My Love and I - Solo Guitar by Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Although best known for his action-adventure scores, Erich Wolfgang Korngold was no less a master of expressive vocal writing, as illustrated in his several operas and his occasional songs for film. “My Love and I” (with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II), is one of Korngold’s early screen compositions, a song written for the Paramount film Give Us This Night (1936). Its harmonic eloquence and the gentle assuredness of its melody foreshadows the seriousness with which this “concert composer” would approach film.
One of Vienna's most celebrated composers in the early 20th century, Korngold was considered a serious rival to his contemporary Richard Strauss; he composed many of his operas and concert works while in his teens and twenties and was celebrated as a true wunderkind. Korngold first came to America in 1934 to adapt Mendelssohn's music for Max Reinhardt's film of Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Nazis’ invasion of his homeland a few years later convinced him to stay in Los Angeles, where he wrote romantic, highly influential scores for Warner Brothers films. He received Academy Awards for Anthony Adverse (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938); his other films include Captain Blood (1935), The Sea Hawk (1940) and Kings Row (1942).
