Program Eight: Classics in Hollywood: Film Composers in the Concert Hall

1 pm Preconcert Talk: Byron Adams
1:30 pm Performance: Danny Driver, piano; Tyler Duncan, baritone; Jasper String Quartet and guest; Rebecca Ringle Kamarei, mezzo-soprano; Piers Lane, piano; Anna Polonsky, piano; Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Erika Switzer, piano; Orion Weiss, piano

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957)
Piano Sonata No. 3 in C Major, Op. 25 (1931)   
Four Shakespeare Songs, Op. 31 (1937–41)

Alexandre Tansman (1897–1986)
From 24 Intermezzi (1940–41)

George Antheil (1900–59)
Toccata No. 2 (1948)

Bernard Herrmann (1911–75)
From Souvenirs de voyage (1967)

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968)
Serenatella on the Name of Jascha Heifetz, Op. 170, No. 2 (1954)

Miklós Rózsa (1907–95)
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 22 (1950)

Songs by Richard Hageman (1881–1966)

Like other film composers who shared his classical background, Korngold continued to write concert music during his Hollywood years. Program Eight offers a sampling of some of their mid-century chamber works. These include selections for solo piano by Korngold, Alexandre Tansman, and George Antheil, and the Bartókian First String Quartet by Miklós Rózsa, better-known for Spellbound and Ben-Hur. Herrmann is represented by his final concert work, the clarinet quintet Souvenirs de Voyage, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco by his rhapsodic Serenatella on the Name of Jascha Heifetz, written in tribute to the great violinist who helped him as a new arrival in Los Angeles. Rounding out the program are concert works by Richard Hageman, who combined careers in film and opera, and by Ernst Toch, known in Hollywood for scoring the chase scene in Shirley Temple’s Heidi but in the concert world for his Third Symphony, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.