Erich Wolfgang Korngold, 1897-1957

Today marks the birth anniversary of composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Korngold was born in Vienna in 1897 and, like a lot of people in Central Europe, left because of the Nazis in the 1930s. Korngold wound up in Hollywood, and in the 1930s and 1940s composed about 20 film scores. Of course, the one for which he is best remembered today is the rousing score to The Adventures of Robin Hood. That's the one that won him the Oscar. However, he was also nominated the next two years for his scores to The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and The Sea Hawk.

However, Korngold was a "serious" composer as well, meaning that he composed music that was intended for orchestras on stages and not first and foremost for the cinema. Here's the first movement from one of Korngold's symphonies; the rest of the symphony should be in the sidebar if you go to the Youtube page rather than watching the embedded video.