The Bartered Bride as "a tour de force of the genre, wonderfully spirited & wonderfully crafted." Tyrrell draws attention to several of its striking features – its extended string fugato, climactic tutti and prominent syncopations. The overture does not contain many of the opera's later themes: biographer Brian Large compares it to Mozart's overtures to "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Magic Flute", in establishing a general mood. It is followed immediately by an extended orchestral prelude, for which Smetana adapted part of his 1849 piano work "Wedding Scenes", adding special effects such as bagpipe imitations. Schonberg has suggested that Bohemian composers express
The Bride of Abydos his "Bride of Abydos" at the age of twenty-six on 2 December 1813. In a letter to a friend, he himself notes the nature of its composition "for the sake of employment". In his personal Diary of 16 November 1813, Byron claims to have written "The Bride" "stans pede in uno" (a direct quotation from Horace's Satires 2.10, decrying the rapid production of poor verse for commercial gain). Byron, however hastily he wrote, return and revised many times "The Bride", nevertheless, the manuscript tradition reveals only minor tweaks to the poem. In another letter Byron expresses his intent to concoct