Songs Of The Clown - Solo Guitar by Erich Wolfgang Korngold eBook”
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ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD (1897-1957)
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).
SONGS OF THE CLOWN, Op. 29b (1941)
Towards the end of the 1920’s Korngold began an artistic collaboration with the aforementioned Max Reinhardt, the legendary theater producer, impresario and co-founder of the Salzburg Festival. In 1937 Reinhardt asked Korngold to provide songs and incidental music for a production he was planning entitled “Shakespeare’s Women, Clowns and Songs”. Korngold completed these songs in Austria that year. However soon after the Nazis annexed Austria and confiscated his property. Among the manuscripts destroyed were the Shakespeare Songs. It was not until 1941 that Reinhardt was finally able to stage his production. Incredibly, Korngold reconstructed the entire manuscripts from memory, and these songs were first performed on 28 June, 1941, by Nanette Fabray at the Reinhardt Workshop Theatre in Los Angeles.
The intricate accompaniment, here arranged for guitar by Gregg Nestor, also lends itself to instrumental performance. It is in that spirit that this solo guitar concert version is presented.
