Overture in music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 and Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 began to use the term to refer to independent, self-existing instrumental, programmatic works that presaged genres such as the symphonic poem

Symphonic poem

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...

. These were at first no doubt intended to be played at the head of a programme.

17th century

The idea of an instrumental opening to opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 existed during the 17th century. Peri

Jacopo Peri

Jacopo Peri was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera...

's Euridice

Euridice (opera)

Euridice is an opera by Jacopo Peri, with additional music by Giulio Caccini. The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini is based on books X and XI of Ovid's...

opens with a brief instrumental ritornello

Ritornello

A ritornello is a recurring passage in Baroque music for orchestra or chorus. The first or final movement of a solo concerto or aria may be in "ritornello form", in which the ritornello is the opening theme, always played by tutti, which returns in whole or in part and in different keys throughout...

, and Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...

's L'Orfeo (1607) opens with a toccata

Toccata

Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...

, in this case a fanfare for muted trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s. More important, however, was the Prologue, which comprised sung dialogue between allegorical

Allegory

Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...

 characters which introduced the over-arching themes of the stories depicted.

French overture

As a musical form

Musical form

The term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...

, however, the so-called French overture

French overture

The French overture is a musical form widely used in the Baroque period. Its basic formal division is into two parts, which are usually enclosed by double bars and repeat signs. They are complementary in styles , and the first ends with a half-cadence that requires an answering structure with a...

 begins with the court ballet and operatic overtures of Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

, which he elaborated from a similar, two-section form called Ouverture, found in the French ballets de cour

Ballets de cour

Ballets de cour is the name given to ballets performed in the 16th and 17th centuries at court. Jean-Baptiste Lully is considered the most important composer of music for ballets de cour and was instrumental to the development of the form...

 as early as 1640. This French overture consists of a slow introduction in a marked "dotted rhythm" (i.e., exaggerated iambic, if the first chord is disregarded), followed by a lively movement in fugato style. The overture was frequently followed by a series of dance tunes before the curtain rose, and would often return following the Prologue to introduce the action proper. This ouverture style was also used in English opera, most notably in Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

's Dido and Æneas. Its distinctive rhythmic profile and function thus led to the French overture style as found in the works of late Baroque composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

. The style is most often used in prelude

Prelude (music)

A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...

s to suite

Suite

In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...

s, and can be found in non-staged vocal works such as cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

s, for example in the opening chorus of Bach's cantata

Bach cantata

Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....

 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland , BWV 61, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Weimar for the for the first Sunday in Advent and first performed it on 2 December 1714.-History and words:...

.

Italian overture

In Italy, a distinct form called "overture" arose in the 1680s, and became established particularly through the operas of Alessandro Scarlatti

Alessandro Scarlatti

Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...

, and spread throughout Europe, supplanting the French form as the standard operatic overture by the mid-18th century. Its usual form is in three generally homophonic

Homophony

In music, homophony is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. This is distinct from polyphony, in which parts move with rhythmic independence, and monophony, in which all parts move in parallel rhythm and pitch. A homophonic...

 movements

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

: fast–slow–fast. The opening movement was normally in duple metre and in a major key; the slow movement in earlier examples was usually quite short, and could be in a contrasting key; the concluding movement was dance-like, most often with rhythms of the gigue

Gigue

The gigue or giga is a lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th century and usually appears at the end of a suite...

 or minuet

Minuet

A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...

, and returned to the key of the opening section. As the form evolved, the first movement often incorporated fanfare-like elements and took on the pattern of so-called "sonatina form" (sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

 without a development section), and the slow section became more extended and lyrical. Italian overtures were often detached from their operas and played as independent concert pieces. In this context, they became important in the early history of the symphony

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

.

18th century and sonata form

With the increasing popularity of the Italian opera and the sonata form, the French ouverture fell out of fashion. Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

 (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

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

'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

Symphony No. 32 (Mozart)

The Symphony No. 32 in G major, K. 318, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1779, after his return from Paris.The symphony is in the form of an Italian overture, consisting of three brief movements that follow one another without break:...

, which is an overture to an unknown opera, and his overtures to Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...

and to Lo sposo deluso

Lo sposo deluso

Lo sposo deluso, ossia La rivalità di tre donne per un solo amante is a two act opera buffa, K. 430, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart between 1783 and 1784...

, in both of which cases the curtain rises at a point which throws a remarkable dramatic light upon the peculiar form. Mozart's last overture, The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....

(1791), seemed to point toward the 19th century Rossinian model, with its grand opening and slow, heavy introduction leading to a lighthearted main theme. In Beethoven's hands the overture style and form increased its distinction from that of the symphony.

