IDAGIO | Barber - Korngold: Violin Concertos - Waxman: Carmen Fantasie - Williams: Schindler's List: Main title theme 4260034867994

Featuring

Perry So
Alexander Gilman
Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra
Samuel Barber
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Franz Waxman

John Williams

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Composition History

Samuel Fels, a soap company owner, sponsored Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto with $1,000, which was originally intended for violinist Iso Briselli.

Composer Biography

Samuel Barber, an internationally-oriented composer, often traveled to Europe for his studies and composed his Violin Concerto largely in Switzerland and Paris.

Composer Biography

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a Viennese 'boy-wonder' praised by Mahler as a 'genius', moved to Hollywood in 1934 and wrote music for about 50 films, winning two Oscars.

Performer Biography

Alexander Gilman, born in Bamberg in 1982, grew up in a musically acclaimed Russian-Jewish family and gave his first solo concert at age seven.

Historical Context

America only truly discovered classical music in the 20th century, partly due to its own composers like Barber, and partly due to European composers emigrating because of Nazi Germany.

Cultural Impact

The 'Carmen Fantasy' by Franz Waxman, a composer who fled Nazi Germany, was adapted for the concert hall at the request of violinist Jascha Heifetz after its use in the film Humoresque.

Compositional Technique

Korngold's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, is more of a grand rhapsody in the late Romantic style, interlarded with quotations from his film music of the late 1930s.