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OVERTURE (Fr. ouverture, opening)

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 385 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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OVERTURE (Fr. ouverture, opening) , in See also:music, the instrumental introduction to a dramatic or choral See also:composition. The notion of an overture thus has no existence until the 17th See also:century. The toccata at the beginning of See also:Monteverde's Orfeo is a barbaric flourish of every procurable See also:instrument, alternating with a melodious See also:section entitled ritornello; and, in so far as this constitutes the first instrumental See also:movement prefixed to an See also:opera, it may be called an overture. As an See also:art-See also:form the overture began to exist in the See also:works of J. B. See also:Lully. He devised a See also:scheme which, although he himself did not always adhere to it, constitutes the typical See also:French overture up to the See also:time of See also:Bach and See also:Handel (whose works have made it classical). This French overture consists of a slow introduction in a marked " dotted See also:rhythm" (i.e. exaggerated See also:iambic, if the first chord is disregarded), followed by a lively movement in fugato See also:style. The slow introduction was always repeated, and sometimes the See also:quick movement concluded by returning to the slow tempo and material, and was also repeated (see Bach's French Overture in the Klavieriibung). The operatic French overture was frequently followed by a See also:series of See also:dance tunes before the See also:curtain See also:rose. It thus naturally became used as the prelude to a See also:suite; and the Klavieriibung French Overture of Bach is a See also:case in point, the overture proper being the introduction to a suite of seven dances. For the same See also:reason Bach's four orchestral suites are called overtures; and, again, • the prelude to the See also:fourth partita in the Klavieriibung is an overture.

Bach was able to use the French overture form for choruses, and even for the treatment of chorales. Thus the overture, properly so called, of his fourth orchestral suite became the first See also:

chorus of the See also:church See also:cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens; the choruses of the cantatas Preise See also:Jerusalem den Herrn and See also:Hochst erwiinschtes Freudenfest are in overture form; and, in the first of the two cantatas entitled See also:Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, Bach has ingeniously adapted the overture form to the treatment of a See also:chorale. With the rise of dramatic music and the See also:sonata style, the French overture became unsuitable for opera; and See also:Gluck (whose remarks on the See also:function of overtures in the See also:preface to Alceste are historic) based himself on See also:Italian See also:models, of loose texture, which admit of a sweeping and massively contrasted technique (see See also:SYMPHONY). By the time of See also:Mozart's later works the overture in the sonata style had clearly differentiated itself from strictly symphonic music. It consists of a quick movement (with or without a slow introduction), in sonata form, loose in texture, without repeats, frequently without a development section, but sometimes substituting for it a melodious See also:episode in slow time. Instances of this substitution are Mozart's " symphony " in G (Kochel's See also:catalogue 318), which is an overture to an unknown opera, and his overtures to See also:Die Entfiihrung and to Lo Sposo deluso, in both of which cases the curtain rises at a point which throws a remarkable dramatic See also:light upon the See also:peculiar form. The overture to See also:Figaro was at first intended to have a similar slow See also:middle section, which, however, Mozart struck out as soon as he had begun it. In See also:Beethoven's hands the overture style and form increased its distinction from that of the symphony, but it no longer remained inferior to it; and the final version of the overture to Leonora (that known as No. 3) is the most gigantic single orchestral movement ever based on the sonata style. Overtures to plays, such as Beethoven's to See also:Collin's Coriolan, naturally tend to become detached from their surroundings; and hence arises the See also:concert overture, second only to the symphony in importance as a purely orchestral art-form. Its derivation associates it almost inevitably with See also:external poetic ideas. These, if sufficiently broad, need in no way militate against musical integrity of form; and Mendelssohn's See also:Hebrides overture is as perfect a masterpiece as can be found in any art.

The same applies to See also:

Brahms's Tragic Overture, one of his greatest orchestral works, for which a more explanatory See also:title would be misleading as well as unnecessary. His See also:Academic Festival Overture is a highly organized working out of See also:German student songs. In See also:modern opera the overture, Vorspiel, Einleitung, Introduction, or whatever else it may be called, is generally nothing Xx. 13 more definite than that portion of the music which takes See also:place before the curtain rises. Tannhaiiser is the last case of high importance in which the overture (as originally written) is a really See also:complete instrumental piece prefixed to an opera in tragic and continuous dramatic style. In lighter opera, where sectional forms are still possible, a separable overture is not out of place, though even Carmen is remarkable in the dramatic way in which its overture foreshadows the tragic end and leads directly to the rise of the curtain. See also:Wagner's Vorspiel to .See also:Lohengrin is a See also:short self-contained movement founded on the music of the See also:Grail. With all its wonderful See also:instrumentation, romantic beauty and identity with subsequent music in the first and third acts, it does not represent a further departure from the formal classical overture than that shown fifty years earlier by Maul's interesting overtures to Ariodant and Uthal, in the latter of which a See also:voice is several times heard on the See also:stage before the rise of the curtain. The Vorspiel to Die See also:Meistersinger, though very enjoyable by itself and needing only an additional tonic chord to bring it to an end, really loses incalculably in refinement by so ending in a concert See also:room. In its proper position its otherwise disproportionate See also:climax leads to the rise of the curtain and the engaging of the listener's mind in a See also:crowd of dramatic and spectacular sensations amply adequate to See also:account for that See also:long See also:introductory instrumental crescendo. The Vorspiel to See also:Tristan has been very beautifully finished for concert use by Wagner himself, and the considerable length and subtlety of the added See also:page shows how little calculated for See also:independent existence the See also:original Vorspiel was. Lastly, the See also:Parsifal Vorspiel is a composition which, though finished for concert use by Wagner in a few extra bars, asserts itself with the utmost lucidity and force as a prelude to some vast See also:design.

The orchestral preludes to the four dramas of the See also:

Ring owe their whole meaning to their being See also:mere preparations for the rise of the curtain; and these works can no more be said to have overtures thaw See also:Verdi's Falstaff and See also:Strauss's See also:Salome, in which the curtain rises at the first See also:note of the music. (D. F.

End of Article: OVERTURE (Fr. ouverture, opening)

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