Overture to 'Il viaggiatore ridicolo'

Like many of Vienna’s most prominent musicians, Florian Leopold Gassmann (1729-1774) was a Bohemian by birth. Comparatively little is known about his early life and training although he was well enough established in Italy as a composer to secure a commission to compose his first opera, Merope, for the Teatro S Moisè, Venice, in the Carnival season of 1757. The work was a success and Gassmann composed a new opera annually for the next five years. His third opera, Gli uccelatori, was the first of his many settings of libretti by Carlo Goldoni. In 1763 he succeeded Gluck (as ballet composer) in Vienna and in 1772 succeeded Georg Reutter the Younger as Hofkapellmeister. His premature death in 1774 as a result of a fall from a carriage was regretted by many, including Joseph II who admired his music very much. Il viaggiatore ridicolo (The Ridiculous Traveller), Gassmann’s three-act setting of Goldoni’s libretto, received its premiere in Vienna at the Kärtnertortheater on 25 May 1766. Judging from the number of extant copies the opera enjoyed widespread popularity. Significantly, the overture was offered for sale in the Breitkopf Catalogue (Supplement X 1775) and is also listed in both the Göttweig and Quartbuch catalogues. The Viennese court copy of the score - upon which this edition of the overture is based - is handsomely bound in three volumes and was clearly made after the premiere as a full cast list is given in the score. Evidence of a later revival may be found in the overture where trumpet and timpani parts have been pencilled very lightly in the score. The trumpet parts (in C) are very rudimentary and the accompanying timpani part - which calls for timpani in C, F & G - suggests a 19th-century revision rather than one closer to Gassmann’s time. No contemporary references can be found to these very dubious auxiliary parts which have, nonetheless, been printed in this edition in smaller type for the sake of completeness.