It is perhaps telling that the first movement is the only one not to incorporate any of his film music as it's by far the most modern and austere. From the stark opening and rhythmically off centre notes, this is unlike anything else in Korngold's repertoire and it's only when the composer's romantic side attempts to tame the turbulence with a more traditional Korngold, does the composer's best known style start to show through. I can't decide if it's a satisfactory musical battle between modernism and romanticism - there is strong element of conflict throughout much of the movement - or simply a composer uncomfortably trying to graft on a new musical language onto his usual idiom. Unlike Prokofiev, for example, Korngold seems unwilling to pick up the more demanding musical language and run with it, preferring instead to return to the more familiar. Maybe Korngold would have extended his palette from romanticism to a more aggressive 20th Century style music had he not worked in film scores, but in any event, it's a striking, yet disconcerting opening.
Whether by design or accident, the rest of the Symphony follows the somewhat familiar path of light over dark. The jaunty Scherzo, dominated by breathless triplets, contains elements that are not entirely familiar from Korngold's oeuvre. In fact, anyone familiar with John Williams' concert music will note certain similarities, not just in the use of duple time (where the rhythm is built around triplets), but many of Williams' fairly oft used harmonies crop up throughout the Scherzo, together with a blazing horn theme that intrudes from time to time. It certainly seems like an obvious precedent to the Scherzo's from Williams' Cello and Trumpet concertos. The slow third movement is where Korngold starts to relax back into his more familiar idiom, even if there is a dark Mahlerian feel just under the surface of the gorgeous tunes. The final movement is more obviously related to his film music, in almost a Scherzo style, it zips along with a few passages that make the listener expect Errol Flynn to start sword fighting at any moment, even if, as noted above, the material actually stems from the distinctly non-swashbuckling King's Row.
The four selections from a lavish production of Much Ado About Nothing are somewhat more slight, but Korngold's music is rarely less than tuneful and lyrical, so the results are undemanding, but enjoyable. André Previn is an ardent supporter of Korngold's music and leads the London Symphony Orchestra in a bracing performance of the symphony and a delicate rendition of the theatre suite. Despite my reservations about the symphony (another being that it seems just a touch long at times - the material just occasionally overused), it is still a fine work and would almost make a better place to start than many of Korngold's film scores. It is largely lacking the frills of those endeavors and, although it's some way off being especially dissonant or atonal, is more demanding and largely lacking the kind of overtly florid writing that younger fans often find off putting. Of course, fans of the composer should pick up this disc as an essential.
Rating ~ 
Total Time ~ 63:25