Hebrides Overture
Encyclopedia
Opus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
26, also known as Fingal's Cave (die Fingalshöhle), is a concert overture composed by Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
. Written in 1830, the piece was inspired by a cavern known as Fingal's Cave
Fingal's Cave
Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, part of a National Nature Reserve owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns, similar in structure to the Giant's Causeway in Northern...
on Staffa
Staffa
Staffa from the Old Norse for stave or pillar island, is an island of the Inner Hebrides in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The Vikings gave it this name as its columnar basalt reminded them of their houses, which were built from vertically placed tree-logs....
, an island in the Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
located off the west coast of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. As is common with Romantic era pieces, this is not an overture in the sense that it precedes a play or opera; the piece is a concert overture, a stand-alone musical selection, and has now become part of standard orchestral repertoire. The piece was dedicated to King Frederick William IV of Prussia
Frederick William IV of Prussia
|align=right|Upon his accession, he toned down the reactionary policies enacted by his father, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to enact a popular legislative assembly, preferring to work with the aristocracy through "united committees" of...
(then Crown Prince of Prussia).
Mendelssohn first travelled to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
at the invitation of a German lord after the composer's twentieth birthday. Following his tour of England, Mendelssohn proceeded to Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, where he began work on his symphony number 3
Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn)
The Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56, known as the Scottish Symphony, is a work by Felix Mendelssohn. It is thought that a painting on a Scottish trip made by Mendelssohn had inspired the 33-year-old composer, especially the opening theme of the first movement.The emotional scope of the work is...
, the Scottish Symphony. He was engaged on a tour of Scotland with his travelling companion Karl Klingemann when he sent a postcard to his family with the opening phrase of the overture written on it. In a note to his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn
Fanny Mendelssohn
Fanny Cäcilie Mendelssohn , later Fanny Hensel, was a German pianist and composer, the sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn and granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn...
he said: "In order to make you understand how extraordinarily The Hebrides affected me, I send you the following, which came into my head there." He actually wrote it the day before he visited Fingal's Cave. The cave at that time was approximately 35 feet (10.7 m) high and over 200 feet (61 m) deep, and contained colorful pillars of basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
.
The work was completed on 16 December 1830 and was originally entitled Die einsame Insel, or The Lonely Island. However, Mendelssohn later revised the score, completing it by 20 June 1832, and retitled the music Die Hebriden, or The Hebrides. Despite this, the title of Fingal's Cave was also used: on the orchestral parts he labelled the music The Hebrides, but on the score Mendelssohn labelled the music Fingal's Cave. The overture was premiered on 14 May 1832 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in a concert that also featured Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream
Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream
At separate times, Felix Mendelssohn composed music for William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1826, near the start of his career, Mendelssohn wrote a concert overture . In 1842, only a few years before his death, he wrote incidental music for a production of the play, into...
.
The music, though labelled as an overture
Overture
Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
, is intended to stand as a complete work. Although programme music, it does not tell a specific story; instead, the piece depicts a mood and "sets a scene", being an early example of such musical pieces. The overture consists of two primary themes; the opening notes of the overture state the theme Mendelssohn wrote while visiting the cave, and is played initially by the viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
s, cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
s, and bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s. This lyrical theme, suggestive of the power and stunning beauty of the cave, is intended to develop feelings of loneliness and solitude. The second theme, meanwhile, depicts movement at sea and "rolling waves".
The piece is scored for 2 flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, 2 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, 2 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, 2 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, 2 horns, 2 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
and string
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
s.
Performances of the overture typically run between 10½ and 11 minutes. The autograph manuscript of the work is held in the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
, Oxford.
In popular culture
- The Hebrides Overture serves as the soundtrackSoundtrackA soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
for the 10-minute-long avant-garde film, Moods of the SeaMoods of the SeaMoods of the Sea is a non-narrative experimental film by Slavko Vorkapich and John Hoffman, set to the music of Felix Mendelssohn known as the Hebrides Overture....
(1941), by filmmakers Slavko Vorkapich and John HoffmanJohn Hoffman (filmmaker)John Hoffman , was a masterful editor of montage sequences for several Hollywood studio features....
.
- It was the leitmotifLeitmotifA leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
for the inscrutable and seemingly indestructible hopping mynah birdMynaThe myna is a bird of the starling family . This is a group of passerine birds which occur naturally only in southern and eastern Asia...
in the brief Warner Bros.Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
1940's cartoon series "Inki and the Minah Bird"InkiInki is the lead character in an animated cartoon series of Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies short films by animator Chuck Jones....
.
- The overture accompanies the Sibelius composition program as a demo piece.
- An a cappellaA cappellaA cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
version by SpiralmouthSpiralmouthSpiralmouth is an a cappella group. The group is most famous for their original music for Vivendi Games's Crash Twinsanity. They also co-performed the soundtrack for Crash Tag Team Racing along with Marc Baril, and have a self-titled album featuring covers of songs by the Beatles, Sheryl Crow,...
can be heard in the video game Crash TwinsanityCrash TwinsanityCrash Twinsanity is an platform video game published by Vivendi Universal Games and developed by Traveller's Tales, for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox. It was released in North America on October 1, 2004, in Europe on October 8, 2004 and in Japan on November 9, 2004...
, during the Rusty Walrus chase section of the level "High-Seas Hijinks".
- The opening few minutes are played in The Life and Death of Colonel BlimpThe Life and Death of Colonel BlimpThe Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a 1943 film by the British film making team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger under the production banner of The Archers. It stars Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook. The title derives from the satirical Colonel Blimp comic strip by David...
(1943) while the character Clive Candy (Roger LiveseyRoger LiveseyRoger Livesey was a British stage and film actor. He is most often remembered for the three Powell & Pressburger films in which he starred: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going! and A Matter of Life and Death...
) is visiting his German friend Theodore 'Theo' Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton WalbrookAnton WalbrookAnton Walbrook, born was an Austrian actor who settled in the United Kingdom.- Life :...
) who is currently residing in a Prisoner of War camp in Hampshire.
- This piece was used as the 'chase music' in the radio serial "Challenge of the Yukon", featuring Sgt Preston of the Mounties and his brave sled dog, Yukon King.