Mozart’s early works astonish because they were written at the age of five or six-but, as music, they are undistinguished. A bold claim but, on examination of the evidence, a justified one. Korngold was perhaps the most extraordinary child prodigy in the history of music. Yet, surprisingly, the two men had much in common and, in spite of their artistic differences, maintained a cordial relationship which in later years, when both were exiled in the USA, blossomed into warm friendship. Sixty years later, it would be hard to find two less likely musical compatriots, so diametrically opposed are their individual style and musical philosophy.
The results named Arnold Schoenberg and Erich Wolfgang Korngold in joint first place. In 1932, the Neues Wiener Tagblatt, one of Vienna’s most distinguished newspapers, conducted a poll among the musical cognoscenti of the day to discover which living composers were the most highly regarded.
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