Meyerbeer: Overtures & Stage Music

Featuring

Dario Salvi
Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice
Giacomo Meyerbeer

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Composer Biography

Giacomo Meyerbeer, a great opera composer, began his stage career at age 19 with his first stage work, a ballet, performed in Berlin.

Instruments

The overture to Der Admiral, a collaboration between Meyerbeer and his teacher Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler, features the unusual strohfidel, a 'wood and straw instrument' popularized by Michal Josef Gusikov.

Composer Biography

After visiting Paris and London, Meyerbeer traveled to Italy in 1815, where he assimilated the operatic style of the day and Italianized his name to 'Giacomo Meyerbeer'.

Composition History

Meyerbeer's opera Wirt und Gast, based on a tale from The Arabian Nights, features 'Turkish' themes and Oriental exoticism, including Janissary music with clashing percussion.

Compositional Technique

The scoring for Meyerbeer's ballet Der Fischer und das Milchmädchen uses pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and horns, along with strings, with woodwind writing providing variety.

Composition History

Meyerbeer's first stage work, the ballet Der Fischer und das Milchmädchen, was performed at the Court Opera in Berlin on March 26, 1810, and had four performances.

Performer Biography

Dario Salvi is a Scottish-Italian conductor and musicologist who specializes in restoring and performing rare works, including collaborations with Naxos on Romantic ballets and operettas.