New Encounter with Korngold Chamber Music

Front cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

While I do my best to account for new releases likely to be of interest to readers, every now and then I find myself listening to older albums that seem to have escaped notice when they were released. Such is the case with a Naxos album that dates back to 2020 but deserves recognition for those (like myself) interested in listening to the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The two works on the album are performed by a chamber ensemble called Spectrum Concerts Berlin. This is their second Korngold offering, the first having presented the composer’s Opus 1 piano trio and the Opus 10 string sextet.

The second album also consists of two selections. It begins with the Opus 23 five-movement suite, which is followed by the earlier Opus 15 piano quintet in E major. The advance material from Naxos describes the suite as “a gallery of European musical history, from Bach via Beethoven to the early 20th century.” I find that to be a bit of an exaggeration; but, to be fair, the first movement of Opus 23 is identified as “Präludium und Fuge.” After that, the only thing “historical” about suite are the movement titles “Walzer,” “Lied,” and “Rondo!”

Both of these compositions follow up on Korngold’s Opus 10, a string sextet in D major, which I first encountered a little over a year ago. The Nash Ensemble recorded it on an album that began with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 70 in D minor, given the title “Souvenir de Florence.” In general, I tend to prefer listening to Korngold’s music on albums that do not include other composers. Korngold had his own way of doing things, informed by his own previous musical encounters. In that respect, however, I would have preferred that the tracks on this particular album be presented in chronological order. This would allow Opus 15 to be approached as a “prolog” to the lengthier suite.

Of course, in our brave new world of “digital music,” we are free to order the tracks of a recording any way we wish!