Overture (French ouverture, meaning opening) in music is the instrumental introduction to a dramatic, choral or, occasionally, instrumental composition. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn began to use the term to refer to instrumental, programmatic works that presaged genres such as the symphonic poem.
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Overture (French ouverture, meaning opening) in music is the instrumental introduction to a dramatic, choral or, occasionally, instrumental composition. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn began to use the term to refer to instrumental, programmatic works that presaged genres such as the symphonic poem.
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 allegorical characters which introduced the over-arching themes of the stories depicted.
French ouverture
As a musical form, however, the so-called "French overture" begins with the court ballet and operatic overtures of Jean-Baptiste Lully (Waterman and Anthony 2001), which he elaborated from a similar, two-section form called ‘ouverture', found in the French ballets de cour as early as 1640 (Temperley 2001). This French ouverture 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 ouverture 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 Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Its distinctive rhythmic profile and function thus led to French ouverture style as found in late Baroque composers Bach. The style is most often used in preludes to suites, and can be found in non-staged vocal works such as cantatas.
Italian overture
In Italy, a distinct form called "overture" arose in the 1680s, and became established particularly through the operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, and spread throughout Europe, supplanting the French form as the standard operatic overture by the mid-18th century (Fisher 2001). Its usual form is in three generally homophonic movements: 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 or minuet, 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 without a development section), and the slow section became more extended and lyrical (Fisher 2001). 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 (Larue 2001).
