Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
November 16, 2018

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra rounded off its year (here, at least) with two ‘farewell’ concerts on the eve of its departure for Europe. I’ve noticed in recent years how generous the SSO’s programs have become. This one was no exception: Perhaps the Dvořák Carnival Overture, wonderfully invigorating as it always is, was a little de trop for what was already a long evening. Whatever!

I’ve always regarded Erich Wolfgang Korngold as much Mahler’s heir as Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Zemlinsky, Franz Schmidt etc. Korngold’s precocious genius was equal to Mozart’s, Mendelssohn’s and Saint-Saëns’. His father, Julius, Vienna’s most feared music critic, took him to Mahler with the prospect of the six year old Erich receiving lessons. When Mahler heard him play some of his compositions, some of which even then could hardly be described as juvenilia, he declared there was nothing he could teach him. Well, not directly. Korngold virtually invented the “symphonic” Hollywood film score and, in doing so, invested the genre with a similar level of complexity and emotional range Mahler did in his symphonies. If Mahler hadn’t composed, Korngold’s music would have sounded very different. Few other film composers, then or...