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.
Edward German copies. German was by then in great demand to write music for plays. His commissions included Henry Arthur Jones's "The Tempter" in 1893, Johnston Forbes-Robertson's "Romeo and Juliet" at the Lyceum in 1895, Herbert Beerbohm Tree's productions of "As You Like It" (1896) and "Much Ado about Nothing" (1898), and Anthony Hope's "English Nell" (later known as "Nell Gwynn") in 1900, starring Marie Tempest. At the same time, German was writing music for the concert hall, sometimes adapting music from his theatrical scores. His "Gypsy Suite" met with success similar to that of his overture to "Richard III" and his