Overture in C, "In Memoriam"

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Overture in C, "In Memoriam", by

Norwich Festival
, in honour of his father, who died just before composition began.

The piece was written early in Sullivan's career, before he began to work with his famous collaborator,

Savoy Operas
. The sombre piece was well received. It was first published by Novello almost twenty years later, in 1885.

Background and history

In late 1864, Sullivan received commissions to write overtures for the

Norwich Festival. The first was to be based on Sir Walter Scott's poem Marmion, but the second had no theme assigned.[1] Inspiration for the Norwich Festival commission came with the sudden death of Sullivan's father in September, 1866. Sullivan turned his grief to the completion of this overture.[2]

The work was premiered in Norwich, conducted by

Theodore Thomas Orchestra (1886).[6]

Only two recordings were made before 1992. Since then the piece has been recorded several more times.[7]

Structure

The composition is structured as a single multi-tempo movement marked Andante religioso - Allegro molto and lasts around eleven to twelve minutes in performance.[8]

The critic Andrew Lamb writes that, although the composer described the overture as an outpouring of grief,

its pervading tone is not one of sadness so much as deep affection. It contains charming melodies, so much so that the work’s major shortcoming is perhaps that its plaintive main theme, heard first on the oboe, does not quite stand up to its grandiose climactic chorale treatment for full orchestra, complete with organ.[9]

The piece's dark, slow texture has its main theme in the major key, as seen here in its first appearance in Myles B. Foster's piano reduction:

This theme reaches its final, grandest restatement in the last section of the overture. The musical scholar Arthur Jacobs comments that the slow hymn-like tune, with its repetition of the single note, "traps Sullivan into banality".[3] Gervase Hughes in a study of Sullivan's music, however, writes that the work has "a solid dignity that is quite impressive".[10]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Jacobs, p. 38
  2. ^ a b "Norwich Music Festival", The Observer, 4 November 1866, p. 6
  3. ^ a b c Jacobs, p. 43
  4. ^ Jacobs, p. 45
  5. ^ Jacobs, p. 121
  6. ^ Russell, p. 334
  7. ^ "Arthur Sullivan In Memoriam", WorldCat, retrieved 15 August 2015
  8. ^ Lamb, p. 3
  9. ^ Lamb, p. 7
  10. ^ Hughes, p. 12

References

  • OCLC 500626743
    .
  • Jacobs, Arthur (1986) [1984]. Arthur Sullivan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    ISBN 978-0-19-282033-4
    .
  • Lamb, Andrew (2000). Notes to Chandos CD CHAN 9859. Colchester: Chandos Records.
    OCLC 45856608
    .
  • Russell, Charles Edward (1927). The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas. Doubleday.

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Overture_in_C,_%22In_Memoriam%22&oldid=1100985138"