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.
Overture as his "Tragic Overture", Op. 81. An example clearly influenced by the symphonic poem is Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". His equally well-known "Romeo and Juliet" is also labelled a 'fantasy-overture'. In European music after 1900, an example of an overture displaying a connection with the traditional form is Dmitri Shostakovich's "Festive Overture", Op. 96 (1954), which is in two linked sections, "Allegretto" and "Presto" (Temperely 2001). Malcolm Arnold's "A Grand, Grand Overture", Op. 57 (1956), is a 20th-century parody of the late 19th century concert overture, scored for an enormous orchestra with organ, additional brass instruments, and obbligato parts for four