Overture “Rosamunde”

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

When Schubert was pired, music took shape in his mind faster than his pen could move across paper. And in his incidental music to the Romantic drama Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress he was often in spired. He began composing on November 30, 1823, and finished on December 18, 1823, two days before the premiere. Not much time was left to rehearse either the music or the production’s two ballets, and no time at all to compose an overture. In fact Schubert never did compose an overture to Rosamunde. Instead he used an overture already composed for an earlier work.

                One of Schubert’s close friends, the famous Romantic painter Moritz von Schwind, describing the Rosamunde premiere to a mutual friend, wrote that the Overture was taken from Schubert’s opera, Alfonso and Estrella. But Schubert’s opera, Alfonso and Estrella. But Schwind’s comments on the music do not fit the Overture to Alfonso and Estrella. On the other hand, they do fit Schubert’s Overture to an earlier “magic play” (Zauberstück) called The Magic Harp (Die Zauberharte). Add to this the fact that the Zauberharte Overture was published (in a four-hand piano version) shortly before Schubert’s death as the Overture to Rosamunde, and the conclusion seems almost inescapable. It is the Zauberharte Overture that is customarity performed today under the title of Overture to Rosamunde.

                The drama Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress survived for exactly two performances. Even though Schubert’s music had been singled out by the Viennese press for high praise, it fell into obscurity along with the play and was not brought to light again in its entirely until 1867, when Sir Arthur Sullivan made a joint expedition to Vienna for the purpose of unearthing Schubert’s still-neglected manuscripts. The two men were successful beyond their wildest dreams, and in the booty they brought back to London were parts of Schubert’s Rosamunde music, which was performed, in London, for the first time since the Viennese production of the drama.

                The orchestra for the Rosamunde (Zauberharte) Overture calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and the standard choir or strings.

                                                                                 Edward Downes