E.W.Korngold Web site

Naxos recently has recorded four orchestral concert works:
-overture to Schauspiel (1911);
-overture to Der Schneemann
-Much Ado About Nothing - Suite (1920);
-
composed by the Czech-born child prodigy and famous Hollywood film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold were recorded recently in sessions held in Mexico.
-Violin Concerto
Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería: Carlos Miguel Prieto.

While I am delighted that NAXOS has made this CD, can I just state that Korngold was not Czech born.

At the time of his birth, Brno was called Bruenn and was part of Austria. He never had a Czech passport, never spoke Czech and considered himself Austrian until the day he died. To be more specific, like Mahler, he was from the Moravian school.

The redrawing of the map of Europe over the past 110 years does not affect this historic fact, irrespective of the fact that the Czech Government may now wish to claim him as one of their own after decades of ignoring him.

A similar situation has arisen over Lehar's nationality. When he was born in Komarom, it was in Hungary. Today it is in Slovakia. In spite of the fact that Slovakia is now declaring him a Slovak composer, he was decidedly Hungarian and never spoke a word of Slovakian. In fact the common tongue of all of these Bohemian composers was German.