Erich Wolfgang Korngold: A Portrait and Concert

Marked as a child prodigy, Erich Wolfgang Korngold eventually moved from orchestral work to opera before leaving Hapsburg, Austria for Warner Bros., Hollywood, where he soon became one of Tinseltown's most influential composers, winning two Oscars and authoring seminal scores for films such as Captain Blood and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Alternating between traditional talking-head interviews with biographers, living relatives, and admirers, and concert footage featuring the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Frankfurt, conducted by Hugh Wolff, Erich Wolfgang Korngold: A Portrait and Concert offers a fascinating biography of a man who was able to bridge the extremes of high and popular culture, using the disciplines learned in one medium to inform his work in the other. This is particularly evident in the film's second section, a concert performance--presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 or stereo--of two Korngold concertos, including one that was originally written for the 1946 film Deception, but has been expanded into a lush cello piece. Both the portrait and concert sections meander a little and only periodically find visual evocations for Korngold's music, but with appearances by the likes of Anne Sofie von Otter and Leonidas Kavakos, the music is lovely and the experts provide ample testimony to the composer's importance in 20th century music. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (D. Fienberg)