Donna Diana Overture - Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek - 1894

[Jarrahnut]

I've been enjoying this since I was a little boy, in the UK, just after the War. It has always sounded magnificent. But, I am now listening to it in Western Australia ... and do you know what? ... it sounds even more magnificent! Greetings to one and all from Jarrahnut (Colin) in wonderful Western Australia! Cheers!

[jivamoksha]

!!!!Marvelous and beautiful overture, this masterpiece makes me cry to remember my father, we listened classical music for years,in Mexico City, my home town. but this beautiful masterpiece has a special place in my hearth, so beautiful,!!!!

[NelsonStJames]

Thank you Sgt Preston for introducing me to Reznicek.

[compassroseful]

50 years ago to day I bought a house and Ive lived here ever since this is the first piece of music I heard here all those years ago 

[7927jackpark]

My brother, the classical music brain in the family, told me the name of this selection many years after we enjoyed watching Richard Simmons as Sgt Preston on television in the '50s. It's a great work....but overtures usually are.

[rgadave]

What a celebration of orchestral dexterity............wonderful­.

[macaustephan]

a true masterpiece!!!!

[ka3zci]

It's Yukon King! Swiftest and strongest lead dog in the Northwest, blazing the trial for Sergeant Preston....of the Northwest Mounted Police....in his relentless pursuit of lawbreakers! ON KING! ON, YOU HUSKIES! Gold! Gold discovered in the Yukon! (Sorry, I haven't memorized the rest.) We had real heroes and it kept up on the right path.

[Aphidboy]

@ka3zci Man, this was soooo great on my Mom's radio after school in the Fifties. The purity of the great North and a young boy's imagination. Yup, we had real heroes.

[baghend]

@ka3zci Right you are! Happy memories of the 50's- Sgt. Preston who always got his man- I loved this music as a kid and it wasn't till years later that I found out what it was. And The Lone Ranger (who never killed) and the William Tell. Poor kids today- nothing but Rap and Crap to listen to. Even the old Mickey mouse cartoons had classical- Von Suppe and the Poet and Peasant overture was i one of the cartoons- another stirring one.

Weren't we lucky to grow up in the 40's and 50's?

[gordonio9999]

@ka3zci Let's go King, This case is closed!

[NelsonStJames]

The first time I heard this theme on the Challenge of the Yukon radio show I fell in love with it. It was the perfect heroic theme, but I only heard snippets. It only ocurred to me recently to see if someone would post it on youtube, and I discovered Reznicek. Now I want to hear everything by this wonderful composer. It also dovetails well with my studies in the victorian era.

[123Boudicca]

I was named for this overture.  Donna Diana. It will be played at my funeral.

[NelsonStJames]

@123Boudicca Hope that day will be a looong time in the future, but what a great song to be remembered by!

[Aphidboy]

On King, on!

[LShackley]

You should check out his symphonies, etc. All delightful.

[Orlee200]

I'm 72 and it makes me feel 9 years old also.

[xylfox]

What a masterpiece!!! Great composer!! Why i hear so few from him??

[hylozoik]

fine version !!! =))

[BigDuckKetterer]

@Aphidboy Sacre' Bleu!!! You remember ze great Lucky Pierre, ze greatest trapper in Ze Yukon!!!! Thanks for your comment to me my friend!!!! Stephen. TenStarsplus!!!!!!

[maxreger100]

For those with more than a passing interest in Reznicek, listen to his "Schlemihl" (A Fool's Life) which is a parody of Richard Strauss' "Ein Heldenleben" (A Hero's Life)

The better you know Strauss, the more hilarious is Reznicek's work. A remarkable composer unjustly ignored today.

[Juliowolfgang]

@maxreger100

You are right, the "Schlemihl" is a very good parody of Strauss's style (I would say of Wagner's also).

I hope we will know him better and better.

[Jarrahnut]

Wonderful!! I do believe I first heard this in the late 1940s (my parents had it on an old 78). Such beautiful memories. What a wonderful piece of music. Greetings to one and all from Big Hugh of Mundlimup in glorious Western Australia.

[MrParadeRain]

@Jarrahnut - Thanks for the kudos ... and good luck in saving the jarrah: It would be a pity to lose such a wonderful part of nature.

[japanesesweet]

I heard this cheerful piece on Radio 3 the other morning and thought it might be Berlioz.

[jmccracken1963]

VERY good performance of this work, and very well-recorded!!! Thank you VERY much for sharing this with us!! (PS; Out of curiosity, which orchestra and conductor on this recording?)

[kend16]

It was the first classical record we posessed and it is as wonderful now as it was all those years ago.

[BigDuckKetterer]

@1tufboy Thank you for informing me of the composer of the Sorcerers Apprentice, Paul Dukaas; I had almost forgotten him, but you can see where confusion could reign as both works have very similar intense movements, plus they were well acquainted contemporaries !!! At any rate BOTH works deserve TenStarsplus!!!!! Wouldn't you agree!!

[gto66solstice08]

A "Guns & Ammo" magazine article about Mountie weapons reminded me of this music, the them from "Sgt. Preston of the Mounties". This was perhaps the first exposure I had as a child to the Classics. See, TV is good for something, some times! ;-) Although I'm no big time listener, I relish classical music as an escape from the harsh foolishness of 21st Century noise.

