Othello Overture, Op.93

With Othello Dvorak set himself a formidable task. Making the third overture both complete in itself and the culmination of an integrated series would be difficult enough. But there was the additional problem that, having found the inspiration for the work in Shakespeare, he would have to find a way of accommodating a significant symphonic-poem element within the concert-overture form. Except in the title, he avoided drawing attention to his poetic sources but it is very clear from the manuscript, where his pencilled annotations associate certain passages in the music with certain events in the relationship between Othello and Desdemona - “They embrace in silent ecstasy,” for example, or “Othello murders her at the height of his anger” - that there is a very precise programmatic content here. Even without those clues, the essentially dramatic nature of the work and its boldly hybrid construction tell their own story.

Up to a point, Othello proceeds more or less as a late-romantic overture might be expected to proceed. The dramatic function of the Lento introduction it is not clear until later but the chorale on muted strings in the opening bars is so fervently presented that neither its future nor its past - it derives from the Nature theme, which duly appears here on flute and clarinets - is of immediate concern. What is clear is that a short descending phrase, vehemently articulated on the strings, will have a prominent role to play. In fact, when the Nature theme provokes a tempo change, that angry phrase is presented as the first main theme of the Allegro con brio, initially in its original form on woodwind in F sharp minor and later in a broader and more heroic variant on strings and horns in the same key. The second subject is similarly in two parts - a lovely open melody introduced by oboe and repeated by violins and a more passionate theme rising in chromatic steps on the strings.

A concert overture up to the end of the exposition, Othello now becomes a symphonic poem, the first and second subjects representing Othello and Desdemona respectively. A love scene featuring the chromatic theme (and Wagner’s “Magic Sleep” motif) is followed by a ff outburst where Othello’s jealousy, rising on lower strings and brass, takes hold of him. On a hint from Dvorak’s own Requiem theme on woodwind and with eerie promptings from the Nature theme on muted horn, Othello’s anger mounts and, at its height, he kills Desdemona, the jealousy motif now descending on cellos and basses. Desdemona’s voice is heard for the last time on flute, provoking despair in Othello and a (non-Shakespearean) prayer on the opening chorale now transferred to woodwind. Prompted once more by the Nature theme, Othello kills himself.