Korngold’s Schneemann

[ewk]

Hi all,

May Korngold be unsung or not, but his public début »Der Schneemann« (The Snowman) is certainly not a work that is performed very often. In fact I think only the Violin Concerto, »Die tote Stadt« and sometimes the Symphony are performed some kind of regularly at all.

First performed for the Emperor of Austria back in 1910 in Zemlinksky's orchestration, I have always loved this work from the very first second when I bought my first Korngold CD as a 16 years old boy (It was the chandos one with the Märchenbilder and the Schauspielouvertüre). But as I discovered much later, the Chandos CD only contains the Introduction, Act I and the Entre'acte, I think in the booklet they write that they where unable to obtain the rest of the sheet music in order to record it.
I always wondered what the second part sounded like and if it was just as wonderful as the first part. Apart from a koch recoding (http://www.amazon.de/Schneemann-Woolley-Scot/dp/B000001SHT/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1379339178&sr=1-4&keywords=korngold+schneemann) of the piano version, I have never come across a full recording of the ballet in its orchestral version.

Does anyone know a such recording or was able to attend a performance of the whole 40 minute long piece? I would really love to hear it in its entirety one day...

I just came across this Suite on Youtube which contains at least some bits of the second Act (the last 5 minutes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dB6ngXpz8Y But still I'm sure there are even more lovely melodies in the second Act!

(Should this maybe be posted in Recordings and not in composers?)

[Mark Thomas]

It's fine where it is, ewk.

[eschiss1]

the Koch recording advertised itself as a world premiere, I see. Does anyone know how much of even the piano reduction that's performed on Koch, Antonin Kubalek recorded on LP - excerpts, I presume, then, if that's accurate?

[brendangcarroll]

I assisted with the Chandos recording and also wrote the booklet for it, and well remember the problems encountered with the musical materials supplied by the publisher. Without going into detail, the orchestral parts were in such bad shape (there hadn't been a performance since the early 30s) and the orchestra and Maestro Bamert had to spend a lot of session time making corrections. As a result, there simply wasn't time to record Act 2 - a great pity. The piano version is much shorter than the orchestral score as performed in 1910. In 1913, Korngold (then age 16!) revised the entire score and added more music. The archival materials survive for this fuller version, which was revised again in 1931 for a new production at the Vienna Opera under Clemens Krauss direction. I can tell you that the second act actually has the best music with some themes that are every bit as gorgeous as Korngold's later film themes. I hope one day that it will be recorded and that the score materials can be restored in a new imprint (hint-hint UE!)

[mbhaub]

Wow! Brendan Carroll -- one of my heroes. Your Korngold biography is a great read, as is all of the booklets you've put together. Those of us who are addicted to Korngold owe you a lot!

A question: other than this aforementioned 2nd act of Schneemann, is there still more Korngold that lies dormant? That is, other than the film scores. I was bowled over by the complete Much Ado recordings of recent date, and they filled a gap. All of the operas are recorded. But is there any more that we can look forward to?

[brendangcarroll]

Hello mbhaub! Apologies for delay in reply but I've not visited the forum for a while and mistakenly assumed I would be emailed if anyone replied to my post! Hmmm... Anyway, the short answer is yes! There are some scores by EWK still to be recorded, but as these are unpublished and in manuscript only (preserved in the Library of Congress mostly) it really depends on his publishers and the Korngold estate before a recording can be arranged. Some nuggets to whet your appetite include the eerie incidental music to Hans Mueller's play "Der Vampir" (1922), a Fugue for String Quartet, a number of songs and the first version of the Sextet opus 10 also scored for quartet. Then of course there are the operettas which contain a lot of original music by Korngold! (I have a Youtube channel which has some rare recordings of the operettas at www.youtube.com/brendangcarroll) Naxos is about to release Vol 2 of the complete songs which will hopefully include the remaining unpublished items. Among these is the Kaiserin Zitahymn!(1916) Details on all these can be found in my book of course. Best wishes, BGC.

[eschiss1]

The email-in-response to post thing has been put under "attachments and other options" ("notify me of replies") down there-a-bit and is now "off" by default, I think- one has to turn it on manually. I believe so.

[mbhaub]

the eerie incidental music to Hans Mueller's play "Der Vampir" (1922

Ok, you got my attention. How does one go about getting hold of a score/parts? If it's in the LOC I assume I have access of some sort, but what about performance? I really would like to pursue this.

[brendangcarroll]

Der Vampir exists as a Mss only at the LOC and you would need permission from the Korngold heirs to obtain a copy. I hear that it may be recorded soon however....I will post when I know more!