Famous Overtures

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Cat No: 8553627

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099462723

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Famous Overtures

Description
Famous Overtures Etymologically unambiguous, the word Overture originallysignifies an opening, an introductory piece of music preceding an opera,ballet, play or concert suite. It assumed other meanings, notably in thenineteenth century with the development of the concert overture, an independentorchestral piece that was complete in itself, leading to nothing in particular.In earlier times, notably in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries,two forms of introductory overture were developed, the French, with a solemn dottedrhythm opening and following fugal section, and the Italian three-movement 'symphonybefore the opera', the origin of the later classical symphony. The famous overturesincluded in the present collection include only two concert overtures, Mendelssohn'sThe Hebrides and the Academic Festival Overture of Brahms. The otherovertures here are preludes either to operas or, in the case of Beethoven's Egmontoverture, to a play. Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro was writtenfor Vienna in 1786, a significant commission for a non-Italian composer. Thelibretto by Lorenzo da Ponte was based on the second of the Figaro trilogy bythe French playwright Beaumarchais, a work that had proved controversial in Parisand in other hands might have seemed to have its dangers in Vienna, as theFrench revolution drew nearer. The plot deals with the outwitting of Count Almavivaby his servant Figaro, ending happily in the reconciliation of Count and Countessand of Figaro and his Susanna. The Overture provides a sparkling introduction, leadingto an opening scene in which Figaro measures out the room, conveniently nearthe Count's own quarters, which he is to share with his bride Susanna. Goethe completed his play Egmont in 1787, afterwriting and revisions that had occupied him intermittently for some twelveyears. Count Egmont is involved in the religious and political conflicts of the Netherlands in the sixteenth century, his opposition to the Duke of Albaending with his death. The original production by Schiller at the Court Theatrein Weimar, for which various changes and cuts had been made in the text, wasunsuccessful. The play was to be revived in Vienna in 1810 with Goethe's fulltext and with music by Beethoven, starting with the Overture, a work in whichsome have heard the severity of the Spanish viceroy contrasted with thepleading of the Netherlanders. Hoffmann had preferred to find here a first subjectrepresenting the hero Egmont and a second representing his beloved Klarchen,who took poison having failed to rouse popular rebellion to release her lover. Scotland exercised a continuing fascination over romantic Europe, geographically remote and exotic, with a history and legends givenwide currency through its ballads and through the writing of Sir Walter Scott.Felix Mendelssohn visited Scotland in 1829 with his friend Carl Klingemann,impressed by Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh and admiring the wild scenery of the Highland
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