Korngold’s incidental music for Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado about Nothing, premiered in Vienna in 1920, enjoyed instant success and soon spread round the world in a series of arrangements that are still performed today. The music has not been heard as Korngold intended since that first production.

For this recording, made in conjunction with its fully staged US premiere, Korngold’s complete score was reconstructed from the original Viennese materials. A recent ‘complete recording’ omitted a number of cues, reconstructed for this recording for the Vienna materials. Korngold’s family made his own recordings available so that these 21st-century performers could study the composer’s own approach to the music. For the first time on CD, the music is played here by the chamber-orchestral forces for which it was written.

This recording includes Shakespeare’s spoken dialogue where Korngold intended it to be heard over the music but also present the music in separate tracks without voices.

John Mauceri was from 2006 until recently chancellor of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where this recording was made. One of the world’s most accomplished recording artists, he is the recipient of Grammy, Tony, Olivier, Drama Desk, Edison, two Emmy and four Deutsche Schallplatten awards, among other prestigious recognitions. John Mauceri is the former music director of four opera companies, including Scottish Opera, and for sixteen seasons at the Hollywood Bowl he broke all records by leading over 300 performances before a collective audience of four million people with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, created for him by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

Contents:
[1–18] Complete Incidental Music (49:49)
[19–23] Movements without dialogue (20:16)