Music with Ease > Classical Music > Concert Guide: Romantic Era > Overture to "The Bride of Messina". Op. 100 - Schumann

In 1850 Richard Pohl, a student friend of Schumann, sent him Schiller's tragedy, "The Bride of Messina," arranged as an opera libretto with the suggestion that he should set it to music. Perhaps remembering the fate of "Genoveva," he could not make up his mind to compose an opera upon the subject. That he was very much interested in it, however, is shown by his writing an overture to it, which was performed in Leipzig in 1851. While it is not generally considered a fitting overture to the story, yet is has many strong passages, especially the romantic second theme. As the overture is so rarely performed it hardly needs a closer description than to say it is in the ordinary form with a sombre introduction and a middle section which is deeply infused with the romantic spirit. It was also written at a time when Schumann's power of construction was visibly weakening.