in f minor (Paris 1788) for large orchestra
(2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets in C, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns in F, 2 Trumpets
in F, Alto, Tenor and Bass Trombone, Timpani and 2 Violins, Viola and Bass)
Johann Christoph Vogel was one of the most promising talents for the
French opera. His opera "Démophon", composed in the same year as
Cherubini's counterpart with the same title, was however performed only
posthumously with such a great success that its ouverture became the most
popular piece for revolutionary celebrations. Georg Friedrich Fuchs, a student
of Joseph Haydn, arranged the ouverture for wind band for the open-air
performance. The ouverture was printed in orchestral parts, in the wind band
arrangement and as piano reduction by several European publishers.
The heroic style of the French opera emerged in the late 1770s
(a few years after the German "Sturm und Drang"; one of the earliest examples
is the ouverture of Gretry's "Le Jugement de Midas" of 1778). Later, the
revolutionary composers perfected this style for their hymns, wind ouvertures
and symphonies as Méhul for his g-minor symphony, and for the rescue
operas. Beethoven adopted the heroic style and consummated it in his idealization
of Bonaparte, the Eroica, in the glorification of the revolution, the Fifth
Symphony, in the dramatisation of the struggle for freedom, the Egmont ouverture,
and in the apotheosis of fraternity, the "Ode to Joy".
However, there is a major difference between the concepts of classical
music in the Ançien Régime or Vienna and in revolutionary France:
While the access to symphonic concerts and to the opera was rather limited
to the nobility and to rich people, and the concert life depended on the
funding or at least prenumerations of wealthy patrons, the open-air revolutionary
music was intended for the masses, implicated by the principle of egality
granting free access to the celebrations. Therefore, the French revolutionary
classical music can be seen as really egalitarian and democratic classical
music.
Our edition is based on the Paris part print by Sieber preserved
in the Landesbibliothek Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Josef Wagner who has already
edited Paul Wranitzky's "Grande Symphonie Charactéristique pour la
Paix avec la République Française" op. 31, the first composition
in Vienna about the French Revolution, has also revised this edition.
You can read and print both the score and the parts with Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0(1) for Windows (3.1, 95, 98, NT 3.51 and 4.0), OS/2, MacOS, Linux and other UNIX dialects or GSview/GhostScript (recommended hardware: fast processor (486 or RISC); high-resolution laser printer with 600 dpi or PostScript-printer with 300 dpi). See also our printing tips!
Please feel free to perform, broadcast and record this really good piece of music (in the concert hall, or with your college`s orchestra), and please send us two concert programs or, in the case of a broadcasting or recording, a tape or a CD. Our edition must be mentioned in the concert or CD booklet.
Note to Macintosh users or Windows 95, 98 and NT 4 users without any sophisticated external MIDI synthesizer or high-quality wavetable soundcard: Use Apple QuickTime 3.0 obtainable free from http://www.apple.com to convert the Demophon MIDI file and to use QuickTime's software synthesizer for playback!