Overture to Don Giovanni
At a Glance
-
Composed
1786 -
Length
c. 6 minutes -
Orchestration
2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings -
First Los Angeles Philharmonic Performance
November 25, 1923, Walter Henry Rothwell conducting
About this Piece
The plot of Don Giovanni adapted by Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte was already centuries old in 1786; its elements—a ghostly statue and an unrepentant libertine—were even older. The opera is animated by the dramatic tension between comedy and tragedy: where they are opposed, where they overlap, and where it is impossible to distinguish between them. Mozart makes full use of this tension in the overture, which, in a departure from the standard practice of the day, plays a dramatic function.
Opening D-minor chords immediately set the tone and, indeed, will announce the appearance of the vengeful statue in the opera’s finale. Thus, even as the ominous beginning gives way to a more conventional sonata form, the listener’s consciousness has already been formed, and the subsequent vivacious themes acquire added depth and texture. —Susan Key
