Vienna represented a vital station in the careers of both Bonn-born Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957), who hailed from the Czech territories of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The two composers not only enjoyed the opportunities inherent in the city’s cultural life, but also – albeit to differing degrees – helped shape and create everything we have come to know as Viennese music. Beethoven remained in Vienna until the end of his life, but the Jewish Korngold, witnessing the growing influence of Nazism, was compelled to leave Austria and find his home in the United States. This brought a significant change in the music of a composer who had excelled until then primarily as a writer of film scores: most of his works in traditional genres, including his Violin Concerto (1947), date from the period after the Second World War. The three-movement concerto is in truth an unusual amalgam of autonomous and applied art, since Korngold borrowed the majority of its themes from his earlier film music. On this occasion, the Violin Concerto is sandwiched between the Leonore Overture No. 3 and the Symphony No. 5 (“Fate”), two well-known works by Beethoven that were completed almost at the same time (in 1806 and 1807, respectively).

Presented by: Pannon Philharmonic