On your mark! Get set! GO!
This frenetic, rousing finale to Gioachino Rossini’s opera William Tell is one of the most widely recognised pieces of classical music in modern popular culture. You may remember hearing it in The Lone Ranger, Looney Tunes, Mickey Mouse and Tom & Jerry, among many other cartoons. It also featured prominently in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.
The piece was described by David Wondrich as a “frequent target of plunder by brass bands in the years during which they dominated the American musical landscape“.
When I hear it now, I can’t help but have my mind whisked away to horses racing out of the gate. You wonder what the reaction might have been when people first heard this piece premiered way back in 1829. I can only imagine everyone sitting there in complete awe, with a unified expression of ‘Wow’ on their faces.
It certainly set my day into a blistering rhythm when I first heard it this morning. Life’s too short. You’ve got to take it by the reins and live it as if it were your last. No time to slow down and think enough’s enough. No sirree, let’s take ourselves where we haven’t been before and not be impeded by negative sentiments or doubtful thoughts along the way.
Now we’re off and racing and there’s no letting up, that is until sleep beckons and we must eventually put a ‘Whoa!’ on proceedings. But even that’s for suckers.
Rossini himself effectively ended his career as a composer of opera with William Tell, his 39th opera, which is quite the way to go out, isn’t it? But he wasn’t about to pull up shop completely. He still went on to compose cantatas, sacred music and other works during his long retirement from the opera stage.
References:
1. William Tell Overture – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
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