Rossini, G :: William Tell Overture

Musicians Publications presents Gioacchino Rossini s William Tell Overture arranged for woodwind quintet by Bill Holcombe Jr.

Time has not been kind to Rossini. Today he is identified with a handful of comic operas (often dismissed as implausible and silly, and frequently staged as sophomoric slapstick) and a dozen or so overtures, the most famous of which brings to mind a television cowboy who rode high in the ratings from 1949 until 1965 instead of the heroic figure of William Tell. The opening sentence of Philip Gossett s article in The New Grove offers a healthy corrective: No composer in the first half of the nineteenth century enjoyed the measure of prestige, wealth, popular acclaim, or artistic influence that belonged to Rossini.

Rossini was born less than three months after the death of Mozart ( He was the wonder of my youth, Rossini later wrote, the despair of my maturity, and he is the consolation of my old age ), was a professional contemporary of Beethoven and Schubert (as well as the young Mendelssohn and Berlioz), and lived into the era of Wagner and Brahms. But he retired in 1830, at the height of his career, leaving behind the world of opera where he had reigned since 1812, when his La pietra del paragone (The touchstone) triumphed at La Scala. During the remaining four decades of his life he didn t write another opera (for a while he contemplated a treatment of Goethe s Faust ), choosing instead to preside over his celebrated salon (one of the most famous in all Europe) and to putter in the kitchen (tournedos Rossini are his most famous concoction). Only occasionally did he put pen to manuscript paper.

William Tell was his last opera. It is a vast, imposing, and richly beautiful work in four acts, and in its day it was extravagantly praised (Donizetti said act 2 was composed not by Rossini but by God) and frequently staged, though seldom complete. (Once, when the head of the Paris Opera encountered Rossini on the street and boasted that the second act of Tell was being performed that very night, the composer replied, Indeed! All of it? ) In our time, productions of William Tell are almost unheard of Rossini s serious operas, more important historically than the comedies, are relatively unknown to us today. Ironically, the overture to William Tell has become one of the most popular pieces in the orchestral repertory. -Phillip Huscher, 2017

This edition by Musicians Publications is advanced in difficulty for all performers.