19th century and William Tell

Although Gioachino Rossini retired from writing overtures after William Tell

William Tell (opera)

Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...

in 1829, 19th-century overtures largely owe their focus to forms he had developed and perfected long before, primarily for Italian opera buffa

Opera buffa

Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...

. Rossini's first professional operatic overture, La cambiale di matrimonio

La cambiale di matrimonio

La cambiale di matrimonio is a one-act operatic farsa comica by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. The libretto was based on the play by Camillo Federici and a previous libretto by Giuseppe Checcherini for Carlo Coccia's 1807 opera, Il matrimonio per lettera di cambio...

(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 can be clearly heard in overtures of Adolphe Adam

Adolphe Adam

Adolphe Charles Adam was a French composer and music critic. A prolific composer of operas and ballets, he is best known today for his ballets Giselle and Le corsaire , his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau , Le toréador and Si j'étais roi , and his Christmas...

, Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....

, Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

, Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

 and others, though none having achieved Rossini’s reputation as craftsmen of overtures, as the simple, transparent style requires a preponderance of inspired melodic ideas for lasting effect. However, William Tell may have more successfully served as the model for the 19th century romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 overture, with its revolutionary four-part form, achieving the grand effect of a mini symphony, expanding the boundaries for 19th century opera as a whole. The William Tell Overture

William Tell Overture

The William Tell Overture is the instrumental introduction to the opera Guillaume Tell by Gioachino Rossini. William Tell premiered in 1829 and was the last of Rossini's 39 operas, after which he went into semi-retirement, although he continued to compose cantatas, sacred music and secular vocal...

signalled the close of the classical period for the operatic stage at its premiere, paving the way for Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...

 and Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, its influence being heard as far forward as Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

's 1812 Overture

1812 Overture

The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E flat major, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture or the Overture of 1812 is an overture written by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1880 to commemorate Russia's defense of Moscow against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of...

and Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....

's Orpheus in the Underworld

Orpheus in the Underworld

Orphée aux enfers is an opéra bouffon , or opéra féerie in its revised version, by Jacques Offenbach. The French text was written by Ludovic Halévy and later revised by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux....

.

Modern opera

In modern opera the overture, Vorspiel, Einleitung, Introduction, or whatever else it may be called, is generally nothing more definite than that portion of the music which takes place before the curtain rises. Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Vorspiel to Lohengrin

Lohengrin (opera)

Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...

is a short self-contained movement founded on the music of the Grail.

Operettas and musicals

Many 19th-century operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

s and light operas substituted for the specially composed overture in strict "overture form", as detailed above, a potpourri

Potpourri (music)

Potpourri or Pot-Pourri is a kind of musical form structured as ABCDEF..., the same as medley or, sometimes, fantasia. It is often used in light, easy-going and popular types of music....

 of airs based on the tunes of the songs that were to follow. Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

, for instance, seldom actually wrote out his own overtures—since they followed the potpourri format expected from an English "comic opera" of the time, any competent orchestrator could be trusted with this task.

Twentieth-century and contemporary overtures accompanying Broadway and other musical theatre

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 almost always follow this pattern, consisting of segments from the more popular songs in the musical: Gypsy (1959) and Candide

Candide (operetta)

Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...

(1956) are considered masterpieces of their genre by many musical theatre scholars and working professionals. The overture usually is played before the musical starts; however, some musicals (such as Passion

Passion (musical)

Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...

, LaChiusa

Michael John LaChiusa

Michael John LaChiusa is an American musical theatre and opera composer, lyricist, and librettist. He is best known for complex, musically challenging shows such as Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party, and See What I Wanna See...

's The Wild Party

The Wild Party (LaChiusa musical)

The Wild Party is a musical with a book by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe and music and lyrics by LaChiusa. It is based on the 1928 Joseph Moncure March narrative poem of the same name...

, Sunday in the Park with George

Sunday in the Park with George

Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...

, and Rent

Rent (musical)

Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème...

) dispense with a formal overture altogether. A unique example is the recent revival of Cole Porter

Cole Porter

Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...

's Kiss Me, Kate

Kiss Me, Kate

Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...

, wherein the overture appears between the opening and closing choruses of the show's opening number, "Another Op'ning, Another Show," with the company remaining on stage, acting in pantomime. (However, in the original 1948 production, and all other productions of the show up to 1999, the overture to the show appeared in its usual place—before the first song.) Likewise, musicals such as A Little Night Music

A Little Night Music

A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...

, Nine

Nine (musical)

Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

, and Company

Company (musical)

Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....

begin with vocal overtures. The overture to the Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

-Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

 musical The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...

(1928) is written in the neoclassical style (and like neo-classical and pre-19th overtures, is an entirely original melody that is not heard anywhere else in the score).

