Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) His early life and works with especial reference to his relationship with his teachers, and his Ballett-Pantomime Der Schneemann.

Abstract

Up until Brendan Carroll's Korngold biography published in 1997, which, although formulated for the general reader, was based on substantive research, postwar retrospective scholarly investigation into the life and works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold was still in its infancy. Academic studies of his compositions had been limited to theses on the three pianoforte sonatas the Lieder and Violent. Other research, adoptions a generally panoramic approach, befitted progress in the field (in view of the paucity of published literature on Korngold) by way of establishing a ground-base of comparative secondary literature.The problems inherent in Korngold research are evident. Common to a number of cases involving emigration, primary sources of accessible information were scattered; musical manuscripts, smuggled out of Europe, reside in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; whereas correspondence remains in the Nationalbibliothek and Stadt-und Landesbibliothek in Vienna.