Preciosa Overture

Weber’s Preciosa music was also intended for a play - a German version by Pius Alexander Wolff of a story by Cervantes about a gypsy beauty, Preciosa, who inspires the devotion of a young Spanish aristocrat and who finally turns out, of course, to be of noble birth herself. Although he knew scarcely more about Spanish music than Chinese music, Weber did remember a few tunes he had heard outside a Spanish garrison in Gotha several years earlier. These he supplemented by reading round the subject and, as the overture confirms, he discovered some genuine examples. There is a fairly authentic-sounding bolero, introduced by first violins over a staccato rhythm on saltando strings in the opening Allegro moderato section, and there is a colourfuly “Gypsy March” exotically scored for wind and percussion. The march tune is then accelerated to become one of the two main themes of the concluding Allegro con fuoco. Written in Dresden in 1820 (shortly after Der Freischütz) and first performed with the rest of the incidental music in Berlin in 1821, the Preciosa Overture is one of Weber’s most genial inspirations.