Play it again, Hollywood

News published on June 2 in the Diari Digital Núvol. By Neila Franch

At the beginning of the 20th century, a small town near Los Angeles was about to revolutionize culture as it was known until then. The world of cinema experienced a rapid transformation: a few years after its birth, Hollywood was already enjoying its golden age. In those classic silent films, music was a key issue that, fortunately, did not disappear later with the advancement of technologies and the introduction of sound films. One of the creators of the characteristic “Hollywood sound” was Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who entered this world of cinema claiming that he would not compose any other type of score until Hitler was defeated. The influence that this period had on his work after 1946 was already evident in the first piece he composed after the Second World War, his Violin Concerto.

In fact, this concert introduces melodies and themes that Korngold himself had used in his soundtracks, but this time combining them with a romantic style and adding a virtuoso touch in the solo role. This year, Heidi Hatch—concert violinist of the Extremadura Orchestra—will perform this outstanding piece from the violin repertoire, and she will do so accompanied by the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès (OSV) at the Teatre de la Faràndula on June 6, at eight in the evening, and at the Palau de la Música Catalana the following day at half past six in the afternoon. Under the baton of conductor Andrés Salado, the orchestra will also take us to the world of cinema with iconic film soundtracks, reviewing the history of Hollywood's golden age.

The first of all will be the music for Kings Row, which Korngold himself composed. The film follows the lives of four children and their adult lives in the American town that gives the film its name, but far from portraying everyday levity, the composer wrote one of the most gothic scores that has been compared to the composition of an opera or a symphonic poem. Next will be the turn of Casablanca by composer Mark Steiner, who was also commissioned to write the music for Gone With the Wind. The film was a box office success and won several Oscars, although in the case of the music it did not win the statuette.

The one who did take home the award was Bernard Herrmann for the soundtrack to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. Herrmann had known and worked with the director for a long time, but until then he had done so on the radio with the famous literary adaptations of Wells as an announcer. The composer himself also had a very close bond with Hitchcock, with whom he collaborated on seven of his films, including probably the most famous, Psycho. And finally, a soundtrack concert could not be complete without John Williams, responsible for the music of the Star Wars saga, which has been considered one of the soundtracks with musical themes and leitmotifs of the highest quality and depth of that time. Interestingly, Williams was inspired by the main theme of Kings Row, but his personal universe became unattainable: years later he would also be responsible for the music of Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and Harry Potter.