Offenbach Overtures

The overtures to Offenbach's operettas are peculiar creations, for they were seldom written by the composer and in most cases were never intended for his theatrical productions. Offenbach found them tedious and superfluous, preferring instead to present his works without any introductory music beyond a few measures. Only two of the overtures in this collection were actually composed by Offenbach, those for La fille du tambour-major and Monsieur et Madame Denis. .

Offenbach - Overtures - Herbert von Karajan
MP3 192kbps | 64 MB | FRONT COVER
Classical | 1 CD | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | Release Date: 1990 | RAR 1% Recovery | RS.com

Herbert von Karajan (5 April 1908–16 July 1989) was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor, one of the most renowned 20th-century conductors. His obituary in The New York Times described him as "probably the world's best-known conductor and one of the most powerful figures in classical music."Karajan conducted the Berlin Philharmonic for thirty-five years. He is the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, with record sales estimated at 200 million.

As Adolf Tegtmeier, the alter ego of Jürgen von Manger, knew quite well, overtures exercise an important function in the opera: ‘They begin, you see, right off with the curtain and start by playing all the melodies in a row, everything that happens to come up later. But this is just to give you the chance to familiarize yourself with the music. And of course it’s important … so that later on you don’t get such a big shock’. The orchestral overtures brought together on the present recording make the listener eager to hear each of the particular works following them.

E.T.A. Hoffmann is better known for his literary works, mainly of Gothic stories, early horror fiction, and fairy tales. Some of his his works were used by Offenbach in the composition of his last opera, "The Tales of Hoffmann".