Albrecht Riethmüller: Korngolds Mendelssohn. Zur Musik für Max Reinhardts Sommernachtstraum-Verfilmung (1935)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s short, successful, and influential career as a film composer got its start when stage director Max Reinhardt hired him to arrange Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream for his Warner Brothers production of 1935. The article examines the techniques Korngold used for his adaptation, which utilized the score of the incidental music and additional excerpts from other compositions by Mendelssohn. The historical circumstances surrounding the production, namely, the Third Reich’s ban on Mendelssohn’s music in general and on his incidental music for The Dream in particular, are recounted. This essay, published here for the first time, is based on numerous versions of lectures given on both sides of the Atlantic, beginning at Harvard University in 2000 and including a plenary address for the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz, in 2002.

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