Overture: Der Freischütz

arranged for wind ensemble by Wenzl Sedlák (1776–1851)

Of all Weber’s operas, the only one to have retained a regular place in the repertoire is Der Freischütz, which was first performed in Berlin in 1821 and within a few years had been performed in every major opera house in Europe. The problem with most of the others was not the music – which, as we know from the overtures to, say, Euryanthe and Oberon, is uncommonly inspired – but the libretti. While Johann Friedrich Kind’s libretto for Der Freischütz has it weaknesses too, it is effectively designed for the stage and it presents a clear conflict between the forces of good and evil against the romantic background of the great German forest. The duality is no less clear in Weber’s score, which is based on a corresponding long-term conflict between the keys of C major and C minor.

The Overture – heard on this occasion in one of many 19th-century arrangements for wind ensemble – condenses the narrative complexities of the three acts of the opera into a masterfully constructed miniature tone poem. The Adagio introduction sets the scene in the forest with mysteriously slow-moving lines on woodwind and idealised hunting calls on the horns. Just before the tempo changes, the sinister sound of the forces of evil are heard in eerie harmonies on clarinets and bassoons and dull thuds on horns and double bassoon – material derived from the famous “Wolf’s Glen” scene in the second act. The Molto vivace begins in C minor with anxious syncopations on clarinets and a melody for oboe derived from an unhappy song for the forester hero Max in the first act. The force of good enters only as a second subject when, after an oboe solo that spreads light into the prevailing gloom, a brilliantly radiant melody associated with Max’s betrothed Agathe is introduced by oboe again. After a (in this version) much abbreviated development section the recapitulation gets only as far as the first subject before it is interrupted by a recall of the sinister “Wolf’s Glen” material. The forces of evil seem to have won. But, after a long pause and a massive chord of C major, Agathe’s redemptive melody on clarinet and oboe makes its exuberant and ultimately triumphant return.

Gerald Larner ©2010