classical-music – the Operatic Saxophone

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Kathrin; the jazz age opera Nazi’s tried to destroy

Erich Wolfgang Korngold is one of the most celebrated late romantic composers in the 20th century. A child prodigy whose brilliance was celebrated by Mahler and Richard Strauss, Korngold wrote his first opera, Die tote Stadt at the age of 23. Korngold was committed to late romantic harmony, he was unmoved by the new stylesContinue reading “Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die Kathrin; the jazz age opera Nazi’s tried to destroy”

Kommisar Rondart, the opera that led Sigurd Rascher to Edmund von Borck

All of the entries in my database have one thing in common, they all received a premiere, if not on an opera stage, then as an orchestral work. This opera defies that simple distinction, it never premiered on the stage. Despite that absence, Kommisar Rondart by Edmund von Borck is essential to saxophone history, asContinue reading “Kommisar Rondart, the opera that led Sigurd Rascher to Edmund von Borck”