review of the performance, it was reported that Korngold’s Violin Concerto received the most enthusiastic ovation in St. Louis concert history.  On 30 March 1947, Heifetz played the concerto in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Efrem Kurtz; the broadcast performance was recorded on transcription discs. The composer wrote about Heifetz’s playing of the work: “In spite of the demand for virtuosity in the finale, the work with its many melodic and lyric episodes was contemplated more for a Caruso than for a Paganini. It is needless to say how delighted I am to have my concerto performed by Caruso and Paganini in one person: Jascha Heifetz.”

Heifetz’s performance launched the work into the standard repertoire, and it quickly became Korngold’s most popular piece. However, the fame of the violin concerto, combined with Korngold’s eminent association with Hollywood film music, has helped obscure the rest of his legacy as a composer of concert-hall works written before and after his arrival in the United States.

Although Korngold was credited with introducing the sophisticated musical language of his classical training to the soundscapes of Hollywood films, a kind of reverse inspiration also occurred. Like many of Korngold’s “serious” works in traditional genres, the violin concerto borrows thematic material from his movie scores in each of its three movements.

The three movements are

Moderato nobile: The violin solo which opens the concerto is a theme from Another Dawn (1937), running over two octaves in five notes. Juarez (1939) provided the second theme (the Maximilian & Carlotta theme), more expansive and reliant upon the orchestra.

Romance: The solo violin introduces the principal theme of the slow movement, quoted from Anthony Adverse (1936) and revisited after a contrasting middle section that seems to have been uniquely composed for the concerto.

Allegro assai vivace: The most demanding movement for the soloist begins with a staccato jig, which leads to a second theme based like the first on the main motif from The Prince and the Pauper (1937) and builds up to a virtuoso climax

Here is a performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold:  Violin Concerto In D Major, Op. 35 by Ray Chen, violin and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Cristian Macelaru from the album

Erich Wolfgang Korngold:  Violin Concerto In D Major, Op. 35 – I. Moderato Nobile
Erich Wolfgang Korngold:  Violin Concerto In D Major, Op. 35 – II. Romance
Erich Wolfgang Korngold:  Violin Concerto In D Major, Op. 35 – III. Allegro assai vivace
Ray Chen, violin and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Cristian Macelaru
Ray Chen – Player One
Decca Classics

And now for some Korngold film music.  This is the Original Theatrical Trailer from the movie The Sea Hawk as performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra & William Stromberg from the album Korngold: The Sea Hawk, Deception Naxos Recordings

Miklós Rózsa was a Hungarian-American composer who moved to the United States  in 1940 at the beginning of World War II.  Best known for his nearly one hundred film scores, he nevertheless maintained a steadfast allegiance to absolute concert music throughout what he called his “double life”. And “Double Life” was the title of his autobiography.

He was requested by the renowned violinist Jascha Heifetz to write a single movement violin concerto.    During his break from MGM in 1953, Rózsa rented a villa in Rapallo, Italy, where he began to write music for the new concerto. At first he wanted to compose only one movement, as Heifetz requested, but knowing Heifetz’s propensity to easily reject single movement works written for him, he soon decided to compose a full-scale concerto in three movements.  The concerto was completed in just six weeks.

When he returned to the United States, Rózsa delivered the manuscript to Emmanuel Bay who offered it to Heifetz for his approval. Heifetz contacted Rózsa saying that he liked the completed work and he suggested that the two should meet in four weeks, after the violinist would return from his concert tour. Six months elapsed without a word from Heifetz, and Rózsa assumed that he had lost interest in their collaboration.

At the suggestion of fellow artists, Rózsa was encouraged to offer his work to other violinists. Before anyone else had an opportunity to accept or decline the invitation, however, Heifetz telephoned. Rózsa, perhaps inappropriately, assumed that the caller was not the great soloist at all but, rather, his friend and fellow composer Bronislau Kaper playing a practical joke on him. Consequently, when Heifetz contacted him by telephone, Rózsa replied “If you’re Heifetz, I’m Mozart.”  After recovering from what the composer considered one of the most embarrassing moments of his career, discussions proceeded.

Heifetz wished to make some minor changes and edits, and Rózsa happily agreed, working together toward a finalized version of the concerto.  Heifetz contacted Rózsa at the end of 1955 telling him that he was prepared to give the concert premiere of the work. The premiere took place on January 15, 1956, in Dallas, Texas, with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter Hendl, with Heifetz as soloist. At the conclusion of the performance, Heifetz called Rózsa to the stage where both were greeted by a standing ovation.  Later that year Heifetz recorded the concerto, teaming again with Hendl and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.  

