Overture To The Magic Flute

After attending the concert, the piece of work I would like to talk in most detail about was “Overture to the Magic Flute” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Mozart was a child prodigy, was able to play the piano at 4 and composing his own music at 5. As Professor Chapman stated, “When he was older, he could just write music while talking to friends without testing it. He was able to hear the piece entirely in his head. ” The piece being focused on was an opera he composed, and not just any, one of his more famous.

What will be discussed is the feel of the piece’s form composed and some details pertaining to its creation such as instruments, meter, tempo and measures that were noticeable. Also, the general feel I received from the people playing Mozart’s composed work of art. An overlay of the form of the piece is assumed to be ABA and is set in the Allegro theme. It started out with an up beat, happy feeling in the introduction. Although it started slow, it began to pick up as it moves along in the major scale. There was use of many classical instruments, such as the oboe and flute, and in the lower bass regions, a bassoon maybe.

In the middle of the opera, it slips into a minor scale in sort of a fugal fashion, but keeps the same theme as before in the major scale. It then again, goes back into the major scale and has its conclusion there. Since in a major key, this suggests that maybe the opera could have actually ended on a good note. To one listening, the melody sounded as though there was a movement of drama, followed by a movement of mythical sound. It is a common trait to have contrasting themes in this type of music. The meter of this piece is 4/4 with changing tempos as the song goes on.

The tempo starts slow, but half way through the measure of the major scale, it picks up gradually to a fast tempo into the measure of the minor scale. It then slips into the measure of major scale again and the tempo slows down until the grand conclusion. The piece demonstrates an orchestral sound through the use of many of the classical instruments. This is not disturbing in any sense since the piece was created during the Classical period where many other works of art around this period had the same form style and form. The timbre was broken into 4 sections (strings, woodwind, brass and percussion).

In conclusion, going to this concert was very uplifting and when I left, I left with a good overall feeling. Even though the piece started slow, it quickly sped up and was able to keep my attention, maybe even draw me into it more. An opera enthusiast from Winston-Salem N. C. , Jeffrey Rossman states, “Even on a Tuesday night the theater was probably 90% filled, demonstrating the continuing public appeal of this masterpiece. ” (http://www. cvnc. org/reviews/2005/042005/MFlute. html). With this being one of Mozart’s final great works still to date, it shows his ability captivate any audience.