Overture
The instrumental opening to an opera or play — which can also stand alone
Related
An overture is the instrumental music played before an opera, play or ballet, drawing the audience into the theatre and previewing musical material. The seventeenth-century French overture fell into slow-fast-slow sections; the Italian overture later became fast-slow-fast and helped shape the symphony.
In the nineteenth century the overture left the stage: Beethoven's Leonora, Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Berlioz's dramatic overtures could be played in concert on their own. The one-movement, titled concert overture leads directly toward the symphonic poem.
To judge an overture, ask whether it belongs to a stage work: when it does, its themes are often drawn from the numbers that follow; when it stands alone, it must supply its own statement and close. Under one name, the first is a lobby, the second a building in its own right.
Sources
- 序曲从法国歌剧序曲到音乐会序曲的演变，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Overture"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.