Classical music appreciation: the orchestral ouverture

Here we see the very concrete and somewhat trivial reasons which made the invention of the ouverture necessary and when it happened.

In this lecture we listen to the first, great ouverture ever written and how it ingeniously absolves its role in a perfect way.

The first significant changes we have in the ouverture, much later after his birth, when it could not be anymore a simple "theme song".

One of the most famous pieces ever written, the ouverture to "Le Nozze di Figaro". We will listen to it and analyze it with fresh ears in order to understand the reasons behind Mozart's choices. In this lecture and the following one we talk about the first part of it.

The second part of the ouverture is the main body of the piece. Let us see what happens here.

I chose to separate the analysis of the final climax from the rest because there is a lot to underline on how Mozart pulls off such a jaw-dropping and exciting ending.

Beethoven is a turning point for many things and many reasons, and the path of the ouverture is among them. Still, in this case it happens in an unexpected way.

The "Coriolan" ouverture was one of the first ouvertures by Beethoven which rose to fame after his death. It is a perfect example of Beethoven's style and a good way to introduce him as an author. In this lecture and the following one we take a look at it.

Not the most famous ouverture by Beethoven, "The consacration of the house" is still an unforgettable symphonic page and a perfect example of occasional ouverture.

Here we talk about the consequences in early Romanticism of Beethoven's unwilling action with this genre: the concert ouverture is officialy born by the hand of Felix Mendelssohn.

The "Sommernachstraum" ouverture is the masterpiece which first is explicitly meant to be played in symphonic concerts. It is an adventure which depicts and tells the Shakespearean comedy incredibly vividly. In this lecture and the following one we will take a look at the first part of it: the exposition.

After the exposition we have the central part, called development: here and in the next lecture we will go through it and live the most dramatic and stormy moments of the composition.

A comedy must have an happy ending: this third part features the reprise, which is the repetition of the exposition, and a final breath-taking part which closes the piece while the dream fades away.

What happens after the birth of the concert ouverture? In this lecture we take a look at the evolution of both the concert ouverture and the opera ouverture and how they develop trough the XIX century.

The famous ouverture to "Carmen" by Georges Bizet is fully a potpourri ouverture: we listen to it and go trough all the themes which will show up in the opera too.

Since Wagner is the last great composer starting his operas with an ouverture I spend a lecture giving some information about his conception of this genre and its role in how he sees musical theater. We listen to the ouverture to Lohengrin, a good example of wagnerian atmospheric ouverture.

What is the destiny of the ouverture in the XX century?Let us find out!

As the last piece we work on in this course I chose the "Ouverture on Hebrew themes" by Sergej Prokofiev. It is a typical example of how this genre is seen by composers in the XX century and also of pretty peculiar music.

Thank you for joining me in this journey!