Erich Korngold's "Much Ado About Nothing Suite" is drawn from incidental music he wrote for a German production of Shakespeare’s play. Korngold was a very popular young composer in 1920. His opera “Die tote Stadt” premiered in Vienna that year to international acclaim and represented the zenith of his European years. Korngold at 23 was still a maturing prodigy. The Vienna Burgtheater commissioned incidental music from him in 1918. After the production was revived in 1920, Korngold extracted a concert suite for chamber orchestra from the score.
Korngold became one of the "banned composers" when the Nazis came to power. He then fled to the United States where he had a successful career in Hollywood as a leading film composer.
The gorgeous and often humorous suite is the opening work on the Chamber Orchestra's March 20 concert.
Pictured in the graphic (L to R, top) are: scene from "Much Ado", Erich Korngold at age 20, Korngold and his wife, actress Luzi Sonnenthal Korngold, (bottom) William Shakespeare, Max Reinhardt, who directed the "Much Ado" production in 1918 for which Korngold wrote the music. Reinhardt later brought Korngold to Hollywood.
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