Symphonic Journeys: From Bruckner’s Belief to Korngold’s Hollywood Glamour
They never met in person. Yet despite their differences—in temperament, faith, and historical context—Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Anton Bruckner will symbolically shake hands this September in Prague’s Dvořák Hall. Their works will be performed side by side by the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in one of this year’s festival highlights.
Imagine this: a modestly dressed Catholic steps into a Viennese confectionery. Just as he’s about to place his order, a sharply dressed Jewish gentleman slips past him, sweeps up the best cakes, throws down a handful of coins, and vanishes. The flustered man turns to the shopkeeper and pleads, “Please, madam, let His Imperial Majesty Franz Joseph know that everyone is being terribly unfair to me.” She smiles kindly. “Give it a hundred years, Mr Bruckner,” she says, “and they’ll be playing your music alongside Mr Korngold’s.”
It’s the kind of scene that could have played out, had Bruckner and Korngold ever crossed paths. But time stood in the way—Korngold was born in 1897, a year after Bruckner’s death. Still, both were shaped by Vienna, though neither was born there. And it’s hard to imagine two more contrasting lives: from their upbringings to the very nature of their creative temperaments.
Creative Genius in a Quiet Shell
Anton Bruckner’s symphonic legacy is a monumental cycle of nine symphonies, the final one left unfinished in 1896 in a small apartment within Vienna’s Belvedere Palace. Back then, this Baroque estate on the edge of the city centre was not open to the public. It must have offered a peace and seclusion perfectly suited to Bruckner’s introspective creative process—one that at times bordered on the mystical.
There, he could contemplate the old musical forms he had mastered, alongside the revolutionary work of Richard Wagner, whom he admired with near-religious devotion. According to one anecdote, whenever Wagner was in Vienna, Bruckner would wear his formal tails at all times—just in case fate allowed a chance encounter.
It’s no surprise. Bruckner’s path to musical recognition was anything but easy. He came from a modest background; his father was a schoolmaster and organist in a village now part of Linz. After his father’s early death, Bruckner’s mother hoped to steer him away from the precarious life of a poorly paid musician, and his musical education received little support. Yet somehow—despite poverty, ridicule, and misunderstanding—it was as if a force beyond himself carried Bruckner forward.
A Privileged Prodigy in the Shadow of Antisemitism
Though born, like Bruckner, outside Vienna—this time in Brno—Erich Wolfgang Korngold shared little else with his older counterpart. Where Bruckner’s path was one of hardship and perseverance, Korngold’s was lit from the start. His father, Julius Korngold, was a prominent music critic and writer who did everything in his power to fast-track his son's success.
Of course, young Erich’s extraordinary talent was undeniable. But his father ensured the world noticed. The family soon moved to Vienna, and by the age of nine, Erich was performing his first cantata for none other than Gustav Mahler. At eleven, he composed the ballet The Snowman, staged in 1910 by the Vienna Court Opera. From the outset, Korngold grew up with the expectation that his music would be played and admired—Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini were among those stunned by the boy’s gifts. When the First World War came calling, he avoided the front by becoming music director of a regiment based in Vienna. His opera Die tote Stadt (The Dead City) premiered simultaneously in Hamburg and Cologne—a triumph of theatrical mysticism that continues to captivate audiences to this day.
Even after the Nazis rose to power in Germany and annexed Austria, fortune seemed to follow Korngold. “We were Viennese—Hitler made us Jewish,” he later remarked. In 1938, he chose to remain in Los Angeles, where he would eventually compose his Violin Concerto in 1945. Before that, he had already built a remarkable career in Hollywood, and is now considered one of the founding figures of the Golden Age film sound. Rich orchestration, a fondness for tuned percussion, and an ear for sweeping melody defined his symphonic and cinematic voice, which earned him two Academy Awards.
And yet, for all their differences, Korngold’s music brings us back full circle to Bruckner. Suddenly, a sense of continuity emerges. Where Bruckner dives deep into vast, mystical oceans, allowing waves of melody to rise unexpectedly from the depths, Korngold seems to surf those waves with delight—at times diving after them, leaving a shimmer of joy in his wake. It’s as though he were turning to Bruckner with a playful apology: “Please don’t be cross, dear sir—I really did have to get to America as fast as I could.”
Korngold’s Violin Concerto, performed by Renaud Capuçon, and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor will be presented in a single evening on 9 September at the Rudolfinum. The outstanding Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester will be led by Manfred Honeck.
Autor: Boris Klepal