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Overture, musical composition, usually the orchestral introduction to a musical work (often dramatic), but also an independent instrumental work. Early operas opened with a sung prologue or a short instrumental flourish, such as the trumpet “Toccata” that opens Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607).
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Dec 24, 2012 · The overture is at first generally slow with prominent dotted rhythms, meaning that instead of having the beat divided into two equal parts, the second half of the beat is delayed by at least 3/4 of the beat value. This slow section is followed by a fast, imitative section where a new theme is passed around from section to section.
Movement 1: “Overture” Messiah’s overture is in the form a French Overture—a form Handel did not typically use for his oratorios, but one that carried powerful, historical connotations of royalty and majesty, dating back to Louis XIV.
- History
- Concert Overture
- Film
- References
17th century
The idea of an instrumental opening to opera existed during the 17th century. Peri's Euridice opens with a brief instrumental ritornello, and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607) opens with a toccata, in this case a fanfare for muted trumpets. More important, however, was the Prologue, which comprised sung dialogue between allegoricalcharacters which introduced the over-arching themes of the stories depicted.
18th century and sonata form
With the increasing popularity of the Italian opera and the sonata form, the French overture fell out of fashion. Gluck (whose remarks on the function of overtures in the preface to Alceste are historic) based himself on Italian models, of loose texture. By the time of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's later works the overture in the sonata style had clearly differentiated itself from strictly symphonic music. Instances of this substitution are Mozart's Symphony No. 32 in G, which is an overture to a...
19th century and William Tell
Although Gioachino Rossini retired from writing overtures after William Tell in 1829, 19th century overtures largely owe their focus to forms he had developed and perfected long before, primarily for Italian opera buffa. Rossini's first professional operatic overture, La cambiale di matrimonio (1810) bypassed strict sonata form, employing a grand opening, a slow introduction, first main theme, an extended bridge to a second main theme, crescendo, then a closing section. Attempts at this style...
Early Nineteenth Century
Although by the end of the eighteenth century, opera overtures were already beginning to be performed as separate items in the concert hall, the concert overture, intended specifically as an individual concert piece without reference to stage performance and generally based on some literary theme, began to appear early in the Romantic era. Carl Maria von Weber wrote two concert overtures, Der Beherrscher der Geister ('The Ruler of the Spirits') (1811, a revision of the overture to his unfinis...
Later Nineteenth Century
In the 1850s the concert overture began to be supplanted by the symphonic poem, a form devised by Franz Liszt in several works that began as dramatic overtures. The distinction between the two genres was the freedom to mould the musical form according to external programmatic requirements . The symphonic poem became the preferred form for the more "progressive" composers, such as César Franck, Richard Strauss, Alexander Scriabin, and Arnold Schoenberg, while more conservative composers lik...
Twentieth Century
In European music after 1900 the traditional overture was scarcely relevant any longer, though the name continued in use as one of a number of alternatives for describing an orchestral piece, often written for a festive occasion, in one movement of moderate length. A notable late exception displaying a connection with the traditional form is Dmitri Shostakovich's Festive Overture, Op. 96 (1954), which is in two linked sections, "Allegretto" and "Presto" (Temperely 2001). Film composer Miklós...
In motion pictures, an overture is a piece of music setting the mood for the film before the opening credits start. For a comprehensive list, see List of Films with Overtures. Overtures were common during the early era of movie showmanship. Certain movies were booked exclusively into better theatres in large cities with a reserved seat policy and w...
Anon. 1957. "Music: Op. I for Vacuum Cleaners" Time(April 22).Burton-Page, Piers. [n.d.] "Malcolm Arnold: A Grand, Grand Overture, Programme Note". Chester-Novello publisher’s website. (Accessed 6 November 2009)Fisher, Stephen C. 2001. "Italian Overture." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.Larue, Jan. 2001. "Sinfonia 2: After 1700". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.Aug 27, 2024 · The overture remains a culturally significant form in classical music, representing the intersection of tradition and innovation. It serves as a bridge between the past and the present, connecting modern audiences with the musical heritage of previous centuries.
Dec 7, 2018 · This is changing: the study of contemporary worship music is growing, and spanning several fields. Dr Ingalls, for example, is described as an “ethno-musicologist”, and Professor Lester Ruth, of Duke Divinity School, a pioneer in the field, is a liturgical historian.
In the Baroque era, ‘overture’ could signify an orchestral or keyboard suite – an entirely self-sufficient collection of dances. In late 18th-century England the word was interchangeable with ‘symphony’. There’s more to this than the caprice of history.
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