Friday Performance Pick – 155

Rossini, William Tell Overture

When I was growing up, there was at least one Classical piece we all knew. Young boys would sing it on the playground along with shouts of “Hi Yo, Silver.” I knew reasonably early on that this piece had been composed around another legend familiar to children, that of William Tell. But I don’t think many in my generation could ever separate the music from the image of the Lone Ranger.

william-tellVisual and dramatic associations have propelled many serious musical works into the public consciousness. Think of the films 2001, Ordinary People, 10, and Apocalypse Now. But we experience most films just once. In the heyday of television series, we tuned in every week and heard the theme repeated many times.

Unfortunately, we heard only one theme from the closing minutes of the William Tell Overture: the Finale or “March of the Swiss Soldiers.” The music is the form of a galop, a fast dance popular in Paris at the time Rossini composed the opera (1829). So we can assume that whoever decided to use this theme for The Lone Ranger must have paid attention in his music history class.

But the overture contains several other themes that you may also recognize. The overture sets the stage for the opera, depicting the Swiss Alps and life along Lake Lucerne. The slow Prelude is interrupted by a thunderstorm. The calm after the storm is a pastorale with a “call to the cows” (a Ranz des Vaches or Kuhreihen). These simple tunes of Swiss herdsmen became popular in the 18th century and were linked to homesickness among Swiss. Playing them was forbidden by the Swiss mercenaries because they often led to desertion.

When you reach the Finale, with its rousing military imagery, you have pretty much everything you need to tell the story of William Tell.

Image: Engraving by Johann Leonhard Raab (1859) after a drawing by Arthur von Ramberg.