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Programme notes
After a 20-year career as Europe’s most
successful opera composer, crowned with the
performance of William Tell at the Paris Opéra
in 1829, Rossini – then aged only 37 – abruptly
decided to withdraw from the stage. He had
written 39 operas, he was wealthy, feted and
indulged. He had had enough of work: for the
rest of his long life he would write music solely
for his own enjoyment. In 1835, five years
after his ‘retirement’, the publisher Troupenas
persuaded Rossini to publish a group of pieces
he had written over the intervening years for
singers at occasional social gatherings. These
pieces – eight chamber arias and four duets –
were collected under the title Soirées musicales
(‘musical evenings’). Of these, Britten selected
three for his first set of orchestral arrangements,
introduced by a soldiers’ march taken from
Act 3 of William Tell. The other movements
are a canzonetta, originally a setting of a text
by Metastasio called ‘La promessa’; a ‘tirolese’,
or yodelling song, ‘La pastorella dell’Alpi’;
a bolero, ‘L’invito’; and, finally, a sparkling
tarantella – which, strangely enough, is not the
‘Tarantella napoletana’ (No. 8 of the Rossini) but
an adaptation of ‘La carità’ (‘Charity’), the third
of the Three Religious Choruses for women’s
voices. Rossini – who wore his religion lightly –
would have seen no incongruity in harnessing
such a lively, secular idiom to sacred purposes!
Programme note © Wendy Thompson
Wendy Thompson is a writer on music and the
executive director of the independent production
company Classic Arts. Apart from programme notes
she has written many books, including biographies
of Mozart, Handel and Grieg.
Interval: 20 minutes
Johann Strauss II (1825–99)
Die Fledermaus (1874) – overture
The younger Johann Strauss may have been
best known for the seemingly endless string
of waltzes he composed, making Vienna the
waltz capital of the world, but he was seen by
the city’s theatre impresarios as their greatest
hope against the dominance of Offenbach’s
operettas. After a couple of moderate successes
he hit gold with Die Fledermaus, which has
remained in the international repertoire ever
since. It was a success that Strauss was never
again to match.
The overture takes the form of a potpourri – a
medley of themes from the opera: most notably,
the opening three-note call to attention comes
from Eisenstein’s ‘Ja, ich bin’s’ in the Act 3 trio,
while the famous waltz – which, according
to press reports, at the first performance
‘was interrupted several times by salvoes of
applause’ – is taken from the Act 2 finale.
Johann Strauss II
Künstlerleben (1867)
Despite the operetta success of his later career,
it was, of course, as the ‘Waltz King’ that
Strauss initially made his name. His father, also
Johann, had made a career leading his orchestra
at the society balls that the Viennese glitterati
loved to frequent but the younger Johann
was initially discouraged from following in his
footsteps. Thankfully a banking career did not
appeal, so the son took over from the father
fronting the orchestra and the breathtaking
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