Brendan G. Carroll spent over 25 years working on this definitive biography of the Viennese-American composer (1897-1957). This unabashed encomium for the music of Korngold is supported by carefully crafted arguments responding to critics, real and imagined. Carroll is especially exercised about those critics whose prejudicial assessments of the Korngold oeuvre are based solely on a superficial knowledge of Korngold's scores for the motion pictures. Korngold himself was super-sensitive about his reputation when it was based upon his Hollywood fame, though he never disavowed the work he did there for the films, such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Anthony Adverse, The Sea Hawk, Kings Row, Of Human Bondage, and much more. He mainly feared, and rightly so, that the film scores would over-shadow his earlier career in Europe when his serious music might become lost. He worried, too, that even his film scores would be lost along with the films as they faded from public view. Korngold's complete oeuvre are Carroll's strongest defense.  From the age of 10 (Yes, 10!), Korngold's works began to receive private notice. By 11 and 12, his prodigious first compositions dumbfounded and awed musicians such as Gustav Mahler, Alexander von Zemlinsky (his composition teacher), Richard Strauss, Bruno Walter, Puccini, and a host of other admirers and performers. In 1910, he completed (age 13) his Piano Trio in D Major, Opus 1. In 1911, he met Max Reinhardt (his future collaborator), who brought him to Hollywood, saving Korngold and his family from the concentration camps in 1938. Carroll is convincing that Korngold's greatest achievements are his five operas, especially his Das Wunder der Heliane and Die tote Stadt, for which he is best known in Europe. In 1999, his separate CDs are approaching one hundred, making his music available as never before. Following my own prolonged and extensive study, I predict that Korngold's next career, based upon his recordings, will elevate him into the empyrean of twentieth century composers. Two commemorative postage stamps have been issued about Korngold: In Austria, a stamp recalls his operas (properly); in America, he is included among 5 other Hollywood composers, as he anticipated. Carroll's work is a great deal more than a festschrift: It is a searching, well-written, objective account of the life of his subject: Korngold. (Reviewed by Allan Shields in Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol 15 No 2, Winter 1999-2000. Copyright © by Allan Shields.)

If you are fascinated by film music (or just plain enjoy it), meet the man who is responsible for much (possibly all) of this art form as we know and enjoy it today--Erich Wolfgang Korngold (EWK)! Though some wags have suggested that operatic composer Richard Wagner "wrote" the first film score, it was EWK (himself a renown operatic composer while still a teenager!) who took opera's use of distinct themes and musical IDs for characters and environments, and composed film symphonies around them--"opera without singing," as he is quoted as often saying. This was a radical departure for music on the sound tracks of films (that only five years previously had had none). Such a revolutionary technique was immediately adopted by all other composers of "classic film scores," and this process is prevalent today, especially in the work of our most accomplished composers of film music (you've probably heard several already this Summer). Mr. Carroll's book ("twenty-five years in the making") is not only the definitive biography of EWK to date, but also loaded with fascinating historical information and antidotes from the author's personal encounters and correspondences (it's one of the few books I've read where I immensely enjoyed even the footnotes!). Reading the Introduction was down right eerie, since I discovered EWK the same way as Mr. Carroll--from watching late-night movies on TV! I've read many hundreds of books about films, but Mr. Carroll's took the longest to get through. I read it very slowly, since I just didn't want it to end. The book also includes the most extensive discography of EWK music I have ever come across. Many of the CDs (but, alas, not all) are still available today--and new ones (thankfully) keep being released. A final note about footnotes. They really belong at the bottom of the page--as engrossing extensions of the text--rather than being squirreled away at the back of the book. My sole complaint.

Brendan Carroll's "The Last Prodigy" is an overdue tribute to Erich Wolfgang Korngold and to the musical culture from which he sprang. Just as it took modern listeners, orchestras, and performers many years to recognize Gustav Mahler's genius, so too has Korngold awaited the same kind of rediscovery.

Korngold, like his much-admired mentor Mahler and his friend Giacomo Puccini, felt no shame in crafting melodies that any listener could recognize, hum, and ultimately grow to love. Like his older contemporaries, Korngold never forgot that the cerebral element in music could never take the place of the emotional. For example, his friendly but deadly serious battles over atonality and serial compositions with Arnold Schoenberg are key to understanding Korngold's philosophy of composition and are well treated in Carroll's book. I came away from the text with renewed interest in music that can be grasped by non-musicians and musicians alike.

Even though Korngold's scores are endlessly fascinating for musicians and scholars, the real sign of the composer's greatness is in how many "general" listeners can surrender to the beauties of the "Lautenlied" from "Die tote Stadt." "The Last Prodigy" is therefore a welcome exploration of the problems experienced by the classical music establishment, which, through its unfortunate abandonment of melody and tonal consonance, has failed to reach, or to try even to cultivate, an enthusiastic, self-renewing audience. A better understanding of Korngold's career and of his mistreatment by his contemporaries would help reassert a missing link in 20th century musical culture. Carroll's book helps enormously to restablish the centrality of this musical genius to our own confused times.

With a mingling of joy and sorrow, I have completed the gift of Brendan O'Carroll's trilogy of the Agnes Browne family. I wish these books could go on forever, they are that lovely.

"The Granny" is steeped in beautiful sentiment that is this family. The lives of the Browne brood as adults are examined, winding the reader down many streets of promises, with painful detours along the journey. The telling of their tales is vintage O'Carroll, rich with humor, drama, and the fragile aspects of life that makes it honest.

