{"id":226,"date":"2015-01-21T17:07:53","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T17:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/program_note\/overture-euryanthe-j-291\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T17:10:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T17:10:52","slug":"overture-euryanthe-j-291","status":"publish","type":"program_note","link":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/program_note\/overture-euryanthe-j-291\/","title":{"rendered":"Overture to Euryanthe, J. 291"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> History is cruelly reductive, and it is the natural state of our collective memory that it often bears little resemblance to the balance of affairs that characterized the past.&nbsp; Whole lives, bodies of creative work, and popular acclaim of significant artists commonly disappear from our experience\u2014or survive in a cartoonish reflection that often singles out only one or two works of art from a vigorous and influential personal <em>oeuvre.<\/em>&nbsp; Lucky is he who survives the winnowing out process.&nbsp;&nbsp; Carl Maria von Weber has barely survived that process, and he, one of the most well-known conductors and members of the musical community of the first half of the nineteenth century, is now remembered for only a few of his voluminous compositions.&nbsp; The overture to his penultimate opera, <em>Euryanthe<\/em>, is one of them.&nbsp; The small group of others includes his solo works for clarinet, bassoon, and piano, and of course, his opera, <em>Der Freisch\u00fctz.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> During his heyday he composed in almost every genre, held important positions as a conductor (he is considered one of the fathers of modern conducting), traveled widely, wrote respected music criticism and essays, and knew almost every important continental musician.&nbsp; Furthermore, he is considered one of the most important composers as late musical classicism moved into the romantic age.&nbsp; Of course, the towering figure of Beethoven obscured many like folks of the time.<\/p>\n<p> His epochal opera, <em>Der Freisch\u00fctz <\/em>(1821), was a major success, owing to its spooky libretto about magic bullets, a dark sinister \u201cwolf\u2019s glen,\u201d and a new kind of orchestral writing to carry the mood and illusion.&nbsp;&nbsp; It is generally considered a major step leading to the creation of German romantic opera, and an important precursor of Meyerbeer and Wagner.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p> His next opera was <em>Euryanthe<\/em>, and he had hoped to capitalize upon the success of the former work, and at the same time move on into a more complex and progressive dramatic style.&nbsp; His intent was worthy and, indeed he had correctly sensed the trend of future developments in nineteenth-century opera, but the work was not generally well received, notwithstanding the hopes of the Viennese operatic establishment that had commissioned it.&nbsp; It, indeed, in the words of the composer, was a \u201clarge romantic opera,\u201d but this was an age dominated by the tuneful works of Rossini, and it languished.&nbsp; He had simply overreached the contemporary public\u2019s taste, and it must be admitted, most consider the libretto to border on the ridiculous, notwithstanding the glorious music.<\/p>\n<p> What is left is the overture, and it has become a concert staple.&nbsp; It is a suitable opener for this dramatic tale, in the best tradition of Grand Opera established only a few years later in the operas of Meyerbeer and Wagner.&nbsp; It\u2019s instructive to remind oneself that this is 1823\u2014early for this kind of powerful, romantic music\u2014the time of Beethoven and Rossini, and well before Wagner\u2019s early triumphs.&nbsp; With this in mind it\u2019s easy to hear von Weber\u2019s work as a clear transition into Wagner\u2019s inimitable style.&nbsp; Too bad about the opera, but we have a magnificent overture left.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2015 William E. Runyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"program_note_tax":[28],"class_list":["post-226","program_note","type-program_note","status-publish","hentry","program_note_tax-carlmariavonweber"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program_note"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program_note_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note_tax?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}