What killed Erich Wolfgang Korngold?

Michael Haas, author of the book Forbidden Music - about the generation of Jewish composers murdered, obliterated or exiled by the Nazis - was curator at the Jewish Museum in Vienna of a fabulous exhibition about Julius and Erich Wolfgang Korngold several years ago. He has now posted on forbiddenmusic.org a very substantial essay entitled The False Myths and True Genius of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, lavishly illustrated with both visual and aural material.

It is wonderfully written and the story emerges powerfully with all its complex, baffling and ultimately tragic elements in sharp relief. Did Korngold die too young because of the stress caused by his own sense of "irrelevance"?

Do give it a read. And a listen.

'Forbidden Music' - a vital read

Michael Haas's Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis is being published on 7 May and is an absolute must-read for anyone with an interest in setting the record straight about the nature of music in the 20th century. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first major scholarly book to address its specific question. I have a short feature about it in The Independent today.

Here to go with it is a spot of appropriate opera: Korngold, in longing-for-the-past mode. This is "Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen, es träumt sich zurück" from Die tote Stadt - the Pierrot Tanzlied, sung in this (unfortunately uncredited) production by [shock] a Pierrot. 

I'll never forget hearing Olaf Bär in Zurich having to sing this dressed in drag with basque, tights, six-inch black heels and butterfly wings, but that's another story.