On April 7th the ARC Ensemble present a concert “The Viennese in Los Angeles”, a happier title than what they might choose to call it, from composers in exile. 

In the promotion for the event we’re told that for the concert the ARC Ensemble
“performs Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s extravagantly lush Piano Quintet, and works for string quartet and clarinet by his Viennese contemporary Ernest Kanitz. Both settled in Los Angeles during the 1930s, where Korngold became the most celebrated film composer of the day and Kanitz became a legendary teacher at the University of Southern California.”

By a funny coincidence, Kanitz’s birthday is April 9th (right after the concert), and the date of his death is April 7th (the date of the concert). This little factoid is all I know about Kanitz, having googled him. I admire the work done by the ARC Ensemble, helping to advance the lost or under-valued music of exiled composers that might otherwise be forgotten. I raved about their recent CD of the chamber works of Robert Müller-Hartmann, especially the Three Intermezzi and Scherzo Op 22 played by pianist Kevin Ahfat, who sent me a pdf file of the pieces. It’s a tiny glimpse of the complex task faced by the ARC team and their artistic director Simon Wynberg finding composers whose music has been suppressed or lost. The hand-written score is not always easy to read on the page. The poignancy of this struggle to bring lost music to the public is underlined by the hand-written manuscript, brilliantly played by Kevin. No wonder music such as this from composers running for their lives might vanish.

I notice that the night of April 7th they plan to show Robin Hood, although I have to say I’m sad because I believe it’s the wrong film to show. In placing Korngold in the context of the exiled artist, what could be better than music from a film that shows refugees and oppression? Yes Robin Hood is a good film, so are Sea Hawk and a number of other films. But there’s one film that actually addresses refugees and exile explicitly. I think it’s largely under the radar because most people don’t think of it as Korngold’s composition, nor do they notice any refugees in the film.

In 1934 Max Reinhardt directed a production of A Midsummernight’s Dream at the Hollywood Bowl, including extensive use of the music of Felix Mendelssohn. Reinhardt’s student William Dieterle acted as translator for Reinhardt when Warner Brothers filmed it, a prestige project for a studio known for gangster pictures. Korngold arrived in Hollywood in time to work on this his first film in America.

I grew up thinking of this as the funny film with Mickey Rooney, Joe E Brown and James Cagney, without taking it seriously. Only later did I change my viewpoint.

There are two large ballet sequences in the film that employ Mendelssohn’s incidental music for the play, but not precisely as originally written. The first is when we first meet Titania and her faeries, including a mysterious introduction that’s Korngold’s music, followed by arrangements of Mendelssohn. The second and much darker sequence comes after Oberon has successfully snatched the changeling boy as Titania sleeps beside Bottom as he wears an ass’s head.

Reinhardt, Korngold and Mendelssohn were all Jews. So that’s the official reason that this film would be banned in Germany during the war. Perhaps another reason the Nazis banned the film was because of the scene I’m about to describe.

This ballet sequence begins with the dark shades of Oberon’s retinue flocking over the hill. They enter to music that sounds a lot like Wagner. Korngold composed the opening fifty seconds of the segment that segues into the Nocturne. I’ve captured this segment on my iPhone from the DVD because it’s no longer on YouTube. The absence of this extraordinary piece of film from YouTube shouldn’t surprise anyone (even though it surprised me), given that it’s been largely forgotten.

I didn’t get it at first. My brother Peter pointed out that we were watching refugees. The shades are oppressive bullies, forcing the light-coloured faeries who surround Titania to flee. They don’t have any weapons but they’re overpowering all the same.

In addition to the faeries, we see the elven musicians, who are also being forced to leave by the dark shades.

In short order we’re watching everyone onstage being pushed to leave, becoming a stream of refugees, fleeing slowly before the oppressive dark-clothed shades.

We also see Oberon in a charismatic attitude, the camera looking up at him. The changeling boy stares up in adoration.

And the shades surround Oberon as though he were their Fuhrer, their worshipful adulation impossible to miss.

Whether or not Reinhardt actually saw Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 film, he would surely have known of events such as the 1934 Nuremberg rally by the Nazis.  The echo is unmistakable. 

I don’t believe anyone was making cinematic references to the Nazis as early as 1935. Most of the film is simply Shakespeare via Hollywood.

For more information about the ARC Ensemble concert click here.