Scope and Content Note
In the dynamic musical environment of the early twentieth century, Erich Wolfgang Korngold stood out not only for his prodigious early talent but the quality and maturity of his music. His father, Julius Leopold Korngold, was a high-powered music critic in Vienna. A staunch supporter of his son's music, Julius played a signifiant role in Erich's personal and creative life. Korngold composed in every genre and maintained his late Romantic compositional style in both film and on the concert stage. He combined melodic motifs with lush orchestration to create the "symphonic film score," music that can be performed independently from the film, a style that remains influential into the twenty-first century. His Oscar-winning score for The Adventures of Robin Hood is ranked eleventh on the American Film Institute's 100 Years of Film Scores (2005), a list of their top twenty-five American film scores of all time. In the last years of Korngold's life, interest in his music waned, and he passed away believing it forgotten. However, beginning in the 1980s, scholars and performers showed a renewed interest in his life and work. His concertos are essential components of the instrumental repertoire, and his operas continue to enjoy international performances.
The Erich Wolfgang Korngold Collection consists of seven series, the first of which, Music, contains two subseries. Korngold's music manuscripts represent his lifetime compositional output and consist of holograph, photo-reproduced, and printed scores, sketches, and parts for orchestral, film, chamber, and solo piano works. This subseries also contains his arrangements of other composers' works. The second subseries, Music by Others, contains printed music by Eric Zeisl, an Austrian composer who immigrated to the United States in 1939.
The Correspondence series contains three subseries. The Korngold Family correspondence includes letters and telegrams from Korngold and his immediate family. The Sonnenthal family were Luzi's relatives, and most of these communications are from her sister Susanne Jellinek, mother Adele von Sonnenthal, and cousin Hilde Zisserman. The Correspondence from Others subseries primarily contains letters the Korngolds received after they moved to the United States. Notable correspondents include Alma Mahler-Werfel, Eugene Ormandy, Bruno Walter, Dimitri Mitropolous, Fritz Reiner, and Walt Disney, among many others. Most of the materials in this series are in German.
Financial and Legal Papers consist of royalty statements, correspondence, tax forms, contracts, checks, bank statements, . The bulk of the royalty statements are for posthumous performances of Korngold's works. Biographical Materials document the lives of Erich, Julius, and Luzi Korngold and are organized into three subseries. Erich's materials consist primarily of various holograph notes from the 1940s. Julius's materials comprise his own writing and his books about opera. Luzi's materials consist of personal documents and her writings, including a biography of Korngold for Große Österreicher, an encyclopedic compilation of famous Austrians, and a biography of Frederic Chopin, Lieber Meister Chopin, published in 1960. The bulk of Luzi's biographical materials are correspondence with publishers concerning the book's publication, written primarily in German.
Programs and Publicity Materials contains programs for performances of Korngold's popular pieces, particularly Die tote Stadt , programs, lobby cards, and advertisements for film screenings and premieres for which Korngold composed the score, and programs from posthumous performances of Korngold's work collected by his family. Photographs are separated into three groups. The first contains photos of Korngold, most of which are formal portraits. The second includes photos of Julius, Josephine, Erich, Luzi, and their sons Ernst and George. The final group includes production stills, photos of Korngold with actor Joan Fontaine, and Korngold with actors from the film Magic Fire (1954). The Artwork series contains caricatures of Erich and Julius Korngold by the same unknown artist. Korngold's death mask and hand casts are not listed in this finding aid and are not generally available to researchers.