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Overture to The Magic Flute |
Composed: 1791 Estimated length: |
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Born on January 27, 1756, in Salzburg (part of the Habsburg Empire at the time); Died on December 5, 1791, in Vienna, Austria |
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First performance: September 30, 1791, at the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna. |
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First Nashville Symphony performance: October 30, 1951, with Guy Taylor conducting at War Memorial Auditorium. |
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Mozart died just a little more than two months after The Magic Flute opened, only 35 years old. Despite the tragedy of such an early death—and the incalculable loss to music—it is comforting to realize that Mozart enjoyed at least a taste of its immense success. He visited as many of the wildly popular performances as he could and noted that his opera was becoming “more and more admired.”
The Magic Flute can be enjoyed as a gateway into the art for young listeners and as an entertaining adventure story with immediately accessible music, but anyone who wants to take a deeper diver will discover an intricate labyrinth of symbols and hidden meanings.
Mozart likely played an active role in shaping the libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, a jack-of-all-trades in the theater whose commercial theater in the Vienna suburbs produced the show (a far cry from the elite court milieu for which Mozart had written the great Italian operas of his Vienna decade). The Magic Flute belongs to a genre of music theater known as Singspiel, which mixes popular styles with spoken dialogue (not unlike the later American musical).
Both the libretto and the music of The Magic Flute range across a vast spectrum—from slapstick to elevated philosophy, from fairytale and folk tunes to sophisticated political allegory and many-layered counterpoint. The entire work conveys a harmonious vision of human potential, in which love triumphs over darkness, ignorance, and fear. The story line combines several plot lines, but its overall focus dramatizes a process of initiation into deeper secrets about life. Both Mozart and Schikaneder were Freemasons, and references to Masonic ritual is threaded throughout The Magic Flute.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR
The three notes that form the basic chord of E-flat major (a key designated by three flats) are emphasized in rising sequence in the opening bars of the Overture. The Magic Flute includes manifold references to the number three, a number with great significance in Freemasonry. The opening chords additionally suggest a process of “knocking” at the Temple of Wisdom, where the protagonist Tamino must undergo a ritual testing in order to progress to a state of enlightenment. Uncertain harmonies evoke a sense of groping through darkness.
Following this solemn introduction, the Overture’s main part takes wing with animated, fugue-style music that shows the inspiration Mozart found in his later years from rediscovering the music of J.S. Bach. A single theme serves as the engine—a symbol for the boundless fertility of the composer’s imagination.
Scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets; 3 trombones; timpani, and strings
− Thomas May is the Nashville Symphony's program annotator.
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