About this work
Così fan tutte was Mozart’s third and final collaboration with Lorenzo Da Ponte. The opera was first performed at Vienna’s Burgtheater on 26 January 1790 under the composer’s direction. Its plot turns an experiment in fidelity into a game of disguises from which nobody emerges unchanged. The New Mozart Edition observes that the overture’s paper probably places its composition close to the premiere. This late writing does not make it a mere curtain raiser: it precisely prepares the mixture of displayed certainty and instability that governs the opera.
The C-major Andante begins with full chords separated by silences and small woodwind replies. Clarinets, oboes and bassoons soften the ceremony of trumpets and timpani. After a few bars, an insistent cadential formula closes the introduction; it belongs to the opera’s dramatic vocabulary and lends the title “thus do they all” a confidence whose fragility the ensuing action continually tests.
The Presto immediately begins piano in the strings, with repeated quavers and small rising figures. Winds enter in blocks, after which motives pass from violins to bassoons and inner voices. Large forte chords are often followed by an immediate withdrawal. On the final page, long crescendo notes lead to a fortissimo tutti, yet Mozart launches more light runs before the cadence: even the conclusion retains something of the work’s play and uncertainty.
For the Andante, coordinate attacks and especially releases; silences need a shared duration rather than improvised breaths. In the Presto, begin with strings alone, distinguishing accompanying quavers from motives that should move into the foreground. Winds can then adopt exactly the same articulation. Preserve some dynamic reserve for the final crescendo so that fortissimo becomes a destination rather than a permanent state.
What the document containsDocument: The document contains 13 pages in PDF format. No MIDI file is currently attached to this historical record. The PDF is a 13-page full score containing the introductory Andante and the complete Presto. The forces are two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in G, two bassoons, two horns in G, two trumpets in C, timpani in C and G, and strings; no separate parts are supplied.The historical record marks the work and file as public domain but does not document the editor or exact provenance of this copy. The file preserved by LesPartitions.info can be compared with the reference catalogue. Following that check, LesPartitions.info separates established facts from information that remains incomplete.