Overture "Candide"

Wit was Voltaire’s weapon—a flashing, deadly weapon. It was a rapier point to puncture and deflate Establishment notions, fatuous philosophers, pompous asses, the complacent ones of his time—and ours. Wit is Bernstein’s weapon too, in the glittering musical he based on Voltaire’s satirical Candide. The misadventures of Voltaire’s satirical Candide. The misadventures of Voltaire’s bewildered non-hero Candide and his non-heroine Cunegonde seem made for music , especially the Offenbachish irreverence of Bernstein’s score, which is as full of irony as belly laughs, of double entendre as guffaws.

The Lillian Hellman-Richard Wilbur-Leonard Bernstein version of Voltaire’s Candide opened on Broadway in December 1956. On January 26, 1957, Mr.Bernstein conducted the Philharmonic in the first concert performance of the Overture to Candide. The Overture opens with a brassy fanfare, a sort of musical motto which recurs throughout the musical. The principal themes of the Overture are drawn from a battle scene and the lyrical duet “Oh Hayy We.” The end of the Overture incorporates the end of the song “Glitter and Be Gay.”--Edward Downes