The Right Place to Be

Days after leaving Selznick, Steiner became the highest-paid staff composer at Warner Bros. It was a deal he was quietly arranging before leaving Selznick, detailed here for the first time. Steiner would spend most of the next three decades at Warners. This chapter provides a detailed examination of the studio’s music department, and explains why its infrastructure, staff, and varied creative content were ideally suited to Steiner’s talents. The chapter describes his friendly if competitive relationship with Warner Bros.’ favorite freelance composer, Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Steiner works discussed include the Best Picture–winning Life of Emile Zola, the start of his long collaboration with Bette Davis, and his iconic Warner Bros. fanfare. The chapter also chronicles the unexpected death of Steiner’s mother in Vienna, and Max’s frantic—and ultimately successful—efforts to bring his father to America, after Hitler’s annexation of Austria.

Recollections of Zemlinsky from My Years of Study

This chapter contains Erich Korngold's personal reflections on his former teacher, Alexander Zemlinsky. Zemlinksy was an Austrian composer and conductor who enjoyed an outstanding reputation as a private music teacher in late Habsburg Vienna. He is perhaps best remembered in this capacity for the counterpoint instruction he gave to his future brother-in-law Arnold Schoenberg. For a brief time, beginning in 1900, Zemlinsky taught Alma Schindler, with whom he had a love affair in the period before she began the relationship that would lead, in March 1902, to her marriage to Gustav Mahler. Among the last—and certainly the most precocious—of Zemlinsky's Viennese students was Erich Wolfgang Korngold, whose lessons were initiated in 1908 and continued for upward of two years until Zemlinsky departed Vienna to become the music director of Prague's New German Theater.

Korngold and His World

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957) was the last compositional prodigy to emerge from the Austro-German tradition of Mozart and Mendelssohn. He was lauded in his youth by everyone from Mahler to Puccini and his auspicious career in the early 1900s spanned chamber music, opera, and musical theater. Today, he is best known for his Hollywood film scores, composed between 1935 and 1947. From his prewar operas in Vienna to his pathbreaking contributions to American film, this book provides a substantial reassessment of Korngold's life and accomplishments. Korngold struggled to reconcile the musical language of his Viennese upbringing with American popular song and cinema, and was forced to adapt to a new life after wartime emigration to Hollywood. The book examines Korngold's operas and film scores, the critical reception of his music, and his place in the milieus of both the Old and New Worlds. It also features numerous historical documents—many previously unpublished and in first-ever English translations—including essays by the composer as well as memoirs by his wife, Luzi Korngold, and his father, the renowned music critic Julius Korngold.

Falling Fruit

Curtiz finished Marked Woman for Lloyd Bacon and directed Mountain Justice, a fact-based drama about the Edith Maxwell murder case, followed by Kid Galahad, an all-star Warner melodrama. Curtiz was denied the assignment of The Adventures of Robin Hood when Errol Flynn begged Warner and Wallis not to let Curtiz direct him. William Keighley was assigned instead.The hugely budgeted production began to founder, andWallis eventually removedKeighley and appointed Curtiz to rescue the picture. He imbuedwhat is clearly one of his greatest films with his energetic creativity. The chapter provides an in-depth accounting of the Robin Hood production, including the action sequences and the Oscar-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The picture was one of Warner Bros.’ biggest triumphs, and Curtiz was then the leading director at the studio.