Il Seraglio Overture
| Composer | Mozart, W A |
|---|---|
| Length | 6 mins 3 secs |
| Parts | Principal flute/piccolo, 3 other flutes, 2 oboes, Principal clarinet, 3 other clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 alto saxes, tenor sax baritone sax |
| ISBN | 978-1-915446-17-6 |
£30.00
This windband arrangement is of the opera Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail otherwise know as Il Seraglio, first performed in Vienna in 1782 with Mozart himself conducting.
Listen to an extract:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1757 – 1792, was a child genius and prodigy. He was composing from very early childhood and could play the piano brilliantly equally early. One of his earliest compositions was Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman (Mother, if I could tell you) which has been corrupted into Twinkle Twinkle Little star. Whilst the theme of this is straight forward, the variations Mozart wrote certainly were not. Mozart produced a staggering amount of music in his short life which was blighted by mental illness and alcoholism. As well as 41 symphonies, 27 piano concerti, 22 operas, 5 violin concerti, 4 horn concerti and 7 other wind concerti, 36 violin sonatas and a shed load of chamber and other music (marches, minuets, religious music, divertimenti), he wrote the incredible Requiem.
This windband arrangement is of his overture to the opera Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail otherwise know as Il Seraglio, The Abduction from the Harem, was first performed in Vienna in 1782 with Mozart himself conducting. The plot concerns a young man (the hero, Belmonte) wanting to rescue his beloved (the young nobel woman Konstanza) from the Seraglio (the women’s quarters or harem) of Pasha Selim.
The young Spanish noblewoman Konstanze has been abducted by pirates together with her English maid Blonde, and Pedrillo, valet to her betrothed, Belmonte. Landing on the shores of Turkey, they have been sold as slaves to Pasha Selim. Originally a Spanish subject himself, he has become a ‘renegade’, a convert and prospered in Turkey. He has fallen in love with Konstanze. Pedrillo has smuggled letters out to his master and Belmonte has sailed from Spain to try to rescue them.
The overture is unusual in that it is written in C major, a most unremarkable key. The music to the overture is very ‘crash, bang, wallop’ which is at complete odds with the plot and the opera itself. It also features, most unusually for Mozart, a substantial percussion section.
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