Overture incorporating "God Save the King" at its climax). However, the overture "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1826) by Felix Mendelssohn is generally regarded as the first concert overture (Temperley 2001). Mendelssohn's other contributions to this genre include his "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" overture (1828), his overture "The Hebrides" (1830; also known as "Fingal's Cave") and the overtures "Die schöne Melusine" ("The Fair Melusine", 1834) and "Ruy Blas" (1839). Other notable early concert overtures were written by Hector Berlioz (e.g., "Les Francs juges" (1826), and "Le corsaire" (1828)). In the 1850s the concert overture began to be supplanted by the symphonic
Faust Overture Faust Overture The Faust Overture is a concert overture by German composer Richard Wagner. Wagner originally composed it between 1839 and 1840, intending it to be the first movement of a "Faust Symphony" based on the play "Faust" by German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Realizing that he would not finish the planned symphony, Wagner revised the piece between 1843 and 1844, incorporating ideas from the other planned movements, and creating instead a single-movement concert overture. He made a final revision in 1855. The work is one of Wagner's few compositions intended for the concert hall, rather than the theatre.