“Give up your plans of coming home”: Letters of a Viennese Father to His Son

Abstract

This chapter presents some correspondence between Erich Korngold and his father, Julius. These letters reflect a tumultuous, even dangerous time for Erich and his extended family. The famed Viennese opera composer had had a prestigious career on the international musical stage with such works as Der Ring des Polykrates and Violanta (both 1916), which premiered in Munich when he was only nineteen years old. Die tote Stadt was so highly anticipated that it received an unusual double premiere in Hamburg and Cologne on December 4, 1920; the Vienna premiere followed shortly thereafter, with Richard Strauss congratulating the composer backstage after each act. And yet, as the chapter shows, Adolf Hitler cast a large shadow over Austria in the early 1930s, and Julius repeatedly urged his son to remain in the United States.