Online Music Library
Mozart – Idomeneo K366, Overture
Notes:
If you have difficulty downloading or printing the parts please let us know: icorchestra@gmail.com
Strings
Woodwind
Brass
Percussion/Conductor
Youtube/MP3:
Program Notes:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Overture to Idomeneo, rè di Creta, K. 366
Mozart composed Idomeneo in 1780-81 on a commission from the Bavarian court in Munich. It was his first great opportunity to stage a full-scale music drama in the reformed tradition of Christoph Willibald Gluck that included a substantial role for chorus and ballet. The plot was based on a tragédie lyrique, as French opera of the period was called, by librettist Antoine Danchet with music by André Campra.
Idomeneo, the King of Crete, was one of Agamemnon’s generals and trusted advisors in The Iliad. In a late Roman extension of the aftermath of the Trojan War, Idomeneo leaves his kingdom in the care of his young son Idamante to join the siege of Troy. The essence of the plot is a little like the biblical story of Jephtha, who in return for a military victory vowed to sacrifice the first living thing to greet him when he returned home – as it turned out, his daughter. Idomeneo, beset by a storm at sea on his homeward journey from the Trojan War, has made a similar vow to Neptune. The rest of the plot concerns his vain attempts to avoid sacrificing Idamante. Naturally, there’s a love interest as well, a triangle among Idamante, the Trojan princess Ilia and – of all people – Agamemnon’s daughter Electra, who has sought refuge in Crete after her mother Clytemnestra has murdered her father. Ultimately, after Idamante has slain a sea monster sent by Neptune to devour the Cretan people, an oracle emerges as a deus ex machina, ordering Idomeneo to abdicate in favor of his son.
Unfortunately the opera was not a great success and never gained popularity in the composer’s lifetime, although Mozart himself thought highly of it. He made numerous changes to gain its acceptance in Vienna, but to no avail. It has experienced a limited renaissance in large opera houses, where innovative productions outside the standard repertory have elicited audience support.
As was customary of overtures at the time, the Overture to Idomeneo is in sonata form, although without any significant development section. There is the obligatory slow introduction, a series of pompous blasts of the full orchestra, followed by a threatening theme, recalling what Mozart would later put into his overture for Don Giovanni. The Allegro runs out an array of themes, the most important of which are the first and second. The recapitulation simply recasts the themes into their proper keys for a proper resolution in the tonic.
Program Notes – Elizabeth & Joseph Kahn 2016
https://www.hhso.org/program-notes/may7/index.htm