Overture: Die leichte Kavallerie (Light Cavalry)

Vienna’s answer to Offenbach before Johann Strauss assumed the front-line role in operetta, Franz von Suppé - or to give him his full name Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere Suppé Demelli - wrote literally dozens of operettas and other popular stage works. If most of them are now forgotten or remembered only by their overtures, it is not so much because the operettas are inferior as because the overtures are so very good. The Light Cavalry Overture - written for a two-act comic opera at the Carltheater in 1866 - is one of the most popular of all. Not surprisingly, it makes a special feature of military material, from the ceremonial fanfares that open and close the piece to the brilliant trumpet gallop associated in the operetta with a cavalry ride across the Hungarian plains. The Hungarian setting also allowed Suppé to indulge a characteristic Viennese taste for Hungarian flavouring, as in the lively dance that opens the main section of the overture and the passionate melody for lower strings introduced by a clarinet cadenza in the middle.