Robin Hood

Piano Trio in D Major, Opus 1; Erich Wolfgang Korngold, composer; Escher Trio

Aunt J. got my Mom in so much trouble when they were little. J. liked to go to the movies on Saturday afternoon. Mom was younger and not allowed to go along. When it was time to go home, Grandpa E. sent Mom in to get Aunt J. “J., Daddy’s outside. It’s time to go.” “Yeah, yeah. In a minute. Watch this.” So they’d watch the movie for a couple of minutes. “J., Daddy’s outside. We really have to go.” “We will. But you have to see this.” Three more minutes went by. “J. We have to go home. Daddy’s outside waiting for us.” “I know. But watch what happens here.” And what happened here is that Grandpa came in and dragged his two truant daughters out to the car. Who do you think got yelled at? Mom got the lecture. And J. got the giggles.

It’s a wonder that Mom went into a movie theater again after that. But she did. And she did it smarter. When her kids went to the movies, she went in WITH them and when it was time to go, it was time to go.

One of the first movies that I remember seeing in the theater with Mom and Dad was Disney’s “Robin Hood”. It featured the voices of Phil Harris as Little John, Andy Devine as Friar Tuck, Terry-Thomas as Sir Hiss, Pat Buttram as the Sheriff of Nottingham and the ever-so-great Peter Ustinov as Prince John. The narrator of the movie, Alan-a-Dale, was played by Roger Miller. Mr. Miller provided the main song that pervaded the entire movie. He never sang any words; mostly nonsense syllables. And he whistled. Apparently, I loved the whistling. I spent days afterward trying to figure out how to whistle so that I could whistle the “Robin Hood” song. Suffice it to say that I can now whistle.

When Kevin Costner’s movie, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” came out in 1991, I went on a “Robin Hood” rampage and watched all of the movies that I could find about Robin Hood. My favorite was “The Adventures of Robin Hood” from 1938, featuring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. A fine film, full of fun, adventure and romance. I remember Mr. Flynn flying in on a vine, landing on a branch and hailing “Welcome to Sherwood!”.

Of the three Academy Awards that “The Adventures of Robin Hood” won, one went to composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold for “Best Music, Original Score”. The maestro had come to Hollywood in 1934 to adapt Felix Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to film director Max Reinhardt’s film version of the play. And over the next four years, Korngold became a pioneer in composing film scores. In 1938, Mr. Korngold was conducting opera in Austria when Warner Brothers invited him to come back to Hollywood to compose music for their Robin Hood movie. He reluctantly agreed and returned to the US by ship. Shortly after arriving in California, the Anschluss took place and the living conditions for the Jews changed drastically for the worse. Herr Korngold said many times that the film score of “The Adventures of Robin Hood” saved his life.

Erich Korngold was a true to life child prodigy. With a middle name like Wolfgang, how could he be anything but, right? At the age of eleven, he composed a ballet called “Der Schneemann”, or “The Snowman”, which wowed audiences at the Vienna Court Opera. Shortly after that, he composed a piano trio for piano, violin and cello. It is a monumental work, with virtuoso passage work for all instruments. I remember first hearing the work on the radio and then practically having to pull over when I heard that he was twelve years at the time that he wrote it. I was only whistling for four years when I turned twelve.

My difficulty in remaining attentive to a story may find its beginnings at the movies. We always arrived late. Dad claimed that, since we missed the first part of the movie, we could stay for the second showing up to the point where we came in the first time. True to his word, we always left the theater when the movie got to that point. We didn't have to wait for Grandpa to come in and drag us out of the theater by our ears.

Credits: To Roger Miller, the great American singer, songwriter, musician and actor. Thanks for helping me learn how to whistle. I loved “King of the Road”.