Erich Wolfgang Korngold's The Adventures of Robin Hood: A Film Score Guide (Scarecrow Film Score Guides)

Winner of the Academy Award for best dramatic score in 1938, the score for The Adventures of Robin Hood is seen by many as the archetypal accompaniment to a Warner Brothers swashbuckler, and it established the score's composer, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, as one of the leading exponents of film score composition at a formative point in its history. In the newest addition to the Scarecrow Film Score Guides series, author Ben Winters uses manuscript and archival research to challenge preconceived notions about the score's composer and its authorship. Winters examines Korngold's career, his film scoring techniques, and his engagement with the Hollywood studio system; he examines the film's treatment of the Robin Hood legend, its historical and critical contexts, and its place within the swashbuckler genre and the studio's anti-fascist agenda; he shows the sources Korngold used, the music's production process, and the changes the score had undergone; and he concludes with a thematic analysis and reading of the score, identifying the various musical 'voices' that the listener weaves together as he or she experiences the film. This detailed consideration of Korngold's masterpiece will be continually turned to by film and music scholars alike.