William Tell Overture Junior Certificate Music Set A

William Tell – Swiss Legend

Composer• Gioacchino Rossini (1792 – 1868)• Italian (musical family)• Singer and Harpsichord Player• Romantic Period• Composed in 1829

Overture to an Opera• Rossini wrote 32 Operas• ‘William Tell’ is the last of his operas• An Overture is:

An introduction to a larger work intended to settle the audience

• This overture contains NONE of the melodies heard in the opera

Programme Music• Programme music describes a scene or tells a

story• Also called illustrative music• Very popular in the Romantic Period

• Examples of Programme MusicThe Flight of the Bumble Bee (Rimsky Korsakov)‘Autumn’ from The Four Seasons (Vivaldi) Pacific 231 (Honneger)The Swan (Saint-Saëns)The Typewriter (Leroy Anderson)

• The William Tell Overture describes in sound, four different parts of the story

Romantic Period• Composers: Beethoven was the first

Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Brahms, Verdi, Schumann, Berlioz, Bruckner, Grieg, Dvořák, Chopin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Smetana, Elgar

• After the Classical Period

• Large Orchestra (brass valves invented)• Piano (metal frame)

• Lots of Programme Music• Nationalism (a reaction against German influence)• Very expressive music (rich harmony, passionate melodies)

• Composers were freelance (no patrons)• Composers very interested in literature and art• Given this freedom composers ‘broke the rules’

The Story• William Tell – 14th Century Swiss Legend • Helped to free his country from Austrian rule• Refused to obey Gessler (Austrian Governer of

Switzerland)• Ordered to place an apple on his son’s head and

shoot it off• Sentenced to prison but escaped during a storm• Shot Gessler through the heart• Led a revolt against the Austrians

Performance

A: Sunrise in the AlpsB: The Storm

Performance

C: Shepherd on the MountainsideD: The Revolution