Ruslan and Ludmila: Overture

Ludmila is a Russian princess. Of her three suitors, Ruslan is the one she loves and, happily, it is he who rescues her from the clutches of the evil dwarf Chernomor. The trials they go through do not, however, loom large in the overture, which is a superbly sustained Presto celebration drawn largely from the final scene of Glinka’s opera, where the lovers are joyously reunited. The source of the energy is the vigorous rhythmic pattern in the opening bars: it carries two splendid tunes along with it - one of full-orchestral brilliance, the other more subtly coloured by lower strings and bassoon and reflecting Ruslan’s love for Ludmila. All this dynamism is too much for Chernomor, in spite of the gnomic wizardry of his whole-tone scale which appears (for the first time in musical history) on trombones towards the end of the overture.

First performed in 1842, six years after Glinka’s first opera, A Life for the Tsar, Ruslan and Ludmila never achieved the success of the earlier work, which is the basic foundation of Russian opera. But its influence on succeeding generations of Russian composers - Tchaikovsky not least - was immeasurable.