Overture to La Clemenza di Tito
For 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
Commissioned for Leopold II's coronation as king of Bohemia, La clemenza di Tito received its premiere in Prague on September 6, 1791. For the most part, the cast was hired from the local opera troupe, but the contract called specifically for the hiring of a prominent composer, a prima donna, and a well known musico (one of the common euphemisms for "castrato"). The preferred composer was Salieri, but he was busy with other work and declined the offer. Mozart was the second choice. He was popular in Prague after the enormous successes of Figaro and Don Giovanni and, needing the work, took time out from composing The Magic Flute to fulfill the new commission.
The overture to La clemenza di Tito begins with a fanfare similar to the one that opens the overture to Idomeneo, but this grand overture is perhaps less a foreshadowing of the drama to come than it is a reflection of the ceremony and pomp of the occasion for which the opera was written.