# Which composers besides Wagner excelled at writing purely orchestral music for their operas.



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Many of you are more knowledgeable than me of operatic literature but for me I would say: Strauss ( particularly for Elektra and Salome), Rossini ( overtures) and Gluck ( the Dance of the Blessed Spirits). What say you?


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## Francasacchi (7 mo ago)

Berlioz!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Most of the best opera composers wrote excellent overtures. Beethoven wrote four overtures for a single opera! Verdi wrote a nice overture for _Aida_ which he decided not to use.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I will definitely second Berlioz


Overtures don't count (some composers just did a cut/paste job or maybe didn't even write their own!) 
Spare me Verdi ... if I ever hear another oom pah pah again ... 😩


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Most of the best opera composers wrote excellent overtures. Beethoven wrote four overtures for a single opera! Verdi wrote a nice overture for _Aida_ which he decided not to use.


Verdi wrote some spendid ballet music as well as some wonderful overtures and preludes, particularly for his later operas. The prelude to Act I of _*Simon Boccanegara*, _which depicts the sun rising over the sea in Genoa is absolutely gorgeous.

Britten, who of course also wrote quite a lot of purely orchestral music, has some wonderful orhestral sections in his opera scores. So has Janacek.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Beethoven only wrote the _one_ opera, *Fidelio*, but he also didn't necessarily write vocal parts as though they were to be SUNG. He wrote vocal lines to suit his whim, as though he were writing for an instrument. Singers be damned.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

pianozach said:


> Beethoven only wrote the _one_ opera, *Fidelio*, but he also didn't necessarily write vocal parts as though they were to be SUNG. He wrote vocal lines to suit his whim, as though he were writing for an instrument. Singers be damned.


I've encountered this idea, but I'm skeptical of it. Which of the arias and ensembles in _Fidelio_ don't sound like vocal music to you? Would they sound more idiomatic played by instruments? Do singers find them unduly hard to sing?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There are not many stand-alone orchestral selections in Puccini's operas - he was a get-on-with-it sort of guy - but his colorful and atmospheric orchestral writing is one of the best things about his work, especially the later operas.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Mozart of course


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Rimski-Kórsakov. "Praise to the desert", "Battle of Kerzhenetz" from "Kitezh"; symphonic pictures from "The night before Christmas" and "The tale of Tzar Saltan" among others.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Rameau for sure. Rameau in his operas experimented boldly with orchestral effects and was among the first to experiment with gradation of orchestral dynamics. The unprecedented attention to orchestral detail and coloristic effects in his first opera, _Hippolyte Et Aricie_ caused a sensation. The master orchestrator Berlioz believed him to be “le premier musicien français qui mérite le nom de maître” (the first French musician who merits the name “master”).


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I've encountered this idea, but I'm skeptical of it. Which of the arias and ensembles in _Fidelio_ don't sound like vocal music to you? Would they sound more idiomatic played by instruments? Do singers find them unduly hard to sing?


Some of his vocal lines, especially ensemble sections, were considered to be impossible to sing, as though written by a madman. The singers sang them, but not without complaining.

Nowadays singers mostly just roll their eyes because the parts are "Difficult". Standard repertoire.

Oh, and it's my opinion that Handel sometimes treated ensemble vocals in the same way, as though the vocal lines were simply transcribed from an organ part or something.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

pianozach said:


> Some of his vocal lines, especially ensemble sections, were considered to be impossible to sing, as though written by a madman. The singers sang them, but not without complaining.
> 
> Nowadays singers mostly just roll their eyes because the parts are "Difficult". Standard repertoire.
> 
> Oh, and it's my opinion that Handel sometimes treated ensemble vocals in the same way, as though the vocal lines were simply transcribed from an organ part or something.


In my young years I sang in the tenor sections of choirs performing Handel's Messiah, the Brahms, Faure and Durufle requiems, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and many other choral works. The Missa was challenging, certainly, but aside from moments such as the perilous tenor entry on a high A in the "Et resurrexit" I didn't find the music intimidating. Not as easy as Faure, to be sure, but probably easier than some of Bach's writing in, say, his B-minor Mass, which sounds frightfully demanding. I doubt that anything in _Fidelio_ is of comparable difficulty to some passages in the role of Norma.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Walzer (Der Freischütz)





Fähnium-Marche (Die Wahrheit der Natur)
-blends well with the work's overall theme of portraying the rural side of Germany


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Debussy wrote six Interludes for _Pelléas et Mélisande._


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> Debussy wrote six Interludes for _Pelléas et Mélisande._


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I'm so happy you people liked this topic. Thanks for replying.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

ColdGenius said:


> Rimski-Kórsakov. "Praise to the desert", "Battle of Kerzhenetz" from "Kitezh"; symphonic pictures from "The night before Christmas" and "The tale of Tzar Saltan" among others.


