Posted April 14, 2025
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(Born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg; died December 5, 1791 in Vienna)
Overture to Don Giovanni, K. 527
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, 2 horns, 3 trombones, timpani, strings
Don Giovanni is truly one of the great operas ever written, and its Overture alone is a masterpiece. Its premiere in Prague in 1787 was an ecstatic success and the opera is now a cornerstone in the repertoire for its outstanding music and exceptional lyrics by Lorenzo Da Ponte.
Mozart’s Giovanni tells the tale of the fabled but fictitious Spanish womanizer, Don Juan (Don Giovanni in Italian) who whisks through numerous romantic conquests and other adventures with his comical sidekick, Leporello. But Giovanni’s reckless ego eventually leads to his murdering the Commendatore (Knight Commander), the father of one of his seductions. The opera’s final scene brings the Commendatore back from the dead to drag the unrepentant Giovanni down into the fires of Hell.
A foreshadowing of Giovanni’s tragic end is where the Overture begins. Opening with fortissimo and menacing chords in the full orchestra – a heralding of the terror to come – the winds then echo those chords quietly, while the upper strings pulse like a nervous, beating heart. Tension builds until the flutes and first violins begin a series of eerily ascending and descending scales that amplify a feeling of dread. But just as Giovanni so often turned his gaze from the pain he had caused, the music does the same. The Overture suddenly springs musically into the gaiety of Giovanni’s life before all that terrible life-reckoning, full of his devil-may-care attitude, his twinkling bravura and tempestuous ego, and all those complicated romantic entanglements. Its first theme speaks volumes – first heard in the violins, the theme moves upwards into several syncopated rhythms, just as if the arrogant Giovanni is dismissively flitting his hands to either side. But the energy never stops in this brief masterpiece, as Mozart captures a gallantry and joie de vivre all the way until the last, defiant chords.
© Max Derrickson