Later, Rózsa adapted the concerto into a score for Billy Wilder’s 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

The concerto is structured in the traditional concerto form of three movements  I.  Allegro non troppo ma passionato  II. Lento Cantabile and III. Allegro vivace

Let’s close out this first hour of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring classical or art music of whom we know as film composers with the first movement of Miklós Rózsa:  Violin Concerto, Op. 24 as performed by

You have been listening to the first movement of Miklós Rózsa:  Violin Concerto, Op. 24 as performed by

Let’s open this second hour of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring classical or art music of whom we know as film composers with the second and third movements of Miklós Rózsa:  Violin Concerto, Op. 24 marked Lento Cantabile and Allegro vivace as performed by Matthew Trusler, violin  & Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yasuo Shinozaki

You have been listening to the second and third movements of Miklós Rózsa:  Violin Concerto, Op. 24 marked Lento Cantabile and Allegro vivace as performed by Matthew Trusler, violin  & Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yasuo Shinozaki

Miklós Rózsa:  Violin Concerto, Op. 24: I. Allegro Non Troppo Ma Passionato
Miklós Rózsa:  Violin Concerto, Op. 24: II. Lento Cantabile
Miklós Rózsa:  Violin Concerto, Op. 24: III. Allegro Vivace

Matthew Trusler, violin  & Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yasuo Shinozaki
Rozsa, M.: Violin Concerto, Op. 24 – Korngold, E.W.: Violin Concerto, Op. 35
Orchid Classics

And now some film music by Miklos Rozsa – from his most famous movie score – Ben-Hur, the Parade Of The Charioteers as performed by Miklos Rozsa conducting the Capitol Records orchestra from the album Miklos Rozsa Conducts His Great Themes From Ben-Hur, El Cid, Quo Vadis And King Of Kings Capitol Records

John Williams is probably the most famous American film composer.  But he also composes serious art music including his first Violin Concerto

He composed his violin concerto between 1974-1976 and revised it in 1998. It is dedicated to the memory of his  late wife.  It was premiered on January 29, 1981 by Mark Peskanov, violin and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin

John Williams has written about this concerto.  With these thoughts in mind, I set to work laying out my concerto in three movements, each with expansive themes and featuring virtuosic passage work used both for effective contrast and display. The pattern of movements is fast, slow, fast, with a cadenza at the end of the first movement. Although contemporary in style and technique, I think of the piece as within the Romantic tradition.
The first movement starts with an unaccompanied presentation, by the solo violin, of the principal theme, which is composed of broad melodic intervals and rhythmic contour, in contrast with the more jaunty second subject. Orchestra and soloist share the exploitation of this material, and after the solo cadenza the movement is brought to a quiet conclusion.

The second movement features an elegiac melodic subject. While this melody is the central feature of the movement, there is, by way of contrast, a brisk middle section based on rushing “tetrachordal” figures that are tossed back and forth between soloist and orchestra. The mood of the opening is always present, however, as the rushing and playing about continue to be accompanied by hints of a return to the movement’s more introspective opening.

The finale begins with chiming chords of great dissonance from the orchestra, all of which pivot around a G being constantly sounded by the trumpet. The solo part commences immediately on a journey of passagework in triple time that forms a kind of moto perpetuo which propels the movement. In rondo-like fashion, several melodies emerge until insistent intervals, borrowed from the first movement, form to make up the final lyrical passage “sung” by the solo violin. An excited coda, based on the triple-time figures, concludes the work.

John Williams:  Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in Memory of B.R.W: I. Moderato
John Williams:  Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in Memory of B.R.W: II. Slowly (in Peaceful Contemplation)
John Williams:  Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in Memory of B.R.W: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in Memory of B.R.W III. Broadly (Maestoso) – Quickly
Gil Shaham, violin and John Williams conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra
John Williams: Tree Song; Violin Concerto; 3 Pieces from Schindler’s List
Deutsche Grammophon

And now some film music by John Williams, the theme from Jurassic Park  as performed by John Williams conducting the Berliner Philharmonic from the album John Williams The Berlin Concert

Thank you for joining me today on Four Centuries of Great Music and join me again next Sunday from 3-5pm.