Balfe "Concert Overture" actually revised _Daughter of St. Mark_ overture

Started by pcc, Thursday 31 May 2012, 23:35

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pcc

As I was going through the wonderful downloads available _for the first time_, incredibly - oh heavenly days! finding the Benedict symphony and this Balfe overture - I realized what I had noticed many years ago when I heard this, and which may have been noted elsewhere on this site: the "Concert Overture" is actually the 1868 revised overture to Balfe's _The Daughter of St. Mark_.  When Balfe staged _La Bohemienne_ in Paris for Pasdeloup, one of his Rossiniesque self-borrowings was taking the coda from the original 1844 _Daughter of St. Mark_ overture and using it for the _Bohemienne_ overture (sometimes referred to as the "Paris" overture).  He then took parts of the ballet and processional music in _Daughter_ and grafted them onto the _Daughter_ overture and wrote it out as the overture to _La fille de St. Marc_, evidently hoping for either a performance of the single piece by Pasdeloup or perhaps generating interest in restaging the whole opera.  This was the overture used in the 70s revival of the opera, though nowhere near as well-played as on this BBC recording.