Born in Vienna in 1897 and the son of an eminent music critic, Erich Wolfgang Korngold impressed even Mahler with his talents and ultimately became the most well-known opera composer in German-speaking countries after Strauss. His first public success was a ballet at the Vienna Court Opera when he was only 11. By the time he was 20, his operas were being staged in Hamburg and Cologne. 

Korngold’s abilities to adapt and change were already on display in 1918 when he was asked to write incidental music for a small Viennese production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Due to the theater’s size and wartime restrictions, Korngold was asked to write for a chamber orchestra. When the small original venue went bankrupt and the larger Burgtheater stepped in, hiring members of the Vienna Philharmonic to perform, Korngold rescored the music as an orchestral concert suite. When the sold-out run was extended and some musicians were no longer available, Korngold cleverly rewrote the music for solo violin and piano. When he moved to America at the invitation of Max Reinhardt in 1934, this quick thinking, combined with his ability to match the dramatic and budgetary needs, may have contributed to his ultimate status as one of the preeminent composers of Hollywood’s “Golden Age.”