Early 19th 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

Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....

 wrote two concert overtures, Der Beherrscher der Geister ('The Ruler of the Spirits') (1811, a revision of the overture to his unfinished opera Rübezahl

Rübezahl

Rübezahl is a folklore mountain spirit of the Giant Mountains , a mountain range along the border between the historical lands Bohemia and Silesia. He is the subject of many legends and fairy tales in German folklore.-Name:The origin of the name is not clear...

of 1805, and Jubel-Ouvertüre ('Jubilee-Overture', 1818, incorporating God Save the King at its climax). However the overture A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826) by Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 is generally regarded as the first concert overture (Temperley 2001). Mendelssohn's other contributions to this genre include his Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage overture (1828), his Hebrides Overture

Hebrides Overture

The Hebrides Overture , Op. 26, also known as Fingal's Cave , is a concert overture composed by Felix Mendelssohn. Written in 1830, the piece was inspired by a cavern known as Fingal's Cave on Staffa, an island in the Hebrides archipelago located off the west coast of Scotland...

, (1830) and the overtures Die schöne Melusine ('The fair Melusine', 1834) and Ruy Blas (1839). Other notable early concert overtures were written by Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

 (e.g., Les Francs juges

Les francs-juges

Les francs-juges is the title of an unfinished opera by the French composer Hector Berlioz written to a libretto by his friend Humbert Ferrand in 1826. The opera itself was abandoned by Berlioz, who destroyed most of the music...

(1826), and Le Corsaire (1828)).

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

 wrote overtures based on literature written by Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...

, William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

 such as the overtures to The Bride of Messina, Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar (play)

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...

, and Hermann und Dorothea

Hermann and Dorothea

Hermann and Dorothea is an epic poem, an idyll, written by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe between 1796 and 1797, and was to some extent suggested by Johann Heinrich Voss's Luise, an idyll in hexameters, first published in 1782-84...

. Although these overtures derive their musical inspiration from literary works, Schumann neither composed music for the entire work as he would for an opera nor necessarily intended a spoken performance to immediately follow. Both Schumann and Tchaikovsky would, in fact, incorporate bits of the French national anthem

National anthem

A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...

, La Marseillaise

La Marseillaise

"La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song, originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. The French National Convention adopted it as the Republic's anthem in 1795...

into their overtures Hermann und Dorothea and 1812

1812 Overture

The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E flat major, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture or the Overture of 1812 is an overture written by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1880 to commemorate Russia's defense of Moscow against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of...

 respectively, which indicates the independent nature of this type of overture.

Later 19th century

In the 1850s the concert overture began to be supplanted by the symphonic poem

Symphonic poem

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...

, a form devised by Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

 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

Program music

Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...

 requirements (Temperley 2001). The symphonic poem became the preferred form for the more "progressive" composers, such as César Franck

César Franck

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

, Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

, Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

, and Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

, while more conservative composers like Anton Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...

, Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

, Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

, and Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

 remained faithful to the overture.

In the age when the symphonic poem had already become popular, Brahms wrote his Academic Festival Overture

Academic Festival Overture

Academic Festival Overture , Op. 80, by Johannes Brahms, was one of a pair of contrasting concert overtures — the other being the Tragic Overture, Op. 81, written to balance it as its pair...

, Op. 80, as well as his Tragic Overture

Tragic Overture

The Tragic Overture , Op. 81, is a concert overture for orchestra written by Johannes Brahms during the summer of 1880. It premiered on December 26, 1880 in Vienna...

, Op. 81. An example clearly influenced by the symphonic poem is Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture

1812 Overture

The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E flat major, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture or the Overture of 1812 is an overture written by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1880 to commemorate Russia's defense of Moscow against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of...

. His equally well-known Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)

Romeo and Juliet is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The...

is also labelled a 'fantasy-overture'.

20th 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

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

's Festive Overture

Festive Overture (Shostakovich)

The Festive Overture in A major, Op. 96, was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1954 for a concert held at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution ....

, Op. 96 (1954), which is in two linked sections, "Allegretto" and "Presto" (Temperely 2001). Film composer Miklós Rózsa

Miklós Rózsa

Miklós Rózsa was a Hungarian-born composer trained in Germany , and active in France , England , and the United States , with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953...

's Overture to a Symphony Concert, Op. 26a (1963) is also worth mentioning. Malcolm Arnold

Malcolm Arnold

Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...

