May | Tchaikovsky & Blooming Brilliance
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Erich Wolfgang Korngold is well known as the composer of classic movie scores including The Sea Hawk, Captain Blood, and of course, The Adventures of Robin Hood. What American movie audiences did not know is that Korngold was one of the greatest child prodigies who ever lived and one of the most famous composers in Europe in the 1920’s and 30’s. After just a few piano lessons with a family friend, he became a phenomenal pianist. He wrote his first major work, The Snowman at the age of 11. He then wrote a series of successful operas, the greatest being Die tote Stadt. He was only 23. His detractors pointed out that his father was the greatly feared Viennese music critic Julius Korngold, but in fact that did not matter in the least. His composition teacher Gustav Mahler and the great Richrd Strauss both proclaimed him a genius and the most talented student they had ever met. In addition, the public loved his work. He was on track to become the most successful composer of his generation.
Then the Third Reich arose. Korngold fled. The great director Max Reinhart had already moved to Hollywood. He arranged for Warner Brothers to bring Korngold to Los Angeles. He was offered the job of writing the music for Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and Olivia De Haviland. As a Jewish composer from Austria in the 1930’s, this job, which kept him in Hollywood, saved his life. His score for Robin Hood is one of the great classics of the cinema. More than this, it was Korngold who brought grand, sweeping, orchestral music to the movies. John Williams has cited him as one of his greatest inspirations.
In 1945, with the war finally over, Korngold returned to writing classical music for the concert hall. One of the first pieces was his Violin Concerto. The great virtuoso Branislaw Huberman had begged him for decades to write a concerto. Unfortunately, by 1945, Huberman was way past his prime and not able to perform the piece. Instead, the premiere went to Jascha Heifetz. The premiere took place in St. Louis on February 14, 1947. “The reception of the Violin Concerto in St. Louis was triumphal,” Korngold wrote. “A success just as in my best times in Vienna.” He dedicated the concerto to Alma Mahler, the widow of his teacher Gustav Mahler and the center of all artistic endeavors in Austria. Alma had been the most beautiful woman in Vienna, according to multiple sources, and the heart’s desire of every Viennese musician, artist and architect. Though twenty years younger, Korngold did not escape her spell.
The sweeping opening theme of the concerto comes from the decidedly B-movie Another Dawn (1937), with Kay Francis and Errol Flynn. We will have some fun at this concert and watch a clip from this film, as well as a section of Juarez (1939) which provides the romantic second theme of the concerto. This section illustrates the love of Carlotta and Maximillian.
For those who may not remember Mexican history, the people loved Empress Carlotta and despised Maximillian, who tried to rule Mexico as a de facto French Colony. She was celebrated everywhere she went as a wonderful queen and a great friend of the masses, while the people used her husband Maximillian for target practice. We still celebrate the fact that the Mexicans beat Napoleon’s troops on Cinco de Mayo and a full firing squad finally hit that target in June 1867, but I digress …
This was all excellent romantic film music, and we are very lucky that Korngold recycled it, since the movies themselves are decidedly second rate and mostly forgotten. These brilliant themes would have been completely lost if this concerto had not been written.
Our soloist will be Nicholas Brazier, a top winner of our 2026 Young Artists Competition.
André Messager (1853–1929) studied composition with Camille Saint-Saëns and organ with Gabriel Fauré. He eventually took over as organist of the famous church of Saint Sulpice when Fauré resigned from that position. Little remembered by the public today, Messager
was an important part of the musical establishment around 1900. He held positions as conductor the Opéra-Comique, the Paris Opéra, the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He conducted the world premiere of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande.
Messager’s Solo de Concours for Clarinet is a brilliant, virtuosic work composed for the Paris Conservatory's final examinations. It has three contrasting sections—a light-hearted Allegro opening, a lyrical Andante, and a brilliant finale. This work showcases both the technical agility and the melodic lyricism of the performer. Our soloist is a Runner-Up from our Young Artist Competition, Zephyr Tanigawa.
Sergei Prokofiev initially composed his Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16, in 1912 and completed it in 1913. However, that version of the concerto was destroyed in a fire following the Russian Revolution. Prokofiev reconstructed the work in 1923, two years after finishing his Piano Concerto No. 3, and stated it was "so completely rewritten that it might almost be considered [Piano Concerto] No. 4." Prokofiev premiered this "New No. 2" in Paris in1924 with Serge Koussevitzky conducting.
This is one of the most formidable works in the piano-concerto repertoire. Written when Prokofiev was in his early twenties, it combines daring modernist harmonies with fiercely virtuosic piano writing. The orchestration alternates between driving, percussive textures and moments of bleak lyricism, creating an intense atmosphere.
The first movement of bursts with dark energy: a brooding, percussive orchestral introduction gives way to jagged, motoric piano figures and sharply dissonant harmonies that propel the music forward with relentless drive. Amid the turbulence Prokofiev inserts a hauntingly lyrical secondary idea, but the movement’s character remains mostly aggressive. In the recapitulation section he inserts an amazing and notoriously taxing five-minute cadenza. This is one of the longest and most difficult cadenzas in the classical piano repertoire and it brings us to the climax of the movement.
Our soloist is the indomitable Alec Rodriguez, who has won our competition many times. Mr. Rodriguez has recently won a coveted spot at the Royal College of Music in London. This may be your last chance to hear this phenomenal pianist before he departs for Merry Olde England. Don’t miss it!
Sunday, May 17th • 3:00 PM
Central Kitsap Performing Arts Center
10140 Frontier Place NW, Silverdale, WA 98383
