Erich Wolfgang Korngold started his dazzling career as a theatrical (and, later, film) composer when his pantomime "The Snowman" was premiered at the Vienna Court Opera in 1910 and the personal insistence of the great conductor Felix von Weingartner and in the presence of the Emperor. Korngold at the time was eleven years old. The music was uncommonly appealing, harmonically sophisticated, with lively melodies and dance rhythms. About the only craft Korngold might have lacked at the time was that of orchestration, for the music was orchestrated by his teacher, Alexander von Zemlinsky. (Six months later Korngold had advanced so quickly that then he scored his own Schauspiel Overture.). The most commonly played parts of this score are the pantomime's prelude, a serenade, and this interlude. Although there is some na•veté in the melodies, these excerpts are still astonishing for their precociousness.

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