Music with pictures

The APO's Opera in Concert brings together two underappreciated artists.

- RICHARD BETTS

Perhaps it all came too easily for Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957). When the composer was barely out of short trousers, Mahler proclaimed him a genius. So did Richard Strauss. Puccini called him "the greatest hope of modern German music". For a long time, though, Korngold got no respect.

It's Hitler's fault. A Jew who called Vienna home, Korngold was stranded in the US when Germany annexed Austria in 1938. He settled in California and composed sumptuous scores for swashbuckling movies including The Sea Hawk and The Adventures of Robin Hood, which earned him an Oscar but made him an Untouchable among the European musical cognoscenti. They considered film music beneath them, even when it was as clever and well-written as Korngold's.