[BigDuckKetterer]

The more I listen to this the more I want to listen to it!!!! I think this is one of the most beautiful overtures ever written!!! Another overture that this reminds me of is "The Sorceres Apprentice", but I don't know who composed it !!! Do you agree?!! Thank you so much for posting this!!!! TenStarsplus !!!!

[MrParadeRain]

"L'apprenti Sorcier" (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) was written by French composer, Paul Abraham Dukas, in 1897 - three years after von Reznicek composed his "Donna Diana." So, the two composers were contemporaries. In a literary magazine (Music & Letters, Vol. 81, No. 4, Nov. 2000, pp. 639-643), I saw some evidence that Strauss once wrote a letter to von Reznicek about a Dukas opera performance that was canceled because Dukas was Jewish. Not sure what was said.

[MrParadeRain]

P.S. to my last. I was curious about a possible connection between Strauss, von Reznicek and Dukas - so I asked my librarian to see if she could recover the entire article in "Music and Letters." It's an Oxford University publication and, going to the source, noticed that they wanted $25 for "one day access" to a PDF of the article (eek). All I could see online was an "abstract" of that article.

[MrParadeRain]

My librarian came through for me. In 1935, Strauss was president of the Standing Council for the International Cooperation of Composers while von Reznicek was "permanent counselor." Von Reznicek sent a letter to Strauss, telling him that officials in Berlin refused permission to allow a Dukas opera performance at a music festival in Hamburg because Dukas was Jewish. Strauss wrote back, resigning as President in outrage. Von Reznicek pleaded with Strauss to reconsider. But, Strauss refused.

[1tufboy]

The composer of The Sorcerer's Apprentice is Paul Dukas. Made most famous, of course, in Walt Disney's original "Fantasia" and starring Mickey Mouse in his most famous role ever!

[BigDuckKetterer]

I absolutely love this oveture !!! Emil VonReznicek was niether German nor Austrian, he was Czechoslovakian !!!! TenStarsplus !!!! Thank you for posting this beautiful overture !!!!!!!!

[MrParadeRain]

Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek was born in Vienna, Austria and grew up in Austria - simultaneously studying music and law in Graz, the 2nd largest city in Austria. He later served in the Army in Czechoslovakia ... but afterward, settled in Germany. I suppose one could say he was a citizen of all three countries. But, I think the video info is accurate - an Austrian of Czech ancestry.

[werwolf1966]

Was he German or Austrian?

[sybillastube]

and again,long time ago, music maestro please

and thanks sooooooooo much....

[BigDuckKetterer]

OMG I've been trying to find this for over 40 years!!! When the cellos come in you can almost see the Goddess Dianna racing through the forest with her bow and arrows!! I remember Sgt. Preston it was one of my favorite radio and TV shows I'm 66 yrs.old now but this makes me feel like 8-9 again!!!

[mashpeewee1]

@BigDuckKetterer -- I'm right with you..Totally!  Age and all!!

[Aphidboy]

@BigDuckKetterer Oh, man, me too! I'd come home from my grade school down in the tough part of town by the railroad tracks and turn on my Mom's radio, and there we'd go, off into the snowy expanses of the frozen Yukon, just me and Yukon King and Sergeant Preston. And Lucky Pierre, the Trapper, had better beware! What a great thing for a kid!

[aperezNWO]

@BigDuckKetterer Me too. Mi father had this version in a London Philarmonic Orchesta performace. but the cover were so damaged and I used to confused them with other titles and never had the chance to know the exact title ( :) ) !

In the same work they published "Guillermo Tell Obverture" and others, indeed a Masterpiece, I love specially the 3:54 part

[gordonio9999]

@BigDuckKetterer I'm exactly the same as you and have the same memories! I get goose bumps when I hear the Donna Diana overture -- what memories of a time now long past but fondly remembered. Many thanks to the uploader!

[MrZoltanonwinter]

This piece was used as the musical score for the 1950's television program "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", a show geared towards children about the exploits of a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

[rogerrescu]

Date wise its well prior to the RCMP. Preston was a person of the Northwest Mounted Police up in the Yukon Territory

[MrParadeRain]

Correct. FWIW, my great-uncle Angus was an officer in the newly created RCMP. But Preston was a sergeant in the Northwest Mounted, a precursor to the RCMP. However, while the RCMP didn't "officially" exist until 1920, the dissolution of the Northwest Mounted Police began in 1896 - and it was often referred to as the "Royal Mounted."

[MrParadeRain]

Speaking of the "Royal Mounted," here's some more trivia. George Trendle and his writer, Tom Dougall, are often credited as the "creators" of the Sergeant Preston and Lone Ranger characters. In fact, they were "borrowed" characters. Earlier, author Zane Grey had created two characters called "Sergeant King of the Royal Mounted" and the "Lone Star Ranger." So, Zane Grey is the unofficial father of all these characters.

[AuthorTGA]

Perfect!!! Thanks for putting on this version. Loved it!!

[CraigN9]

Excellent...this and the Romainian Rhapsody are couple of my favorites.