Korngold’s ‘Sea Hawk’ score considered among his best film works

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra sets sail Dec. 12-14 with a seafaring-themed program featuring works by Britten, Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Korngold, conducted by Fabien Gabel. 

Here are some facts about composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) and his Suite from The Sea Hawk, drawn from his score for the 1940 movie of the same name starring Errol Flynn and directed by Michael Curtiz. Many film-music scholars regard this score as Korngold’s best movie music.

World War II refugees: It has been said, “Hitler shook the tree, and America gathered the apples.” Korngold was among a large contingent of émigré composers who fled Europe during 1930s and ’40s, such as Miklós Rózsa, Franz Waxman, Hanns Eisler, Ernst Toch, Max Steiner, Ernst Krenek, Erich Zeisl, Kurt Weill, Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. 

A Hollywood pioneer: Korngold’s gifts as an opera composer helped to revolutionize film music; the lush orchestral sound and symbolic leitmotifs now associated with the Golden Age of Hollywood were largely his creation.

His Hollywood gems: Among the notable films scored by Korngold are “Captain Blood” (1935), “Anthony Adverse” (1936), “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1937), “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (1939), “Juarez” (1939), “Kings Row” (1942) and “The Constant Nymph” (1943).

And the Oscar goes to: Korngold won for “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and was nominated for “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” and “The Sea Hawk.”

A photographic memory: Unlike other composers, Korngold never used cue sheets or click tracks when composing or recording film scores. His memory was so precise that he could simply look at a sequence and compose music that would fit it exactly.

Presto: Having an invaluable asset in the fast-paced film industry, Korngold could compose complex, intricate music extremely quickly. It took him only seven weeks to complete the 96-minute score for “The Sea Hawk” (about a swashbuckling privateer in the service of Queen Elizabeth I).

A propaganda film: Ostensibly an adventure and a period piece about Elizabethan England’s struggles with Spain, “The Sea Hawk” also served as a pro-British propaganda film, helping to boost morale during World War II. King Philip of Spain allegorically doubles for Hitler, and the queen’s speech at the finale was meant to inspire wartime audiences.

For the record: It took until 1962 for music from “The Sea Hawk” to be released commercially. It was issued on an album titled “Music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.” Ten years later, conductor Charles Gerhardt and Korngold’s son George included nearly seven minutes of “The Sea Hawk” score on RCA’s “The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold.” A complete re-recording was issued in 2007 by Naxos label, featuring the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, led by William T. Stromberg and reconstructed by John W. Morgan.

An assist by Russ: The original suite Korngold that prepared from the film score was reconstructed in 2003 by Patrick Russ, orchestrator for the films “Chocolat”  (2000), “George of the Jungle” (1997), “Dead Poets Society” (1989), “Ghostbusters” (1984) and many others.