Praise to the desert


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Battle of Kerzhetz


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Three wonders from "The tale of Tzar Saltan"


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Mozart of course


But there is only (usually brief) ouvertures as purely orchestral parts, with the exception of the ballet section in Idomeneo.

With Rimsky the suites are often more popular than the operas!

Weber has great ouvertures and the "Wolf's glen" is mostly instrumental but there is little else purely instrumental, AFAIR. (Berlioz orchestrated Invitation to dance to have a ballett music for his French version of Freischütz)
Berlioz has the "royal hunt and storm" and his Faust has a bunch of popular instrumental pieces: Rakoczy march, menuet de feux follets and another dance-like one, I think. In Gounod's Faust there is the famous waltz and the march (but together with chorus of soldiers). The pieces for the Carmen suite are not all purely instrumental in the opera but everyone knows this, I guess.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

There is also a famous "Meditation" in Massenet's "Thais".


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Are we talking about purely orchestral sections in operas or opera composers who were equally successful in purely orchestral repertoire? That would actually disqualify both Verdi and Wagner, as neither wrote much in the way of purely orchestral music. On the other hand, there are quite a few opera composers, who excelled in both areas; Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Berlioz, Britten Handel.


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Rimski-Kórsakov has a rather unusual opera "Mlada". The title character is dead before the opera begins, but appears in the dreams of a prince, which are arranged as ballet scenes.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Are we talking about purely orchestral sections in operas


That's how I understand the title/question "for their operas". Of course, many opera styles admitted only comparably small orchestral sections past the ouverture (whereas other styles demanded extended ballet sections).


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

The Wolf's Glen has a bit of "incidental music" quality to it, with a mix of what appears to be "words set to music" and "words of ordinary speech".





Die Geisterinsel, Act III: Geistererscheinung. Pantomime
(One of the several numbers that seem to derive material from the overture; seems to portray "apparitions" at sea)





Die Geisterinsel, Act III: Andante
(has a tranquil, "pastoral" feel)





Die Wahrheit der Natur: Menuet II
(the rustic feel and the counterpoint are memorable)


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

In german unpitched spoken words to music sections are called "melodram" (this word has another non-technical derogative meaning, though). The casting of the bullets is like this, mostly, and Samiel of course only a speaking role. There are brief melodram sections in several other operas, in the Fidelio dungeon scene there is one as well (When Leonore and Rocco dig the grave, I think around the line "Wie kalt ist es in diesem unterirdischen Gewölbe")


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## ColdGenius (9 mo ago)

Tchaikovsky had a great success in operas, ballets and symphonic works, but purely symphonic pieces are rare in his operas. 
The same could be said about Handel and Vivaldi.
Rameau mentioned above is a perfect example of including symphonic parts (initially ballet) in operas.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

In the 17th - mid 19th centuries this was a main difference between the French style (always ballets, even the form of a ballet-opera, cf. the added ballet (bacchanale) for the Paris Tannhäuser) and the Italian, focused on virtuoso singers. A few Handel operas do have ballet sections because the troupe of Marie Sallé (sp?) was in London for a season or several and this was an additional attraction in the battle of the opera companies. "Ariodante" and maybe "Alcina" have such dance sections but I am not sure which operas and how many.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Franz Schreker deserves mention. Schreker's operas have recently been making a comeback on the stage. Not only did his reputation as a leading opera composer rival that of Richard Strauss during the first couple of decades of the 20th century, but the orchestral sections of Schreker’s operas are of greater importance for the work as a whole than what is the case with many other composers. He often presented them as independent pieces in concert, demonstrating his striking gifts as an orchestrator. Two such examples are the orchestral interlude _Nachtstück_ from his opera _Der ferne Klang, _and the_ “Prelude to a Drama” _from_ Die Gezeichneten.