Give yourself a wonderous treat and buy the trilogy. Like me, you will become enthralled with this family, marred by flaws, detoured by mistakes, but enduringly loving. I adored these books, and can only hope Brendan O'Carroll will take pity on his fans and write more sequels!!!

The Granny was great. It wasn't overdone and had just th right mixture to finish off this great trilogy without letting you down.

Brendan O'Carroll did a spectaular job, again. He giave us just the right mixture of laughter and tears. Again you were on the edge of your seat wondering what would be next. There were a few items that he illuded to but you knew the out come of each illusion before he let on and you were ok with that it make you feel smarter and like a member of the family.

As with the other book the ending was perfect, simple, sweet and honest. There are no Hollywood endings here and not everything happens the way you think it should.

Buy all the books at the same time and become a member of the Browne clan. It's worth the trip.

Mr. Brendan O'Carroll has created with, "The Mammy", "The Chisellers", and, "The Granny", a trilogy that is exceptionally well written, a joy to read, and an alternative Irish Tale. I differentiate this work from the more familiar read about an Irish Family, for while the life of this Family is far from perfect, it is not extreme in its portrayal of the darker sides of people, be they Irish, or in the case of this book, French or Jewish as well. Of the three books this could be noted as the one that brings events together too neatly, especially when a given outcome is positive. I believe this appraisal would be unfair, as the Author balances the experiences of his characters, and even if he had favored the positive, why would that be deserving of scorn?

This book does bring certain threads of the story to a conclusion. The Author could easily continue the stories of this Family, or a given member, but the trilogy; I believe should stand by itself.

Once again the third book takes place when additional time has passed. The Browne Children are children no longer, and with offspring of their own the cycle begins again with the newest of the Brownes. Agnes transitions from Mammy to Granny, as her children take their place as Mammies and Dads to children of there own. Some of the new Families are traditional, some less so, however as in the previous two books while ignorance and the ugly behavior it breeds is not hidden, overall acceptance and tolerance are great virtues of this man's work.

The three works are as close to faultless storytelling as I have read, and I hope I can look forward to many more books by this Author. He will have a tremendous challenge to repeat this success, but as he has done it three times in succession, waiting for additional novels should not be a wait in vain.

If you come to the end of this book and your eyes are not at least full, see your Doctor. Your tear ducts are clogged.

Mr. O'Carroll my sincere thanks.

A sequel to a wonderful book is inherently at risk. For when it is to be read by a person familiar with the initial experience, part two is almost predestined to be disappointment. Book one has the advantage of introducing all that is new. The final of the three can tie all the experiences together, can bring closure. But the middle event must maintain the reader's enthusiasm. When the story and its execution are excellent, the reader is enthusiastic for the final event. The last book is not read just to complete the cycle. Happily there are no absolutes, exceptions ensure that there will be pleasant surprises, not all repeated experience need be as expected.

With, "The Chisellers", Mr. Brendan O'Carroll has repeated the brilliance of, "The Mammy", without resorting to repeating himself as a writer, or forcing his characters to remain unchanged. This writer brings all of the people you love in part one and he allows them to evolve as a person would in their own life. The mood of this book is different, but is also a natural progression. The Browne Clan is getting older; adulthood envelops some, while it still awaits the younger children. Agnes too is aging, adapting to the dramatic changes she was forced to cope with in the first book. However as I mentioned when commenting upon, "The Mammy", Mr. O'Carroll tells a wonderful story, which happens to take place with an Irish Family. While it is true this brings with it some detail that may be familiar, the fact that this is an Irish Family is never what drives this book. He never allows his work to cheat and use the easy cliché.

The Author also brings to this wonderful trilogy people that are not Catholic, that are not Irish, and they are not by default the evil players. His story is inclusive; the world he writes about is not a fantasyland where the pains and trials of life are absent. But neither is it a world that when suffering appears, it appears as a certain brand, a certain nationality, a certain group of worn clichés.

And in this second book there is great pain, there is senseless destruction and loss. And while it would be very easy of accusing the Author of being a bit too neat with finding the lining of silver in one cloud too many, it is no more than most tales of Ireland when every cloud contains a granite mountain.

This amazing writer is two for two, and now it remains to be seen if he has the final third of the hat trick within him. For this middle installment is as good as number one, so he has nothing to improve upon, as the first two were uniformly tremendous.

I picked up "The Mammy" last summer and could not put it down. When I found out there were going to be three books giving us the wonderful heartfelt tales of Agnes Browne and her boys, I could hardly wait. After finishing "The Chisellers", I was not disapointed. Brendan O'Carroll sucks you into this working-class Irish family with a tender and loving hand. (It was a bit embarassing laughing AND crying on the subway, but there are weirder people than that on the trains.) It can stand alone, but one book would just not be enough of Agnes Browne and her clan. Now, if I can just hold out until "The Granny" is published...

After reading The Mammy and rolling around on my bed laughing my head off, I immediately opened The Chisellers.
The second book, which follows the lives of the children as they enter aldulthood, is much more dramatic. The author painted a clear enough picture of each kid in The Mammy that I was eager to see how everything turned out.
Well the last few pages had me sobbing into my pillow at four in the morning, it was so beautiful. When I opened the book the next day to re-read the end, I noticed that the whole last page was splattered in tear marks from other readers where they had all cried on it, this being a library book. Some were old and faded, some had makeup on them...and I was very careful not to cry on it myself, so I know they weren't all mine! (I have only ever seen that at the end of A Prayer For Owen Meany)
The whole trilogy is both hillarious and moving. Agnes's devotion to her kids, and the kids' love for each other is what makes it work, and of course, Brendan O'Carroll is a genius.