- Performed four-handed piano arrangements with his father from the age of five. Composed his first major work, the ballet "Der Schneeman", at the age of eleven. It was performed in front of the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef at the Vienna Court Opera. Korngold's most famous work, "Die Tote Stadt", is still regarded as one of the major operas of the 20th century.
- Composed at the piano while letting a projectionist run the various scenes. He was one of the first to write motifs for each of the leading characters in the film.
- Hugo Friedhofer on Korngold: His contribution was enormous, and he influenced everyone working at that time. He was the first to write film music in long lines, great flowing chunks, that contained the ebb and flow of mood and action, and the feeling of the picture.
- He is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery just a few steps away from another film composer, Walter Jurmann (famous for writing the song "San Francisco"). Korngold is also known for his swashbuckling scores, such as The Sea Hawk (1940) that starred Errol Flynn, and is buried only a a short walk away from another two great romantic leading men, Tyrone Power and Rudolph Valentino.
- He disdained the thought of being regarded merely as a film composer. After leaving Warners in 1947, he returned to 'serious music'. Ironically, his popular Violin Concerto in D and a symphonic serenade with strings are among several later works made up almost entirely of movie themes.
- Korngold served in the Austrian army during World War I, but the former wunderkind was stationed in a small suburb of Vienna and his military duties consisted of composing marching songs.
- Pictured on one of six 33¢ USA commemorative postage stamps in the Legends of American Music series, honoring Hollywood Composers, issued 21 September 1999. Issued in panes of 20 stamps. Others honored in the set were Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, and Alfred Newman.
- Korngold's first score was "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for William Dieterle in 1935 and came out of retirement to work for the director for "Magic Fire" a decade later.
- Became an American citizen in 1943.
- Usually worked in tandem with Hugo Friedhofer who was his orchestrator.
- His association with Warner Brothers began, when he was invited by Max Reinhardt to arrange Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). Warner's then approached Korngold directly with an offer to score Captain Blood (1935), which he did after completing his opera "Die Kathrin" in Vienna and co-writing several operatic numbers for what turned out to be a critical and box-office flop, Give Us This Night (1936). For "Captain Blood", he was expected to compose over an hour of symphonic music in just three weeks. As this deadline was impossible to meet, Korngold ended up supplementing the score with music by Franz Liszt. As a result, he insisted on the final credits to read "Musical Arrangements by Erich Wolfgang Korngold".
- Specialised in period dramas and swashbucklers, for which he composed stirring, dramatic scores, which often relied on a powerful string section.
- He had a great rivalry with the other leading composer at Warner Brothers, Max Steiner, who also had a Viennese background. Whereas Korngold was treated with great respect by his employers, and rarely did more than one film score per year, Steiner was seen as a workhorse by them, often doing six or seven (or more) films per annum. One day, it is said, Steiner told Korngold that he felt that, whilst his own music was getting better and better, Korngold's was getting worse. Korngold, instead of being affronted, merely smiled and said, "That is because you are imitating me - and I am imitating you!".
- Great-uncle of actress Connie Paige Korngold.
- Was assigned to score Adventures of Don Juan (1948) when shooting began in 1945 and even sketched some themes. When production was postponed until 1947 (due to Errol Flynn's illness and other problems), Max Steiner replaced Korngold because, by then, he had announced his retirement from motion pictures. In October 1947 he suffered a heart attack and, in spite of pleas from Leo F. Forbstein, Music Chief at Warners, Korngold refused to return to the studio.
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