_


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Britten!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Am I understanding the question correctly?
Arrigo Boito(lesser known as Tobia Gorrio)=Mefistofele Prologue


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Are we talking about purely orchestral sections in operas or opera composers who were equally successful in purely orchestral repertoire? That would actually disqualify both Verdi and Wagner, as neither wrote much in the way of purely orchestral music. On the other hand, there are quite a few opera composers, who excelled in both areas; Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Berlioz, Britten Handel.


Within operas orchestral music in keeping with the opera theme. A large number of composers wrote both operas and symphonies/ chamber music. Music like Meditation on Thais by Massenet..


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## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

Mussorgsky's orchestral writing in Boris Godunov is interesting... but it's hard to distinguish versions...
Khovanshchina might have been.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Within operas orchestral music in keeping with the opera theme.


There is an extended orchestral section, integrated into this vocal number as somewhat like an orchestral intro (@3:02~4:24 [watch?v=S-5Px9cHGcU&t=3m2s]), but at the same time the section can be seen as a standalone orchestral number on its own. Later in the vocal number, the orchestral stuff is used to accompany singing (@5:15~ [watch?v=S-5Px9cHGcU&t=5m15s])-




Andromeda e Perseo, Act I Scene 4: Qual mi sovrasta, o Ciel

Likewise, at the end of Act I of Die Geisterinsel, the orchestral stuff from the overture is used to accompany singing-




Schmachtend floh ich aus der Zelle




Overtüre

Btw, orchestral finales in opera wouldn't be a bad idea -




sort of like music for end credits in film.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Within operas orchestral music in keeping with the opera theme. A large number of composers wrote both operas and symphonies/ chamber music. Music like Meditation on Thais by Massenet..


In which case, Debussy and Britten are definitely contenders, indeed the Four Sea Interludes from *Peter Grimes *are often performed as a stand alone concert piece. I don't think the interludes in *Pelléas et Mélisande *are, but they are absolutely glorious.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana Prelude


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana Prelude





nina foresti said:


> Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana Prelude


And the Intermezzo.

If we're talking about orchestral music from operas that is sometimes heard in the concert hall divorced from its original source, then Wagner's "bleeding chunks" are an obvious example, but quite a few of Verdi's preludes and overtures are often heard in the concert hall, as is some of his ballet music.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

One standout for me is the music accompanying the silent film during Act II of Alban Berg's _Lulu, _which which served as the pivot for the whole work. This from Wiki:

_Interlude in the form of a silent film. Both film and the musical accompaniment are in the form of a palindrome.The film depicts four main events, pivoting on Lulu's one year in prison, and four following her imprisonment, forming the palindrome. The first sequence shows the arrest, detention, trial and the prison door closing. The second sequence shows the reverse with the prison door opening, the medical assessment, the isolation ward in hospital, and her escape. In each mirror event the number of people involved is the same, for example three people arrest her and three liberate her. As the palindrome progresses, Lulu loses hope in detention, is tried and transferred to prison, where she becomes resigned to her fate. There hope returns as she contracts cholera and after a further "trial" by doctors is transferred to hospital where hope grows as Geschwitz visits her, they change clothes, and Lulu escapes disguised as the other woman. During the palindrome many details and symbols, before and after prison, match each other, including Lulu's portrait, a recurring visual motif throughout the opera._ 

I suspect Berg might have had a bit of fun coming up with that.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Great topic!

Nobody has mentioned the verismo composers other than Mascagni (and Puccini if you include him in that category).

There are many great interludes, intermezzi and ballet numbers in verismo opera. This disc has a great selection of them:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Thamos, King of Egypt (or King Thamos; in German, Thamos, König in Ägypten) is a play by Tobias Philipp, baron von Gebler, for which, between 1773 and 1780, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote incidental music, K. 345/336a, of an operatic character.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Mozart. Many of his overtures played as orchestral pieces.


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## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I'm so happy you people liked this topic. Thanks for replying.


By the way, you bring up a lot of interesting topics. You highlight a lot of great singers and selections I had never heard before or to whom/which I had paid pretty scant attention.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

This question confuses me a bit. I would have assumed this was the norm among great opera composers. Verdi, Bellini and Rossini certainly all have great overtures to their operas (even if Rossini recycled a few).


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Another shout for Britten as he was a master of orchestration. One of the greats who achieved so much, sometimes with so little.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> In german unpitched spoken words to music sections are called "melodram"






Zaide, K. 344: Act I: Unerforschliche Fügung (No. 2 Melologo)





(a theme from the overture watch?v=bSE84TER2GU&t=5m44s)


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