Korngold - Sinfonietta for Large Orchestra, Op. 5

 

 Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD (1897-1957)

Sinfonietta for Large Orchestra, Op. 5

The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

 Gerd Albrecht

Prominent Viennese music critic Julius Korngold must have known exactly how Leopold Mozart felt. Just as the elder Mozart had watched the astonishing development of his son Wolfgang, Julius saw his own son Erich Wolfgang developing musical talents so rapidly and spontaneously that the boy fully lived up to his middle name. Erich burst on Vienna as child who stood out even among the great Wunderkinder of history. When he was 11 he wrote an opera, Der Schneeman (The Snowman), that was performed at the Vienna Opera House in 1910. Although the eminent composer Alexander von Zemlinsky did the orchestration, young Korngold watched him do it, and that seems to have been all he needed in the way of orchestration lessons. The great conductor Arthur Nikisch conducted the boy's first overture when Erich was 14.

By that time Erich was writing this Sinfonietta. The modest title conceals what is no less than a full-scale (45-minute) symphony for large orchestra. In it Korngold's mature style is present, nearly completely formed. It is in the key of B (in German notation, the key of H), a tonality that is especially bright because of its five sharps. In the future, Korngold would prefer such keys; his other symphony is in F sharp.

Korngold's formal sense and control over his material is utterly astonishing. The entire work is based on a single theme, making prominent use of what the composer called "The Motif of the Cheerful Heart." (An upbeat attitude is also characteristic of Korngold's music and is certainly the dominant feeling of this Sinfonietta.) This motive is three upward perfect fourths (for instance, B, E, A). His rich harmonization is already well ahead of its time. While his contemporaries were deserting tonality in order to use all 12 chromatic notes, Korngold wrote in a kind of extended polytonality, using all 12 notes as adjuncts to a central tonality.

The layout of the Sinfonietta is that of a standard symphony with a scherzo and trio placed second among the four movements. The dreamy slow movement, with delicate and thoroughly refined orchestration, is especially haunting, and the finale is breathtaking in the way its climaxes are judged and timed—it is one of those pieces that simply carries an audience away with it. The great conductor Felix Weingartner premiered the Sinfonietta on November 30, 1913, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Many great conductors took it up, including Richard Strauss.