"Vom Wunderkind selbst"

[Korngold, Erich Wolfgang]. Korngold, Julius. Child Prodigy.

€ 2,500.00

Inscribed by the Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) as "the child prodigy himself".

Part memoir and part biography, Julius Korngold's work book on the topic of his famous son's life was never actually finished, nor was it ever published in German.

This is the American edition, published under the title "Child Prodigy" and inscribed by the subject himself: "Für Elly Reichart in alter Freundschaft vom 'Wunderkind' selbst". The recipient of the gift was a fellow emigré, the widow of the Austrian librettist Heinz Reichert (1877-1940), who co-wrote Lehár's "Frasquita" and "Der Zarewitsch".

The Korngolds were a musical family even before Erich Wolfgang gained Hollywood fame; Julius Korngold was himself a highly influential music critic. Erich was a sensation in Vienna by the age of 11, when he was already putting on ballets. By thirteen he was writing popular piano sonatas, and shortly thereafter one-act operas. By 1931 he was Professor of Music at the Vienna State Academy. With job offers in Hollywood and the rise of Nazism in Austria, Erich moved to Los Angeles and struck up an equally influential career composing film scores of the 1930s and 1940s. His father passed away in 1945, and the unfinished biography was subsequently published; Erich's inscription is dated to the same year.