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Dramatische Ouverture voor orkest op. 16

By Marius Flothuis

genre
Orchestra
instrumentation
Orchestra (3333 4331 2timp perc cel str)
duration
12 minutes
year
1951
location of manuscript
www.nederlandsmuziekinstituut.nl archive registration number 351/015
status
published score
order full score here

Details

Doorn Amsterdam

Program note: The 'Dramatic overture' originally was the introduction to an opera, which the author intended to compose after a novel by A. Roland Holst, Deirdre and the sons of Usnach. The opera was never written, but the overture was sketched in 1943 and completed three years later. The character of the themes is determined by the contents of the novel, but the overture is not a symphonic résumé of the drama. It consists of 5 parts:
I:a slow introduction, in which the principal ideas are the motive of the timpani (a) in bar 2 sqq. and the flute melody in bar 16 (b); II: a quick section (twice as quick as the introduction), in which b is developed and a new motive is introduced (c, trumpet, 52); first culminating point in 69 sqq.; III: a slow intermezzo (130), which is melodicly independent (oboe melody of 16 bars), then 16 bars violin solo with free canon of the flute, and finally in the last section, the motives a and c are vaguely threatening in the background; IV: continues II and introduces a new motiv (d, oboe and clarinet, 188); culminating points in 203 (subito più mosso) and 253, where all the motives are sounding together; V: epilogue, abridged repeat of the introduction with partial modification of the orchestration. - MARIUS FLOTHUIS

About Marius Flothuis

Marius Flothuis

Marius Flothuis led an eventful life. Early on, he was politically aware and left-wing orientated. He lost his job at the Concertgebouw Orchestra on his refusal to register with the Kultuurkamer, a regulatory cultural agency installed by the German occupying forces during World War II. He was arrested for his resistance work, imprisoned in Camp Vught and deported to Sachsenhausen in 1944. Meanwhile, he continued composing and survived the hardships. In the postwar Dutch and international music worlds he held numerous positions.

by Joyce Kiliaan