's A Grand, Grand Overture, Op. 57 (1956), is a 20th-century parody of the late 19th century concert overture, scored for an enormous orchestra with organ, additional brass instrument

Brass instrument

A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...

s, and obbligato

Obbligato

In classical music obbligato usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking ad libitum. It can also be used, more specifically, to indicate that a passage of music was to be played exactly as written, or only by the specified...

 parts for four rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

s, three Hoover

The Hoover Company

The Hoover Company started out as an American floor care manufacturer based in North Canton, Ohio. It also established a major base in the United Kingdom and for most of the early-and-mid-20th century, it dominated the electric vacuum cleaner industry, to the point where the "hoover" brand name...

 vacuum cleaner

Vacuum cleaner

A vacuum cleaner, commonly referred to as a "vacuum," is a device that uses an air pump to create a partial vacuum to suck up dust and dirt, usually from floors, and optionally from other surfaces as well. The dirt is collected by either a dustbag or a cyclone for later disposal...

s (two uprights in B, one horizontal with detachable sucker in C), and an electric floor polisher in E; it is dedicated "to President Hoover

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...

".

Film

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 the 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 were shown with a "performance" schedule similar to legitimate (live) theatre: only one presentation each night, typically at 8pm, and matinées, usually 2pm, on weekends and holidays. This exhibition policy was applied to prestige pictures and they were called 'Roadshows'

Roadshow theatrical release

A roadshow theatrical release was a term in the American motion picture industry for a practice in which a film opened in a limited number of theaters in large cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco for a specific period of time before the...

.

List of some common overtures

Some well-known or commonly played Overtures:

• Arensky: A Dream on the Volga
• Arnold:
  • Beckus the Dandipratt
  • Peterloo
  • Tam O'Shanter
• Auber: Fra Diavolo
• Barber: Overture to The School for Scandal
• Bax: Overture to a Picaresque Comedy
• Beethoven:
  • Fidelio
  • Leonora Nr 2
  • Leonora Nr 3
  • Coriolanus
  • Egmont
  • Ruins of Athens
• Berlioz:
  • The Corsair
  • Les Francs-Juges
  • Waverley
  • Rob Roy
  • King Lear
  • Benvenuto Cellini
  • Carnaval Roman
• Bernstein: Candide
• Borodin: Prince Igor
• Brahms:
  • Academic Festival Overture
  • Tragic Overture
• Copland: An Outdoor Overture
• Elgar:
  • Alassio: In the South
  • Cockaigne
  • Froissart
• Glinka: Ruslan and Ludmilla
• Gomes: Il Guarany
• Josef Haydn: Armida
• Hérold: Zampa
• John Ireland:
  • A London Overture
  • Satyricon Overture
• Lalo: Le roi d'Ys
• Léhar: The Merry Widow
• MacCunn: The Land of the Mountain and the Flood
• Mendelssohn:
  • Hebrides (or Fingal's Cave)
  • Calm Sea and a Prosperous Voyage
  • Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Miaskovsky:
  • Pathetic Overture
  • Salutation Overture
• Mozart:
  • Marriage of Figaro
  • La clemenza di Tito
  • Cosi fan tutte
  • Don Giovanni
  • Idomeneo
  • The Abduction from the Seraglio
  • Magic flute
• Nicolai: The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Nielsen:
  • Maskarade
  • Helios
• Prokofiev: Overture on Hebrew Themes
• Rezniceck: Donna Diana
• Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture
• Rossini:
  • La cambiale di matrimonio
  • Tancredi
  • Il Signor Bruschino
  • The Italian Girl in Algiers
  • Il Turco in Italia
  • The Silken Ladder
  • The Thieving Magpie
  • La Cenerentola
  • Semiramide
  • Il Viaggio a Reims
  • The Barber of Seville
  • William Tell
• Schubert:
  • Overture in Italian Style, D560
  • Rosamunde
• Schumann:
  • Overture, Scherzo and Finale, Op 52
  • Manfred
  • Genoveva
  • Faust
• Shostakovich: Festival Overture
• Smetana: The Bartered Bride
• Johann Strauss: Die Fledermaus
• Sibelius: Overture to the Tempest
• Sullivan:
  • Mikado
  • Gondoliers
  • The Yeoman of the Guard
• Suppé
  • Light Cavalry Overture
  • The Beautiful Galatea
  • Poet and Peasant
• Tchaikovsky:
  • Festival Overture "1812"
  • Hamlet [Overture-Fantasy]
  • Romeo and Juliet [Overture-Fantasy]
• Verdi: La forza del destino
• Wagner:
  • Faust Overture
  • Polonia
  • Rienzi
  • Flying Dutchman
  • Tannhäuser
• Walton
  • Johannesburg Festival Overture
  • Scapino
  • Portsmouth Point
• Weber:
  • Euryanthe
  • Der Freischütz
  • Invitation to the Dance
    Invitation to the Dance (Weber)
    Invitation to the Dance , Op. 65, J. 260, is a piano piece in rondo form written by Carl Maria von Weber in 1819. It is also well known in the 1841 orchestration by Hector Berlioz...