Rienzi, Overture

Program notes

About the Work

The Overture to Rienzi comes from the opera that made the young Richard Wagner famous, and it sounds quite unlike the mature ‘music dramas’ for which he is now best known. Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (‘Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes’), composed in the late 1830s and premiered in Dresden in 1842, was Wagner’s first real success: a big, old-fashioned grand opera in the spectacular French style of Meyerbeer, full of crowds, processions, ballets and political drama, telling the story of Cola di Rienzo, a medieval Roman demagogue who rises to power as a champion of the people and is then destroyed by the mob. Wagner was still in his twenties, ambitious and hungry for a hit, and Rienzi gave him one: its grand spectacle and stirring tunes were exactly what audiences of the day wanted.

The Overture is the opera’s calling card and the part that has stayed firmly in the concert repertoire. It is a thrilling curtain-raiser: a sweeping potpourri of the opera’s main themes, including the noble, prayer-like melody of Rienzi’s great Act V prayer, stirring martial music, and a brilliant, energetic conclusion. It shows Wagner the master orchestrator and melodist already in full command of grand effect, even before he revolutionised opera. After the interval, it makes a rousing, big-boned opening to the concert’s second half.

What to Listen For

Listen at the very start for the famous slow build: a single sustained trumpet note, swelling out of silence, which heralds the broad, hymn-like melody that is the heart of the Overture: the noble tune of Rienzi’s prayer (‘Allmächt’ger Vater’), one of Wagner’s most heartfelt early inspirations. Listen for how this great melody is introduced gently and then returns later in full, glowing orchestral splendour.

Around it, listen for the contrasting material: stirring, martial rhythms and fanfares evoking the opera’s political and military drama; surging, energetic string writing; and a gradual building of excitement. The Overture follows the classic ‘grand opera’ pattern of stitching together the opera’s best themes into an exciting orchestral showpiece, and it builds, through accelerating energy and brilliant orchestration, to a rousing, triumphant conclusion. Enjoy it as a vivid glimpse of the young Wagner, writing to dazzle and to please, already a master of the orchestra and not yet the revolutionary he would become.