Overture to Røverborgen for Flute Quartet, WoO 129

From the Publisher

With his Singspiel Røverborgen (“The Robbers’ Castle”) Kuhlau made his debut as an opera composer. It was composed in 1813 and 1814 and is based on the libretto by Adam Oehlenschläger. In his autobiography he praised Kuhlau for his sense of drama. Next to his Singspiel Elverhøj (“Elves’ Hill”), Røverborgen is said to have been the most frequently played opera and, moreover, the only one that was performed outside of Denmark during his lifetime. In January 1817 the Deutsche Beobachter commented on a performance of the Singspiel in Hamburg: “The German musical art may pride itself in finding a worthy priest in Friedrich Kuhlau. His composition of Oehlenschläger’s The Robbers’ Castle, which he presented to us during his residence here last winter, certainly deserves to be counted as one of the most successful works of our great masters.” Kuhlau also tried to pitch his work in a letter to the publisher Gottfried Christoph Härtel in Leipzig and uses the opportunity to add that the Overture “also makes a brilliant impact in concert”. He has a point!

The arrangement at hand was written in 2019 in occasion of the 18th International Flute Competition Friedrich Kuhlau in Uelzen, Germany. It was my ambition to enlarge the repertoire for flute quartet by another one of Kuhlau’s works and at the same time pay homage to a composer often underrated.

The flute quartet Fleitjepiepen!, consisting of Clara Büchi, Katrin Fuss, Emma Hochschild and Luca Höhmann, performed this Overture together with the Overture and Quartet No. 9 from the opera Lulu op. 65 in the final round of the competition, and won a second prize in the categorie Flute Quartet. A recording from the final concert can be found on YouTube.

Performance duration (approx): 4'00

Item Details

Instrumentation

• Part 1: Piccolo
• Part 2: Flute
• Part 3: Alto Flute
• Part 4: Bass Flute